Communications Workers of America v. Beck

In 1968, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) used union members' dues, in part, to support Vice President Hubert Humphrey's campaign for President of the United States[57] and Senator Joseph Tydings' re-election campaign.[48]

Harry Beck was a maintenance worker with the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. (C&PT) in Maryland and a CWA organizer.[57][58] Beck protested the use of his union dues for a political cause in which he did not believe and asked for a refund.[57] The CWA refused, arguing that using union dues for political expenditures was appropriate and legal.[48] In the early 1970s, after disagreeing with national CWA officials over a union organizing drive in suburban Baltimore, Maryland, Beck resigned from the union and began to pay the $10-a-month agency fee.[57][58] Beck continued to protest the use of his agency fee for political purposes, and asked the CWA to provide a more accurate accounting of how much money it spent on politics.[58] The union refused.[58] In June 1976, Beck and 19 other non-union members of the CWA's bargaining unit at C&PT sued the union for a refund.[48][54][57][58][59] The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation provided legal counsel and support to Beck and the other 18 workers.[48][57][58] Beck quit C&PT in 1979 and moved to Oregon, where he worked at CWA-organized job at American Telephone & Telegraph and continued to pay his agency fee.[58]

The issue of agency fee payments was a national and serious one. By 1984, about 5 percent of employees at work sites covered by a union contract had opted not to join the union and instead pay an agency fee.[48] In 1987, the same number of workers covered by CWA contracts were agency fee payers.[58] At the time of the Beck case in 1987, a majority of unions had set the agency fee about equal to full union dues.[54] More than 90 percent of all collective bargaining agreements (covering six million workers) made under the authority of the NLRA contained an agency fee provision.[35]

U.S. District Court Judge James R. Miller, Jr. ruled in favor of Beck and the 19 other co-plaintiffs in March 1983.[48][57][60][61] Beck et al. claimed that CWA had not only breached its duty of fair representation but had also violated the agency fee payers' First Amendment rights as enunciated by the Supreme Court in Railway Employes' Dept. v. Hanson.[61][62] Applying the clear and convincing evidence standard, the district court found that CWA could not show that 21 percent of the agency fee was spent on collective bargaining purposes alone, ordered an immediate refund of all dues collected since January 1976, and directed CWA to establish a record-keeping system which segregated collective bargaining and non-collective bargaining accounts.[48][57][60] The refund was about $5,000 for all 20 workers.[57]

CWA (and many other unions) quickly implemented a time-and-expenditures accounting system to meet the court's order.[48] CWA also appealed the ruling.

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed to hear CWA's appeal in November 1984, and handed down its ruling in October 1985.[63] In a 2-to-1 ruling, the appellate court upheld the district court's ruling.[63][64] The 4th Circuit Court found that the district court had erred in applying the clear and convincing standard, but on the basis of a statutory interpretation of the NLRA and the duty of fair representation claim found that the district court had correctly concluded that the agency fee was being illegally spent on items not related to collective bargaining.[62][64] CWA petitioned for a rehearing en banc, which was granted in April 1986.[65] In a per curiam decision issued in September 1986, the 10 judges ruled 6-to-4 that the court had jurisdiction over the case on one or more grounds.[66] The majority also held that the three-judge panel had ruled correctly, and held in favor of Beck again.[64][65] CWA appealed again.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari on May 31, 1987.[54][67] In a surprising move, the U.S. Department of Justice supported CWA's appeal.[35][68][69] The Solicitor General at the time, Charles Fried, argued that the voluntary nature of collective bargaining agreements (including agency fee clauses) made the issue of coercion moot.[70] Because states could and did ban agency fee agreements, there was no governmental action on which to base a constitutional claim against the union.[70] And because Section 8(a)3 plainly requires uniform dues and fees (e.g., unions could not charge agency fee payers more nor less than regular members), the Justice Department felt Beck's claim was unjustified.[70] Upset by the Justice Department's stand, Republican Senators Jesse Helms, Dan Quayle, Steve Symms, and Strom Thurmond filed an amicus curiae brief urging the Supreme Court to rule in Beck's favor.[35]

The Beck case was argued before the Supreme Court on January 11, 1988.[58][1]

