With the recent change in events whereby, state by state, legislation is being passed to implement right to work laws, labor unions are responding by promoting, through the NLRB, a “fair share policy” requiring non-member bargaining unit employees pay a grievance processing fee. Indeed, the NLRB has issued a Notice and Invitation To File Briefs on a current case pending before it on this very issue. Such a Notice and Invitation obviously is a foreshadowing of a potential change in the law in allowing such a fair share policy. This case and the Invitation by the Board to file amici briefs on the issue has escaped notice for the most part, but it is something that could have far reaching effects in terms of right to work legislation. Unions live and die through dues membership and with the increasing number of states enacting right to work legislation that dues money is being reduced. Hence this is obviously a ploy on the part of labor to capture some additional sources of revenue that they have lost as a result of such legislation. Hopefully the Board will maintain the status quo, but I think the Invitation To File Briefs on this issue is, once again, a foreshadowing of a change, not a maintenance of the status quo.
