🗞️ Kroger Ordered to Repay Union Dues After Board Finds It Jumped the Gun on a Shifting Rule

The National Labor Relations Board has affirmed that Kroger Limited Partnership I, operating as Kroger Delta Division in Little Rock, Arkansas, violated federal labor law when it stopped withholding and forwarding union dues after its labor agreements with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 2008 expired in 2021. The Board also found the grocer unreasonably delayed for months in turning over payroll error data the union had requested to help members navigate problems with a new timekeeping system.

The dues dispute traces back to one of the more unsettled corners of labor law. Whether a "dues checkoff" arrangement, in which an employer deducts union dues directly from paychecks, must continue after a contract expires has flipped repeatedly over the past decade, most recently in the Board's 2022 Valley Hospital Medical Center ruling, which held that such arrangements survive contract expiration unless a union clearly waives that right. Kroger argued it had relied in good faith on an earlier, contrary rule when it halted dues deductions in July 2021, and that applying the later decision retroactively was unfair. The Board disagreed, finding the legal landscape was already unsettled at the time Kroger acted, given a pending court challenge to the older precedent.

Separately, the Board concluded Kroger delayed for months in turning over a spreadsheet tracking employees affected by payroll errors tied to a new Oracle based system. The union first requested the data in January 2023 and clarified its request the following month, but Kroger provided only partial substitutes before finally furnishing the actual document in May, roughly two months after the union's follow up request in March. The Board found that delay itself amounted to a failure to bargain in good faith.

The order requires Kroger to reimburse the union, with interest, for unremitted dues, to hand over the payroll information, and to post workplace notices describing employees' bargaining rights.

Key Points

• Kroger stopped deducting and remitting union dues on July 17, 2021, roughly three weeks after its collective bargaining agreements with UFCW Local 2008 expired, without first bargaining to impasse.
• The Board applied Valley Hospital II, a 2022 precedent holding that dues checkoff provisions remain in force after a contract's expiration absent a clear waiver.
• Kroger's argument that it relied on the earlier, opposite rule was rejected because that rule was already under legal challenge when Kroger acted.
• The Board separately found Kroger unreasonably delayed for roughly two months in providing a spreadsheet of employees affected by payroll errors, despite having ready access to the document.
• The Board rejected Kroger's due process, laches, and contract language defenses, along with its claim that the parties had reached a bargaining impasse.
• Remedies include repayment of dues with interest, disclosure of the requested payroll data, and a 60 day posted notice to employees.

Primary Source Author: National Labor Relations Board (Chairman James R. Murphy and Members David M. Prouty and Scott A. Mayer), adopting the findings of Administrative Law Judge Sarah Karpinen

Primary Source: Kroger Limited Partnership I d/b/a Kroger Delta Division, 375 NLRB No. 6 (July 23, 2026)

Primary Source Link: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/15-CA-280676

Supplemental Links:

• NLRB summary of the underlying ALJ decision (NLRB Edge)
• Analysis of the Valley Hospital II precedent on dues checkoff (National Law Review)
• Background on Valley Hospital II's reversal of prior precedent (Ogletree Deakins)