At the time, however, there was a concern that the court could split and issue no ruling.[68] Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. had retired from the Supreme Court on June 26, 1987.[71] President Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to fill Powell's seat on July 1,[72] but after a contentious nomination battle the U.S. Senate rejected Bork's nomination 58-to-42 on October 23.[73][74] Six days later, President Reagan nominated Douglas H. Ginsburg, Bork's fellow judge on the D.C. circuit court of appeals, for the Supreme Court.[75] But Ginsburg withdrew his nomination eight days later after media reports that he had occasionally smoked marijuana as a law student and law professor.[76] Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, for the high court on November 11, 1987.[77] Kennedy was unanimously confirmed on February 3, 1988.[78] Kennedy had been unable to participate in oral argument in the Beck case, and Supreme Court tradition holds that a justice who has not participated in oral argument cannot participate in the decision a case (with only a few, rare exceptions).[68][79]

Associate Justice Blackmun, joined by Justices O'Connor and Scalia, concurred with the majority's assertion of jurisdiction in Part I of the ruling and with the majority's decision in the breach of duty of fair representation claim in Part II, but dissented from Part III and the holding in Part IV.[92] For Blackmun, the problem was that the majority had relied too heavily on Street, not utilized its traditional methods of statutory construction, and substituted a new method of statutory construction to "strain" to make Beck accord with Street:

Without the decision in Machinists v. Street, 367 U.S. 740 (1961), involving the Railway Labor Act (RLA), the Court could not reach the result it does today. Our accepted mode of resolving statutory questions would not lead to a construction of 8(a)(3) so foreign to that section's express language and legislative history, which show that Congress did not intend to limit either the amount of "agency fees" (or what the majority labels "dues-equivalents") a union may collect under a union-security agreement, or the union's expenditure of such funds. The Court's excessive reliance on Street to reach a contrary conclusion is manifested by its unique line of reasoning. No sooner is the language of 8(a)(3) intoned, than the Court abandons all attempt at construction of this statute and leaps to its interpretation over a quarter century ago of another statute enacted by a different Congress, a statute with a distinct history and purpose. See ante, at 744–745. I am unwilling to offend our established doctrines of statutory construction and strain the meaning of the language used by Congress in 8(a)(3), simply to conform 8(a)(3)'s construction to the Court's interpretation of similar language in a different later-enacted statute, an interpretation which is itself "not without its difficulties." Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209, 232 (1977) (characterizing the Court's decision in Street). I therefore dissent from Parts III and IV of the Court's opinion.[93]

Blackmun then applied a plain meaning construction of the statutory language to both the RLA and NLRA, and concluded that CWA had not violated the NLRA.[94] The NLRB, Blackmun said, had not changed its policy on agency fees nor its justifications for its conclusions. Justice Blackmun pointed to the NLRB's decision in In re Union Starch & Refining Co. and Detroit Mailers Union No. 40, and noted that the Justice Department had adopted a similar view in its amicus curiae brief.[38] Blackmun also chastised the majority for mis-stating the NLRB's conclusion in Teamsters Local 959:

Contrary to the Court's suggestion, the NLRB has not embraced and then "repudiated" the view that, for purposes of § 8(a)(3), "periodic dues and initiation fees" mean only "those fees necessary to finance collective-bargaining activities." Ante, at 752, n. 7. Teamsters Local No. 959, 167 N. L. R. B. 1042 (1967), does not demonstrate otherwise. In Teamsters Local, the NLRB held that "working dues" designated to fund a union building program and a credit union were actually "assessments" not contemplated by the proviso to § 8(a)(3). Id., at 1044. The Board found that the union itself regarded the levy as a "temporary assessment," clearly distinct from its "regular dues." Ibid. Moreover, because the financing for the programs was constructed in such a way that the union treasury might never have received 90% of the moneys, the Board concluded that the "working dues" were actually "special purposes funds," and that "the support of such funds cannot come from 'periodic dues' as that term is used in § 8(a)(3)." Ibid. In Detroit Mailers, the NLRB distinguished such assessments from "periodic and uniformly required" dues, which, in its view, a union is not precluded from demanding of nonmembers pursuant to § 8(a)(3). 192 N. L. R. B., at 952.[38]

