For a second time in recent weeks, the National Labor Relations Board has chosen to bolster unions’ rights at employers’ expense. On September 30, 2022, in Valley Hospital Medical Center, Inc., 371 NLRB No. 160 (2022), a divided Board ruled that a “dues checkoff” provision in a collective bargaining agreement survives the expiration of that agreement and cannot be terminated except through bargaining, notwithstanding several decades of contrary precedent.
A dues checkoff arrangement requires the employer, when authorized by an employee, to deduct union dues from employees’ wages and remit them to the union. Historically, when a contract expires, an employer lawfully could terminate a dues checkoff arrangement without bargaining.
