Page 250 - Essentials of Payroll: Management and Accounting

Union Dues Payr oll Deductions
If an employer has entered into a collective bargaining agreement with
a union, it is generally required to deduct union dues from employee
wages, per the terms of the agreement, and forward them to the union.

It can stop doing this as of the date when the collective bargaining
agreement terminates. The requirement to make this deduction will
vary by agreement; and in some cases it may not be required at all, with
the union instead obtaining dues directly from its members.

Summary
A key item to remember for all the voluntary deductions discussed in this
chapter is that an employee’s written approval must be obtained for all of

them,to prevent employees claiming that they never authorized a deduc-
tion, possibly resulting in the company not being compensated for an
expenditure (such as medical insurance) that it has already made on behalf
of the employee. For this reason, a company should not automatically
sign up employees for various benefits, and have them only decline the
benefit in writing,as then employees can state that they were never prop-
erly informed of the nature of the benefit.

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