Blackmun noted that "the majority cannot cite one case in which the Board has held that uniformly required, periodic dues used for purposes other than 'collective bargaining' are not dues within the meaning of §8(a)(3).[38]

Like the majority, Blackmun too extensively reviewed the history of the RLA and NLRA but rejected the majority's reading of those histories.[95] The Supreme Court had previously held that the RLA was not identical to the NLRA, he wrote, and had cautioned lower courts and appellants that they should draw parallels between the two statutes very carefully. The majority, Blackmun concluded, had not made a careful comparison this time, and therefore its conclusions based on the similarities between the RLA and NLRA should be rejected.[96]

The Beck case created widespread confusion about how best to implement the rights the Supreme Court identified in its ruling.[30][98][99][143] The Supreme Court has addressed the agency fee issue six times in the two decades since its holding in Beck,[8] each ruling considering additional union expenditures which may or may not be charged to non-union members.

The Court first revisited the issue in Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association in 1991.[144] The Court was "sharply divided", writing "four opinions that were supported in whole or in part by varying numbers of Justices" and citing divergent reasons for supporting those parts of the decision they supported.[145][146][147][148] "[A]ll nine Justices rejected a broader argument put forward by the objecting employees that the employees should not have to pay for activities of the national union ... that were not undertaken directly on behalf of the ... bargaining unit."[147] Eight justices agreed that unions could not charge agency fee payers for lobbying activities.[146][147][145] But on other issues, the court split. The case was more difficult to adjudicate because it involved state action (the bargaining unit was composed of public employees) and thus brought First Amendment issues into consideration[49][149] and because of the unique nature of the union's dues structure.[150] Writing for the majority, Justice Blackmun established a three-prong test for determining the constitutionality and statutory legality of agency fee charges in public employee bargaining units: 1) The charges must be "germane" to collective bargaining activity; 2) The charges must not "significantly" burden the non-members' free speech rights; and 3) Charges must be justified by the need for labor peace or to avoid the free rider problem.[49][148][149][151][152] Acceptable charges included that part of affiliation fees which are spent on collective bargaining,[153] collective bargaining expenditures destined for other states,[154] expenditures for national union publications insofar as they support collective bargaining,[154] information services and other miscellaneous items that are not political nor public in nature and which benefit of all workers even though they do not directly impact the bargaining unit,[155] expenditures to attend union meetings and conventions,[156] and strike expenses (whether the strike is legal or not).[157] Non-chargeable expenses include: Lobbying, electoral, or other political activities not directly related to contract bargaining or implementation;[158] political or public activities aimed at winning a greater budget for the collective bargaining unit;[154] litigation or publications reporting on litigation that does not concern directly concern the bargaining unit;[159] and public relations efforts (including informational picketing, media purchases, signs, posters, and buttons) designed to enhance public respect for the workers' profession.[160] At least one legal scholar believes the Lehnert decision shifted away from the Court's traditional rationale that agency fees must have a strong link to collective bargaining purposes:

Subtly, but with significant impact..., the Supreme Court in Lehnert shifted away from its previous emphasis on the nexus between the expense and collective bargaining. Unlike its predecessors, Lehnert did not stress that the benefit to the unit must be in the area of collective bargaining or labor-management issues. Its statement that for an expense to be charged "there must be some indication that the payment is for services that may ultimately enure to the benefit of the members of the local union" implies that the benefit to the worker need not be in the form of increased leverage against the employer.[161]

Adding additional confusion, the Lehnert court also concluded that even charges germane to collective bargaining were impermissible if they burdened First Amendment rights too heavily in order to achieve the policy outcomes intended by Congress (although the Court did not identify what constituted an impermissible level of burden).[101][148] The impact of Lehnert, however, appears minimal. At least one legal scholar refused to list Lehnert among the past decade's most important cases in the public education law.[162] Both courts and legal scholars have questioned whether the judicial system should be "drawn into this micro-level of dispute resolution".[163][164]

