Implementing the Beck and Lehnert union security agreement decisions: a study in frustration - Supreme Court rulings concerning union dues - includes bibliography

Business Horizons,  May-June, 1995  by Kenneth A. Kovach,  Peter Millspaugh

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An observer of the labor-management relationship in the United States will eventually realize that a central element of its nature, so fundamental to American business success, is in a state of almost constant evolution. Looking back, we note that change can sometimes appear in instant comprehensive mandates but more commonly proceeds by relatively modest increments. The agent for change can emanate from any or all of the special interest players who can affect the relationships. This includes Congress, federal executive and regulatory agencies, public interest groups, and, of course, the institutionalized interests of management and organized labor themselves. Change can also be driven by judicial pronouncement. We will consider how the determination of two individuals unknown to one another, Harry E. Beck, Jr. and James g Lehnert, caused them to become agents of change in labor-management relations in the United States.

Harry Beck and Jim Lehnert will be remembered for their determination to challenge the legal legitimacy of particular clauses in union security agreements. The validity of the underlying agreements themselves was not at issue, since Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) explicitly authorizes an employer and a union to enter into an agreement requiring all employees in the bargaining unit to pay union dues as a condition of continued employment, whether or not the employees become union members. More specifically, the issue in both the Beck and Lehnert cases was whether agency fees collected under such union security agreements could legitimately be used by the unions for purposes other than collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment.

Harry Beck, a resident of Maryland, was familiar with labor unions and had at one time served as shop steward for the Communications Workers of America. Jim Lehnert, on the other hand, was an academic serving on the teaching faculty at Michigan's Ferris State College (now known as Ferris State University). What Beck and Lehnert shared in common was their objection to the fact that agency fees they were paying to their unions were frequently being used to support political and other causes to which they were personally opposed. So each turned to the courts to challenge the practice.

UNION SECURITY AGREEMENTS: A BRIEF LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

The concept of an agency shop that required all workers within a bargaining unit to pay the equivalent of union dues, whether or not they were members of the union, was first developed at the Ford Motor Company plant in Ontario, Canada, in 1946. The underlying principles of this and later arrangements were often combined into what are now referred to as union security agreements and were eventually codified in American labor law in Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act. That provision, which is permissive and not mandatory, allows a union--the certified exclusive bargaining agent for a group of workers--to enter into collective bargaining agreements with the employers of those workers, stipulating that all workers represented by the bargaining agent must pay representation or agency fees to the union.

Congress authorized the establishment of agency shops out of a sense of fair play. Such shops were intended to benefit workers by correcting abuses of compulsory union membership that had developed under "closed shop" agreements. Simultaneously they were intended to provide unions with security against free riders or nonunion workers who could reap the benefits of a union's representation services without paying for them. The premise was that under the principle of exclusive representation, a certified union must represent all the workers in a bargaining unit, so it is only fair that all such workers pay their fair share of the union's costs in doing so.

The legislative history of this provision provides ample evidence that this premise was shared by the lawmakers at the point of enactment. As Senator Taft, one of the authors of the 1947 legislation that bears his name, explained on the floor of the United States Senate, "[T]he argument... against abolishing the closed shop . . . is that if there is not a closed shop those not in the union will get a free ride .... [T]he union does the work, gets the wages raised, then the man who does not pay dues rides along freely without any expense to himself." A number of other members of the House seemed to concur. For example, Representative Jennings pointed out that because members of the minority "would get the benefit of the contract made between the majority of their fellow workmen and the management... it is not unreasonable that they should go along and contribute dues like the others." Similarly, Representative Robinson noted that "if [union-negotiated] benefits come to the workers all alike, is it not only fair that the beneficiaries, whether the majority or the minority, contribute their equal share in securing these benefits?"