Opinion ID: 511694
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Waiver of Statutory Right

Text: 78 The strike settlement agreements provide in pertinent part: 79 The union and the company hereby agree that no employee shall be discriminated against in any way by virtue of lawful activity engaged in during or in connection with the strike.... 80 Neither party shall discriminate or seek any penalty from any employee, including supervisory employees, because of their choices or actions with respect to financial core status or resignation. 81 A principal purpose of the agreements was to preclude punishment by the union of its members for their past acts. As with many strike settlement agreements, the parties here each agreed not to retaliate against the other's partisans for actions taken while the economic warfare was in progress. 82 The agreements cannot reasonably be read as permanently or indefinitely prohibiting the union from limiting union-provided benefits to those who are willing to accept current full membership status, or from establishing prospectively two different categories of membership governing full and financial core members respectively, with two different sets of responsibilities and two different sets of correlative rights. The agreements neither state nor contemplate that all employees must be afforded identical rights and benefits regardless of what membership decisions they make on a continuing basis after the strike has ended. Thus, under the settlement agreements, the union remains free to take ordinary measures to govern itself, to regulate membership, to determine what benefits and privileges its members will enjoy, so long as it does not discriminate on the basis of strike-related conduct. Clearly, when the union agreed not to retaliate against non-striking employees, it did not waive its statutorily protected right to limit the privileges of core members. 83 In the alternative, it could be that both the majority and Board believe that the strike settlement agreements, while not serving to waive entirely the union's rights under section 8(b)(1)(A), constitute a partial waiver of such rights. Under this theory, the strike settlement agreements serve to limit the union's otherwise lawful conduct only if the conduct is motivated by discriminatory or retaliatory animus. For purposes of my dissent, I will assume that the majority relies on this latter theory, and, in that light, will analyze its argument that the union acted out of discriminatory animus.