Case Study 4-2: Financial Core Membership Rights under the Beck Decision

The company and union are parties to a collective bargaining agreement that contains the following valid union security clause:

It shall be a condition of employment that all employees of the company covered by this agreement who are members of the union in good standing on the date of this agreement shall remain members in good standing, and those who are not members on the effective date of this agreement shall, on the ninety-first (91st) day following the effective date of this agreement, become and remain members in good standing in the union.

For purposes of this Agreement, an employee shall lose his good standing in the Union only for failure to tender periodic dues and initiation fees uniformly required of all members. The Business Manager of the Union shall notify the Company by certified mail of any employees the union deems to have lost "Good Standing" within the meaning of this Article

On July 6, an employee named Budnik sent a letter to the union informing the union officers that he was resigning his union membership and claiming financial core member status. Budnik requested the union to begin charging him the "new appropriate amount" of dues in compliance with Beck (1988). Budnik did not pay any dues money to the union after he mailed the July 6 letter.

On July 28, the company sent a letter to all bargaining unit members informing them that financial core membership status was available to them and that full union membership was not a legal requirement under the parties' current union security contract language. The union sent a letter to Budnik on or about August 5 acknowledging receipt of Budnik's resignation letter. The union informed Budnik that his insistence on financial core membership status would result in the loss of valuable membership privileges and benefits and that, as a financial core member, he would still be required "to pay the financial obligations of membership germane to the costs of collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment." The union encouraged Budnik to reconsider his decision to resign his union membership. The union's letter closed with the disclosure that the union was currently undergoing its annual financial audit and that, when that process was completed, all the expenses germane to collective bargaining duties would be identified.

The following February 23, the union sent a letter to Budnik and advised him that, despite his resignation from the union, he was still required to comply with the terms of the current union security clause. The union offered to let Budnik pay a sum equal to current monthly union dues to a "mutually agreed upon charity." The union listed three charitable funds acceptable to it. Budnik did not agree to the union's proposal and, instead, quit his job at the company and filed an unfair labor practice against the union, alleging a violation of Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA). Specifically, Budnik alleged that the union failed to meet the requirements set forth in Beck regarding a union's duty to furnish information about the amount of dues money spent for legitimate collective bargaining purposes or to provide a procedure by which employees like himself could challenge the amount charged or the basis for calculating such charges.

In Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988), the Court upheld an interpretation that the LMRA does not permit a union, over the objection of a dues-paying nonmember, to expend funds collected from them under a union security agreement on activities not related to collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment. In California Saw & Knife Works, 320 NLRB 222 (1995), the Board held that if a nonmember employee chooses to file a Beck objection to the payment of full union dues, the employee must be informed by the union of the following information: the percentage of the reduction in fees for objecting nonmembers, the basis for the union's calculation, and the right to challenge these figures. Any union-provided procedure for challenging the amount or method of dues calculation is appropriate so long as the procedure is not shown to be arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith.

The union cited the NLRB decision Laborers Local 265 and Fred A. Newmann Co., in which the Board held that a union did not breach its duty of fair representation by failing to provide a beck objector with beck-related financial information, where the union expressly waived the objector's obligations under the union security clause and informed the objector that he would not be required to pay any dues or fees. The union noted that Budnik is the only employee, out of the 300 bargaining unit members the union represents, to request financial core membership status. The union believed that the cost burden of gathering Beck-related financial information for use by a single employee would be prohibitive and detrimental to the unions obligation to use resources wisely to represent the bargaining interest of all bargaining unit members. The union believed that it had offered Budnik a reasonable accommodation that did not require him to pay any dues money to the union, thus ensuring that non of the objecting member's funds would be used for union expenditures. At the same time, the reasonable accommodation offered by the union avoided the necessity of spending union funds to gather Beck-related financial information for only one employee. The union requested that the unfair labor practice charge be dismissed.

1. What are the union's legal obligations?

2. Does Budnik have a burden of proof? Or, does the union have the burden to prove that it has complied with the law?

3. Did the union commit an Unfair Labor Practice in this case? If so, what should be the appropriate remedy?