Opinion ID: 402462
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Differences Between Membership Dues and Representation Fees

Text: 137 I suggest that the majority errs in thinking that section 14(b) or section 8(a)(3) apply in this case. The majority relies on an argument that any freshman student of philosophy would recognize as invalid: union members pay dues; the clause in issue would require workers to pay a fee; therefore the clause requires workers to become union members. Surely this overgeneralized statement overemphasizes compulsory and ignores unionism. Unions may negotiate all manner of contracts that compel workers in the bargaining unit to meet particular terms and conditions of employment without transforming every such worker into a union member. Congress was not concerned about compulsion, but compulsory unionism. Paying fees to cover representation costs does not constitute membership in a labor organization because it falls short of what the Supreme Court has called the financial core of unionism-payment of initiation fees and dues. 138 The differences between membership dues and representation fees are more than a matter of dollars alone. Representation fees are payments for services rendered; membership dues support an institution. The Supreme Court has frequently noted the distinction between a union's institutional costs and its expenditures for collective bargaining purposes. E.g., Schermerhorn, 373 U.S. at 753, 83 S.Ct. at 1465; Machinists v. Street, 367 U.S. 740, 769-70 & n.19, 81 S.Ct. 1784, 1800-01 & n.19, 6 L.Ed.2d 1141 (1961). In Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209, 97 S.Ct. 1782, 52 L.Ed.2d 261 (1977), the Court reviewed the constitutionality of an agency shop arrangement under which the union spent part of its receipts on political activities with which certain employees disagreed. The Court upheld the arrangement, but only after it devised a way of preventing compulsory subsidization of ideological activity by employees who object thereto without restricting the Union's ability to require every employee to contribute to the cost of collective-bargaining activities. Id. at 237, 97 S.Ct. at 1800. 139 The right-to-work laws endorsed by section 14(b) are clearly analogous to the First Amendment rights protected in Abood, because in neither setting may employees be required to support ideological activity with which they disagree. Like the schoolteachers in Abood, the Natchez mill employees have no obligation to subsidize the Union's institutional expenses even if they may be required to pay their fair share of collective bargaining costs. 16 But as long as these employees pay only their pro rata share of representation expenses, they cannot be considered members of the union because they are not supporting that institution. Section 8(a)(3) has nothing to do with the proposed representation fee, because such a fee does not require union membership as a condition of employment. 140 Instead, representation-fee proposals should be considered mandatory subjects of bargaining pursuant to section 8(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(d), which states: 141 For the purposes of this section, to bargain collectively is the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employee to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.... 142 The test for determining whether a particular matter comes within the scope of section 8(d) is whether it would regulate relations between employer and employee, or settle any term or condition of employment. NLRB v. Wooster Division of Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U.S. 342, 350, 78 S.Ct. 718, 723, 2 L.Ed.2d 823 (1958). The administrative law judge below specifically found that the representation fee proposed by the Union was a mandatory subject of bargaining within the meaning of section 8(d). 252 NLRB at 1303. See NLRB v. Houston Chapter, Association of General Contractors, 349 F.2d at 452 (contract terms such as would provide for the establishment of a seniority system through the use of a hiring hall, no less than tenure, are terms and conditions of employment under section 8(d)); NLRB v. Tom Joyce Floors, Inc., 353 F.2d at 771 (same); cf. NLRB v. Andrew Jergens Co., 175 F.2d 130, 133 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 338 U.S. 827, 70 S.Ct. 76, 94 L.Ed. 503 (1949) (Union security (maintenance-of-membership clause) is properly a 'condition of employment' within the meaning of § 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act and hence, is within the statutory area of collective bargaining.). 17 143 The legitimacy of a representation fee as a subject for collective bargaining also follows from the duty of fair representation that caused financial difficulty for Local 681 in the first place. As discussed above, this duty was originally restricted to the prevention of racial discrimination. Pyzynski v. New York Central R.R., 421 F.2d 854, 862 (2d Cir. 1970); see Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 323 U.S. 210, 211, 65 S.Ct. 235, 236, 89 L.Ed. 187 (1944). It has since been expanded to cover all cases in which the union draws distinctions that are irrelevant and invidious. Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 280 (1957) (quoting Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 203, 65 S.Ct. 226, 232, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944)). Perhaps it may fairly be asked whether the union discrimination is truly invidious if it declines to prosecute grievances of nonunion employees because they pay none of the cost. But it clearly seems to constitute discrimination in reverse to suggest that whereas nonunion employees may obtain free representation, union employees must cover the costs of their grievances by paying dues. The asymmetry is itself unfair. Union efforts to combat it therefore draw an additional measure of legitimacy from the union duty to provide fair representation to its members as well as others in the bargaining unit. 144 Common sense and fundamental fairness rebel at the notion that a private organization can be prohibited from collecting expenses it incurs on behalf of nonmembers whom it is required by law to represent. In its most extreme formulation, such a proposition may even raise questions of a constitutional magnitude. See, e.g., FPC v. Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U.S. 591, 602-03, 64 S.Ct. 281, 287-88, 88 L.Ed. 333 (1944); FPC v. Natural Gas Pipeline Co., 315 U.S. 575, 585-86, 62 S.Ct. 736, 742-43, 86 L.Ed. 1037 (1942) (defining reasonable rates in utility regulation as those that are not confiscatory in the constitutional sense). The burden of proof falls on those who suggest that section 14(b) reflects the adoption of such an extreme view by Congress, 18 and that burden has not been carried. 145 The NLRB dismisses the inequitable situation facing Local 681 by asserting that the change must be made by Congress, not by the Board or this Court. Brief for Petitioner NLRB at 21. The suggestion is inappropriate because the problem has not been created by Congress. It is the courts, not Congress, that have required unions to expand their representational activities as collective bargaining and contract enforcement have grown in scope. It is the NLRB, not Congress, that has prohibited unions from collecting special fees from nonunion employees to cover the cost of their grievances and arbitrations. It does not usurp the role of Congress to hold section 14(b) to its terms. Nothing on the face of section 14(b) or in its legislative history allows the states to ban representation fee arrangements, because these arrangements do not constitute compulsory unionism or condition the right to work on loss of associational freedom. Section 14(b) was enacted to keep unions from victimizing workers, not to let nonunion workers victimize unions by demanding services without paying the costs. Section 14(b) gives the states only the authority to ban compulsory unionism. Compulsory unionism under the Taft-Hartley Act thus has a very limited meaning. Rosenthal, The National Labor Relations Act and Compulsory Unionism, 1954 Wis.L.Rev. 53, 68. As the Supreme Court observed in International Bhd. of Teamsters v. NLRB, 365 U.S. at 674, 81 S.Ct. at 839: There being no express ban of hiring halls in any provisions of the Act, those who add one, whether it be the Board or the courts, engage in a legislative act. The same concern should trouble those who read section 14(b) as allowing the states to prohibit valid representation fees.