Other Supreme Court rulings since Lehnert have focused more narrowly on technical issues. In Air Line Pilots Association v. Miller, 523 U.S. 866 (1998), the Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether non-members must use the union's arbitration process in order to challenge the calculation of agency fees.[165] In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that agency fee payers did not have to exhaust the union's challenge procedures.[166][167][168][169] The same year, the Court addressed the issue of whether a union committed an unfair labor practice if its collective bargaining agreement contained the original NLRA language on union shops but no additional information (such as information about the Supreme Court's rulings in Beck and other cases). A unanimous Supreme Court held in Marquez v. Screen Actors Guild, 525 U.S. 33 (1998) that a union did not breach its duty of fair representation by merely including the language of the NLRA, as amended.[170] The Marquez Court relied heavily on its ruling in NLRB v. News Syndicate Co., 365 U.S. 695 (1961), where it had previously held that the NLRB had no authority invalidate a contract clause solely because the clause mirrored statutory language but did not go further to advise members to not violate the law.[171] About a decade later, the high court revisited the agency fee issue three more times. It upheld in Davenport v. Washington Education Association, 551 U.S. 177 (2007), a Washington state ballot initiative which required public employee unions to obtain each member's and nonmember's prior authorization before spend their dues or agency fees for election-related purposes.[172] The decision was moot even before it was handed down, because the Washington State Legislature had already changed the law to make it easier for unions to comply.[100] The ruling was very narrowly decided, however, leading to much criticism. "Correctly understood, this decision promises little and delivers even less because it fails to deal decisively and comprehensively with the issues that both earlier private sector and public sector union dues disputes illuminated but failed to settle."[7] Other legal scholars expressed dismay that the Davenport Court did not confront the First Amendment issues raised by the case.[97][100] A year later, in Locke v. Karass, 07-610 (2008), the Supreme Court held that it was not unconstitutional for a local union to charge nonmembers for national litigation expenses unrelated to local collective bargaining activities.[102][173] In 2009, the Supreme Court held in Ysursa v. Pocatello Education Association, 07-869 (2009), that a state's refusal to agree to dues checkoff did not abridge a union's First Amendment rights.[174][175]

On April 13, 1992, President George H. W. Bush issued an executive order, E.O. 12800, that required contractors doing business with the federal government to provide their non-union employees with notice of their Beck rights.[69][176][177][178][179][180] Executive branch officials estimated that about 2 million to 3 million (10.5 percent to 15.8 percent) of the 19 million workers represented by labor unions are nonmembers,[69][177][178][179][180] and that NLRB officials had issued more than 300 citations accusing unions of not notifying their members of their Beck rights.[177] Labor leaders dismissed the Executive Order, claiming they already met the requirements set down by the Supreme Court.[180] The Bush administration estimated the Executive Order would keep $1.2 billion to $2.4 billion a year from being collected by labor unions.[69][177][179][180] The administration also said it would order the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to issue new regulations that would require unions to report in far greater detail the amount of money they spend on political activities, lobbying, and collective bargaining.[177][180] Bush also asked Congress to enact legislation formally encoding the Beck ruling into federal labor law.[179] Unions and Democrats derided the action as election year politicking, while right-to-work advocates hailed it as long overdue.[69][177][178][179][180] At least one legal scholar criticized the order for not doing enough to implement the Beck decision, and for putting the onus of notification on the employer rather than the union.[181]

The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations have each taken action to either rescind or reinstate this Executive Order. President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12836 on February 1, 1993, which revoked Executive Order 12800.[176][182][183] The Labor Department subsequently withdrew its Bush-era regulations on union financial reporting on December 21, 1993.[176][182][183][184] President George W. Bush then issued Executive Order 13201 on February 16, 2001, largely reinstating Executive Order 12800 and ordering DOL to re-issue its regulations.[185][186][187][188] A coalition of unions sued to enjoin enforcement of the Executive Order. The United States district court for the District of Columbia overturned the Executive Order on the grounds that the NLRA gave the NLRB exclusive jurisdiction over Beck rights, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, and Executive Order 13201 went into effect.[18][189][190] The last action was taken on January 30, 2009, when President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13496, revoking E.O. 13201 and the DOL regulations yet again.[191][192]

