Anheuser-Busch, Inc. v. International Broth. of Teamster, Local 822, ANHEUSER-BUSC

• Decision Date: 21 September 1978
• Docket Number: INC,ANHEUSER-BUSC,No. 77-1561,77-1561
• Citation: 584 F.2d 41
• Parties: 99 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2539, 84 Lab.Cas. P 10,838 , Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, LOCAL 822, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 41

584 F.2d 41

99 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2539, 84 Lab.Cas. P 10,838

ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, LOCAL 822, Appellant.

No. 77-1561.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 8, 1978.

Decided Sept. 21, 1978.

Jonathan G. Axelrod, Bethesda, Md. (Hugh J. Beins, Washington, D. C., Norman Olitsky, Portsmouth, Va., on brief), for appellant.

Charles P. O'Connor, Washington, D. C. (Nancy L. Griffin, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Washington, D. C., on brief), for appellee.

Before WINTER and BUTZNER, Circuit Judges, and D. DORTCH WARRINER, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

BUTZNER, Circuit Judge:

Anheuser-Busch brought this suit seeking a declaratory judgment that its refusal to deduct union dues from the wages of 26 employees is legal. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 822, contends that the company must make the deductions because the employees could not revoke their dues checkoff authorizations during a hiatus between bargaining agreements. The district court ruled that the revocations were valid, and it enjoined the union from seeking to require the company to deduct dues from the wages of these employees. We affirm.

I

The collective bargaining agreement in effect between the company and the union from June 2, 1973, to February 29, 1976, required the company to check off union dues from employees' wages in accordance with the following clause:

The Company agrees to deduct from the pay of all employees covered by this Agreement the regular dues and initiation fees, and agrees to remit to said Local Union all such deductions, provided that the Union delivers to the Company a written authorization, signed by the employee irrevocable for one year or expiration of this Agreement, whichever shall occur sooner.

To authorize a checkoff, employees signed a form supplied by the union. This form provided:

This authorization and assignment shall be for the term of the applicable contract between the Union and the Company, or for one year, whichever is the lesser, and shall automatically renew itself for successive yearly or applicable contract periods thereafter, whichever is the lesser, unless I give written notice to the Company and the Union at least 60 days, and not more than 75 days before any periodic renewal date of this authorization and assignment of my desire to revoke the same.

During the term of the 1973-76 agreement, the company honored all checkoff authorizations.

At midnight on February 29, 1976, the collective bargaining agreement terminated without renewal, and the union began a strike which lasted until June 6, 1976. During this strike, 26 employees returned to work. These employees notified the company and the union that they had resigned from the union and revoked their checkoff authorizations.

On June 6, 1976, the parties signed a new contract containing the same checkoff provision as the 1973-76 contract. The company has refused to honor the union's requests for it to deduct dues from the wages of the employees who gave notice of the revocation of their authorizations during the strike while no contract was in effect.

II

The union asserts that these revocations were ineffective because they were not made between 60 and 75 days prior to either an anniversary of the date on which the employees executed their checkoff authorization forms or to the date of the expiration of the contract. It contends that the checkoff authorization agreement makes revocation possible only at these times. It emphasizes that the collective bargaining agreement and the checkoff authorization agreements are separate contracts and argues that a checkoff authorization agreement between a union and an employee can survive termination of the collective bargaining agreement.

We conclude, however, that § 302(c)(4) of the Taft-Hartley Act (29 U.S.C. § 186(c)(4)) guaranteed the employees the right to revoke their checkoff authorizations at will during the hiatus between collective bargaining agreements. Section 302 of the Act prohibits payments by employers to unions except in specified situations. The exception applicable here permits payments,

with respect to money deducted from the wages of employees in payment of membership dues in a labor organization: Provided, That the employer has received from each employee, on whose account such deductions are made, a written assignment which shall not be irrevocable for a period of more than one year, or beyond the termination date of the applicable collective agreement, whichever occurs sooner; . . . . § 302(c)(4) (29 U.S.C. § 186(c)(4)).

In Atlanta Printing Specialties, 215 NLRB 237 (1974), the National Labor Relations Board said that § 302(c)(4),

guarantees an employee two distinct rights when he executes a checkoff authorization under a collective-bargaining agreement: (1) a chance at least once a year to revoke his authorization, and (2) a chance upon the termination of the collective-bargaining agreement to revoke his authorization.

Based on this reading of the statute, the board ruled that an employer and a union could not defeat the right of employees to revoke their checkoff authorizations upon termination of a collective bargaining agreement by entering into a new agreement before the original one expired. It held that revocations tendered during the specified period prior to the original expiration date were valid. 215 NLRB at 238.

The court of appeals enforced the board's decision, agreeing that § 302(c)(4) "guarantees employees an opportunity to revoke dues checkoff authorizations at the expiration of each collective bargaining agreement." NLRB v. Atlanta Printing Specialties, 523 F.2d 783, 788 (5th Cir. 1975). This sensible reading of the statute gives effect to its underlying purpose. The checkoff provision is not a union security device; it is simply an administrative convenience for the collection of dues. See 523 F.2d at 786.

The interpretation of § 302(c)(4) by the court of appeals and the board fully accords with the Supreme Court's comments in Felter v. Southern Pacific Co., 359 U.S. 326, 79 S.Ct. 847, 3 L.Ed.2d 854 (1959), about a "quite similar" provision of the Railway Labor Act. 359 U.S. at 333, n. 10, 79 S.Ct. 847. In Felter the Court held that the union and the employer could not require the employees to use a form supplied by the union to revoke a checkoff authorization. In explanation,...