In Tamosiunas v. NLRB, No. 16-1338 (D.C. Cir. 2018), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held the union unlawfully sent a letter demanding immediate full dues payment to employees who declined to become full union members.

In Tamosiunas, four workers at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Hawaii declined full membership in Unite Here! Local 5.  These employees chose to be “core” financial members who pay a lower annual fee than full union members but do not have the right to participate in internal union affairs and union benefit programs.  Such option is given to employees when an employer agrees with the union to mandate union participation as a condition of employment.  The core financial member option recognizes the right of employees to abstain from union membership under Section 7 as well as the union’s right to be compensated for representing all employees, including union objectors, and the benefits all employees receive from the union’s negotiations. 

In this case, after Local 5 knew about the employees’ objection to union membership, Local 5 sent a letter to all employees demanding payment of full membership dues.  The letter also individualized the amount of dues owed by each employee and explained that dues would be paid via payroll deduction. 

The employer subsequently deducted the full dues amount requested by the union from the objecting employees’ paychecks.  However, after learning that the full dues should not have been deducted from the objecting employees’ paychecks, the employer promptly refunded the employees for the amount improperly remitted to the union.  Although the employer corrected its mistake, the union never acknowledged its error nor apologized for it. 

The union’s silence led to the objecting employees to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against Local 5.  The complaint alleged that the union’s letter (1) restrained them from exercising their Section 7 rights not to become a full union member and (2) coerced them not to exercise the right. 

A divided Board found that the dues letter did not violate Section 7 since the letter was a mistakenly directed to the objecting employees and that no reasonable employee would have felt pressured to pay the full union dues. 

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, disagreed.  The court ruled, “That letter reasonably tended to coerce or restrain the objecting Hyatt employees in the exercise of their statutory right to limit their association with the union.”  In making its decision, the court considered that the letter demanded full payment of dues by known objectors, the letter advised employees that the wages would be garnished, the union asked the employer to indeed garnish the wages, and the union showed no remorse for improperly sending the letter.  The Board’s decision was vacated and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the appellate court’s ruling.