Union Fines and Workers’ Rights

Abstract

Few would want to deny what the Supreme Court declared in NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co.: The literal ban of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), § 8(b)(1)(A), on union attempts to "restrain or coerce" employees does not prohibit a union from disciplining its members. "Integral to . . . federal labor policy," said the Court, "has been the power in the chosen union to protect against erosion its status under that policy through reasonable discipline of members who violate rules and regulations governing membership." The traditional forms of union discipline are suspension and expulsion. These sanctions are appropriately described as "internal," for they involve no more than loss of union membership. In contrast to such permissible internal sanctions are impermissible job discriminations: a union is prohibited from disciplining a member for offenses against the organization by attempting to cause the employer to penalize him in any way. So long as a worker pays his union dues as required by a union security clause, his employment rights theoretically are safe from union interference.