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) struggled to implement the Court's holding in Beck. In 1989, the National Right to Work Committee polled NLRB offices nationwide, posing as workers and asking about the requirement to pay union dues.[193] The group found that Board agents and other staff at 22 of 29 offices gave the wrong information.[193] Although the NLRB initially dismissed the report,[193] within a few weeks the agency admitted its errors and ordered all its regional offices to review recent developments in labor law and provide accurate information on agency fee rights.[194][195]

In 1992, for only the second time in its history,[181][196][197] the National Labor Relations Board undertook a regulatory rulemaking aimed at resolving the divergent, complex issues raised by the Beck decision. The proposed rulemaking was announced in May 1992,[196] and the proposed rule issued on September 22, 1992.[181][198][199] But after three and a half years of inaction on the proposed regulation, the Board withdrew the rule on March 19, 1996—concluding that it could proceed faster through its more traditional case-by-case approach.[169][200]

Shortly after the labor board published its proposed rule, it issued its first ruling addressing the issues raised in the Beck decision. In Electrical Workers IUE, Local 444 (Paramax Systems), 311 NLRB 1031 (1993), the Board held that Beck imposed a duty on unions to provide information on members' and nonmembers' Beck rights via the mail at least once a year, whether an employee has requested the information or not.[171][201] But over the next several years, the NLRB ruled on almost no other Beck cases even though nearly 400 complaints had been brought before the Board.[202][203][204]

Finally, the Board consolidated 28 Beck cases under California Saw & Knife Works, 320 NLRB 224 (1995).[169][204][205] The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) provided a Beck notification to each member yearly via its monthly magazine, and required members to exercise these rights once a year during a window period.[30][206] The Board held that the union had committed an unfair labor practice by failing to provide a Beck rights notice to new members and by not providing a Beck rights notice to new members who were resigning from the union but had not yet received the annual notice,[30][207] but did not commit a ULP by failing to notify resigning union members of their Beck rights at the time of their resignation.[30][207] The Board distinguished its holding in California Saw from its prior ruling in Paramax Systems, and found the window period (as well as other restrictions on the submission of resignation and objector status) to be an unfair labor practice.[208] The Board rejected numerous challenges to the way agency fees were calculated, challenges made, and expenditures verified.[209] The California Saw decision was criticized for only applying to nonmembers.[181] The NLRB addressed the Beck rights of members shortly thereafter in United Paperworkers International Union, Local 1033 (Weyerhauser Paper Co.), 320 NLRB 349 (1995).[210] In that case, the NLRB upheld its ruling in California Saw and said that yearly notice to current members, including the rights outlined by the courts and NLRB (not just the statutory language of the NLRA), was all that was required of unions.[181][211]

Two years later, the NLRB decided on the preferred remedy that should be imposed where a union failed to inform employees of their Beck rights. In Rochester Manufacturing Co., 323 NLRB 260 (1997), the Board ordered that the union return to the status quo ante, give all workers their Beck rights notice, give each all workers the opportunity to submit agency fee calculation objections for every dues collection period at issue, and the reimburse each objecting employee.[181][212]

From 1994 to 1998, the NLRB issued 18 consolidated or single Beck cases.[202]

The Supreme Court's Beck decision generated a great deal of legislative activity at both the federal and state levels.

The first Congressional attempt to codify the Beck decision into law occurred a year after the Beck decision. Representative Tom DeLay introduced H.R. 2589, the "Workers' Political Rights Act of 1989," on June 8, 1989.[176][182][183][197][213] The bill, which died in committee, would have amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to: 1) Add union political committees to the list of political action committees regulated by the Federal Election Commission; 2) Require unions to give each worker separate, yearly Beck notices; 3) Require unions to give each worker Beck notices when they join the union and when they resign from the union; 4) Require unions to undergo independent audits each year to verify the calculation of agency fees; and 5) Require unions to provide members detailed information on the calculation of agency fees.[176][182][183][197][213]

