While all employers are facing an unprecedented whirlwind of rapidly changing circumstances as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers with unionized workforces face additional challenges as they take action in response to the outbreak while trying to avoid running afoul of the requirements of their collective bargaining agreements and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Here are a few suggestions for employers to consider as they navigate this new landscape.
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collective bargaining agreement (CBA)
NLRB returns to past precedent in holding that employer’s duty to deduct union dues ceases when collective bargaining agreement expires
On December 16, 2019, in Valley Hospital Medical Center, Inc. d/b/a Valley Hospital Medical Center (368 NLRB No. 139 (2019)), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overturned its 2015 decision in Lincoln Lutheran of Racine (362 NLRB 1655 (2015)), restoring the Board’s 50+ year precedent established under Bethlehem Steel (136 NLRB 1500 (1962), that there is no independent statutory obligation to check off and pay employees’ union dues after the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), even where the contract does not contain a union security provision. The decision is part of a trend of the current Board to reinstate legal standards that had stood for decades before being overturned during the Obama administration’s union-friendly Board.
In Valley Medical Center, the CBA between the employer and the union expired on December 31, 2016. The parties continued to operate under the expired contract, which contained a “check-off” provision that stated “the Check-Off Agreement and system heretofore entered into and established by the Employer and the Union for the check-off of Union dues by voluntary authorization … shall be continued in effect for the term of the Agreement.” The authorization form also stated that it was valid “during the term of the Agreement.” On February 1, 2018, almost 13 months after the expiration of the parties’ contract, and after providing 5 days’ notice and without providing the Union with an opportunity to bargain, the employer stopped deducting Union employees’ dues.Continue Reading NLRB returns to past precedent in holding that employer’s duty to deduct union dues ceases when collective bargaining agreement expires