Communications Workers of America v. Beck
| Communications Workers of America v. Beck | |
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| Argued January 11, 1988 Decided June 29, 1988 |
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| Full case name | Communications Workers of America, et al. v. Beck, et al. |
| Citations | 487 U.S. 735 (more)
108 S. Ct. 2641; 101 L. Ed. 2d 634; 56 U.S.L.W. 4857; 128 L.R.R.M. 2729
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| Prior history | 468 F. Supp. 93 (D. Md., 1979); 776 F. 2d 1187 (4th Circ., 1985) |
| Holding | |
| Under a union security agreement, unions are authorized by statute to collect from non-members only those fees and dues necessary to perform its duties as a collective bargaining representative. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Brennan, joined by Rehnquist, White, Marshall, Stevens |
| Concur/dissent | Blackmun (Part I), joined by O'Connor and Scalia (Part I) |
| Concur/dissent | Blackmun (Part II), joined by O'Connor and Scalia (Part II) |
| Dissent | Blackmun, joined by O'Connor and Scalia |
| Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
| Laws applied | |
| National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(3) | |
Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988) is a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that, in a union security agreement, unions are authorized by statute to collect from non-members only those fees and dues necessary to perform its duties as a collective bargaining representative. The rights identified by the Court in Communications Workers of America v. Beck have since come to be known as "Beck rights," and defining what Beck rights are and how a union must fulfill its duties regarding them is an active area of modern United States labor law.
The union security agreement is a contractual agreement, usually part of a union collective bargaining agreement, in which an employer and a trade or labor union agree on the extent to which the union may compel employees to join the union, and/or whether the employer will collect dues, fees, and assessments on behalf of the union. Broadly speaking, there are three types of union security agreements:
In the United States, the fee paid by non-union members under the agency shop is known as the "agency fee."
In the United States, unions established the closed shop, union shop, and agency shop since at least the 1880s. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the primary federal law governing labor relations in the United States, was enacted in 1935 and formally legalized the closed shop, union shop, or agency shop. In 1947, however, Congress enacted the Taft-Hartley Act, which amended the NLRA. Title I, Section 101 of the Taft-Hartley Act added a new Section 14 to the NLRA, part (b) of which banned the closed shop:
The Taft-Haftley Act did not, however, outlaw the union shop or agency shop (although it did place some procedural restrictions on their establishment and use).
During World War II, Congress also banned union political contributions to federal campaigns. The Smith-Connally Act, enacted in 1943, banned the use of union members' dues to make direct contributions to candidates for federal office but did not ban indirect expenditures which educated union members or the public about a candidate's voting record. The Taft-Hartley Act made the ban permanent. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Taft-Hartley Act's ban on use of union dues for political purposes did not extend to internal communications directed at a union's own members. Eleven years later, the Court refused to consider a federal district court's ruling that Taft-Hartley Act did not ban expenditure of union dues on communications with the public.
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