## Facts

- California Saw & Knife Works had a union-security arrangement with the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM).
- Under *Beck*, nonmember employees may be compelled to pay only fees germane to collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment, and may object to supporting other union activities.
- IAM implemented post-*Beck* procedures, including publishing a detailed notice of nonmember rights in the December 1991 issue of its monthly newsletter, *The Machinist*, mailed to all employees in IAM-represented units.
- The newsletter issue containing the notice also included prominent partisan political material, including a cover article about Democratic presidential candidates.
- A group of nonunion machinists employed by California Saw challenged IAM’s notice and procedures, alleging the notice was effectively “buried,” that new hires did not receive direct notice, and that IAM’s chargeable/nonchargeable fee calculations and objection mechanisms were deficient.
- The NLRB found the newsletter notice sufficient for existing employees, but required IAM to provide newly hired employees a separate individual written notice of *Beck* rights, and otherwise addressed the union’s fee-calculation and objection procedures.
- IAM and the employees filed petitions for review; the NLRB sought enforcement of its order.

## Issues

1. Whether publishing a clear *Beck*-rights notice in a union newsletter containing partisan political content satisfied the union’s NLRA obligations to notify existing nonmembers of their *Beck* rights.
2. Whether the NLRB could require IAM to provide newly hired employees an individual written *Beck*-rights notice beyond notice by general publication.
3. Whether IAM’s methods for calculating chargeable expenses and providing disclosure and objection procedures complied with the NLRA and *Beck*, or whether more stringent “Hudson-style” safeguards were required.
4. What level of judicial deference applied to the NLRB’s implementation choices for enforcing *Beck* rights under the NLRA.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit largely upheld the NLRB’s approach and enforced the Board’s order with limited modification.
- The court held the newsletter notice was legally sufficient for existing employees; partisan content in the same publication did not make the notice ineffective or unlawful.
- The court upheld the NLRB’s requirement that newly hired employees receive an individual written notice as a reasonable measure to ensure timely and effective notice.
- The court sustained the NLRB’s acceptance of IAM’s general fee-calculation, disclosure, and objection framework, rejecting demands for more elaborate procedures.
- The court denied the employees’ requests for broader relief and rejected IAM’s challenge to the NLRB’s additional new-hire notice requirement.

## Legal Principles

- Under *Beck* and the NLRA, a union-security clause may compel nonmembers to pay only fees germane to collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment; nonmembers may object to financing other union activity.
- A union may satisfy its duty to notify existing employees of *Beck* rights by distributing a clear, accurate notice in a regularly distributed publication received by all affected employees, even if the publication includes partisan political material.
- The NLRB may require individualized *Beck*-rights notice to newly hired employees where general publication may not provide timely notice.
- In the private sector, the NLRA and *Beck* require reasonable, good-faith procedures for calculating chargeable expenses, providing meaningful disclosure, and offering a mechanism to object and seek review; they do not automatically impose the full “Hudson” procedural regime applicable to public-sector agency fees.
- Courts generally defer to the NLRB’s reasonable choices for implementing *Beck* through notice and procedural requirements consistent with the NLRA.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit enforced the NLRB’s post-*Beck* framework, approving newsletter-based notice for existing employees, permitting the Board to require direct written notice to new hires, and sustaining the Board’s acceptance of private-sector fee and objection procedures that meet statutory minimums without importing public-sector “Hudson” requirements.


Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers v. NLRB (Cal. Saw & Knife Works), 133 F.3d 1012 (7th Cir. 1998)