National Labor Relations Board v. Oklahoma Fixture Company

PAUL KELLY, Jr., Circuit Judge,

dissenting.

No one, not the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”), not the parties and not even the court, posits that the “permit fees” in this case are membership dues. Counsel for the Board candidly admitted at oral argument that this was a first, particularly when the source of the authority for these fees is not contained in the record.1 The court concludes that “membership dues” is ambiguous because “agency fees” have been included within the *1293term, as well as initiation fees and other union assessments. Finding ambiguity, the court defers to the NLRB…