371 NLRB No. 160


Summary



Core Terms


checkoff, expiration, NLRB, dues-checkoff, bargaining, provisions, employees, terms and conditions, collective-bargaining, unilaterally, survive, termination, parties, retroactively, collective bargaining, unilateral change, contractual, colleagues, union-security, cease, rights, authorization, arbitration, deduct, notice, cases, funds, status quo, mandatory, remit

SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION AND ORDER

This case, on remand from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, raises again a question that has divided the Board and troubled the court for two decades: whether, consistent with the duty to bargain established by Section 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act), an employer may unilaterally cease dues checkoff after the expiration of the collective-bargaining agreement that provides for it. That is, where a collective-bargaining agreement requires the employer, when authorized by an employee, to deduct union dues from the employee's wages and remit the dues to the union, is such dues checkoff, like most terms and conditions of employment, part of the status quo that the Act requires the employer to maintain--or bargain over changing--after the collective-bargaining agreement expires? See NLRB v. Katz, 369 U.S. 736, 743, 82 S. Ct. 1107, 8 L. Ed. 2d 230 (1962). Or, rather, is there reason for the Board to include dues ...