Additional action followed over the next several years. In July 1990, Senator Orrin Hatch proposed an amendment to the "Senatorial Election Campaign Act of 1989" (S. 137), a major campaign finance reform bill then under consideration in the U.S. Senate. The Hatch amendment was defeated on a close vote of 59-to-41.[214] Senator David Boren then proposed a less restrictive amendment to S. 137, which was adopted by a vote of 57 to 43.[215] Although the amended bill passed the Senate on August 1, 1990, it was never referred to the House and died at the end of the congressional session.[216] DeLay reintroduced his Beck bill in 1991, where it died again without action.[176][182][183][217] In 1996, Representative Harris W. Fawell introduced the "Worker Right to Know Act" (H.R. 3580), a bill to amend the NLRA to ban unions from charging any worker (member or nonomember) fees unrelated to collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment unless the worker gave the union explicit, annual consent.[101][169][176][182][183][218] Hearings on the legislation occurred, but the bill died in committee. In 1997, Senator Paul Coverdell introduced a bill (S. 497, the "National Right to Work Act of 1997") which would have banned all compulsory union membership.[101][176][182][183][219] Introduced in the House as well, both bills died in committee.

The last major push for congressional action came in 1996–1997. Several bills had been introduced in both the House and the Senate.[220] The most prominent was Senator Don Nickles' "Paycheck Protection Act," which Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott re-introduced in 1998.[221][222] The issue became caught in campaign finance reform legislation that year. Section 501 of the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 1997" (BRCA)[223] merely codified the Beck decision, but the "Paycheck Protection Act" went much further and required all workers to affirm on an annual basis whether their dues could be used for political purposes.[222][224][225][226][227] Senator Lott offered the Nickles bill as an amendment to the BRCA, which many Democrats (and some Republicans) saw as a poison pill amendment.[222][224][225][226][227] Under procedures adopted by the Senate, Senators would need to reject the Lott amendment before voting on the BRCA.[222][226][227][228] But with Republicans unwilling to vote against the amendment (which was popular with their conservative base), the Lott amendment was added to the BRCA and the Beck amendment died along with the BRCA after a number of other procedural votes.[222][226][227][228][229]

Several bills were offered in Congress over the next few years to either ban agency shop agreements or to adopt various provisions of the 1997 Nickles bill, but all of them died in committee.[230] An analysis of the major bills under congressional consideration from 1988 to 1997 found, however, that nearly all of them suffered from significant legal flaws, and none went far enough in protecting workers' Beck rights.[103]

Many states have proposed or passed legislation to address the Supreme Court's ruling in Beck for public employee unions. The National Labor Relations Act does not cover state or local public employees, and leaves it up to each state to grant these workers collective bargaining rights.[231] By 2000, 28 states and the District of Columbia had enacted a collective bargaining law for some or all of their public employees.[232] "Paycheck protection" acts—legislation requiring public employee unions to obtain permission from all workers on an annual basis in order to collect dues or fees for any purpose not germane to collective bargaining—were introduced in a number of state legislatures or became ballot initiatives.[222][233][234][235][236] In 1992, voters in Washington state approved Initiative 134, the nation's first paycheck protection act.[99] Similar ballot initiatives and legislation appeared in 26 states in 1998.[101][169][237][238] The battle in California over that state's initiative, Proposition 226, was particularly important because supporters of the initiative believed a win there would lead to adoption of the proposal in many more states.[239][240] But despite the support of Governor Pete Wilson[225] and a lead of roughly 35 points in the polls in April,[241][242] the initiative went down to defeat 52-to-48 on election day in June after a fierce battle.[243][244][245][246]

The defeat of the initiative had a significant effect nationwide. Similar initiatives and legislation were defeated in 29 states by 2002.[247] By September 2009, only five states had adopted the proposal via initiative or legislation (Idaho, Michigan, Ohio, Washington, and Wyoming), while a sixth (Colorado) had done so via executive order.[238][248][249]

Prospects for addition initiatives and legislation at the federal and state level appear mixed as of 2009. Former Federal Election Commission Chair Bradley A. Smith (who opposes compulsory unionism) has argued that even the most stringent laws are unlikely to have any impact, as the number of agency fee payers is small compared to the number of union members.[250] At least one legal scholar has questioned the constitutionality of paycheck protection laws,[251] while another, detailed analysis of the Washington state effort has concluded that instead of decreasing the amount of union dues available for political expenditures paycheck protection actually increased it (from approximately $630,000 to approximately $780,000) as unions shifted member dues internally to account for the agency fees going toward collective bargaining.[99]