May employees check-off union dues by payroll deduction?

Employers may choose to permit employees to voluntarily elect to have wages deducted from pay for a variety of reasons, including union dues. Employers may agree as part of a collective bargaining agreement to a union dues check-off, in which the employer will deduct an employee's union dues from each paycheck and transmit the amounts deducted directly to the union. However, under federal labor law, the employer must receive a written assignment from each employee from whose paycheck the union dues are to be deducted. The written assignments may not be made irrevocable for a period of more than one year or beyond the termination date of the applicable collective bargaining agreement, whichever occurs sooner.

Note that the U.S. Attorney General has stated that an automatic renewal provision in a written assignment that is otherwise irrevocable only for one year will not incur any penalties under federal labor law.

Nothing in the Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits employers from checking off union dues from their employees' wages. Union contracts often require employers to withhold union dues from wages. If the check-off is legal, the FLSA is not concerned with how much is checked off. The employee's regular rate and overtime pay are figured on the basis of earnings prior to the check-off.

Illegal check-off cannot cut into FLSA guarantees. If a check-off of union dues is illegal under some law other than the FLSA, then it cannot (1) reduce an employee's wages below the FLSA minimum rate or (2) cut into the overtime pay guaranteed by the FLSA. A check-off may be illegal for a number of reasons: perhaps a written assignment or authorization from the employee was not obtained as required by federal labor law and some state laws; perhaps a state law absolutely prohibits the check-off.