FLRA Final Rule on Union Dues cancellation

Q: What does the FLRA’s recent final rule mean?

The FLRA has announced a new rule that will appear as 5 C.F.R. § 2429.19 of the Authority’s Regulations. The rule states that “after the expiration of a one-year period during which an assignment may not be revoked, an employee may initiate the revocation of a previously authorized assignment at any time that the employee chooses.” 85 FR 41169.

In other words, employees that join the Union with an 1187 will not be prevented from terminating their dues for only one year. After that one year, the employee can submit an 1188 at any time. The employee does not have to wait for a certain drop period (anniversary month, 10 days within anniversary date, etc.) to submit their 1188.

The rule has an effective date of August 10, 2020, but only applies to withholdings that were authorized under 5 U.S.C. 7115(a) on or after August 10, 2020.

This means that the rule does not apply to employees that signed up for dues withholding before August 10, 2020. It only applies to employees that submitted 1187s on or after August 10, 2020.

Q: What does the rule mean for the AFGE bargaining unit at the VA?

This change is in CONFLICT with Article 45 of the Master Agreement. As you know, it is an unfair labor practice for an agency to enforce any rule or regulation (other than a rule or regulation implementing 5 U.S.C. 2302) which is in conflict with any applicable collective bargaining agreement if the agreement was in effect before the date the rule or regulation was prescribed. 5 U.S.C. §7116(a)(7). Because the Master Agreement was in effect prior to August 10, 2020, and because this rule does not implement 5 U.S.C. § 2302, the VA cannot implement this change until our successor agreement goes into effect.

We are sure confusion will ensue and VA will get this wrong. If you find out that it is applied at your facility, please contact [email protected].

Further, this regulation does NOT apply to eDues.

This is why we take this time to again urge you to SWITCH TO E-DUES!!! The quicker we get the VA out of our pockets, the better.