Impact
Most significantly, this financial core definition of the minimum union dues required to get and/or keep employment under a compulsory union contract allows objecting union members to withhold that portion of their compulsory union dues that the union spends on any political activities, campaigns or causes. By resigning full constitutional membership in their labor union and declaring themselves financial core workers citing the Beck ruling, financial core members are termed dues-paying-non-members. They keep their union jobs and all union benefits. However, since they are no longer constitutional members of the labor union, they are free from any union internal rules and regulations governing full constitutional members. They can not hold union elected office nor can they even vote on the union contract they support financially.
The primary impact of the financial core issue has been in the acting industry. By joining the Screen Actors Guild or American Federation of Television and Radio Artists as a financial core member, an actor can pursue work in states such as California, where union membership is a prerequisite to work in the industry. Full members of these unions are prohibited from working non-union jobs, but financial core members are not restricted by the rules of the unions and so may work either union or non-union jobs. When working a union job, they would receive the same benefits as full constitutional members. Similarly, in the Writers Guild of America, financial core members are able to remain working during labor strikes.
Proponents of the decision to declare financial core status note that it gives actors a wider range of choices since they can elect to take work that is not available to full members.
Opponents of the decision to declare financial core status note that it weakens the union which won the benefits enjoyed by all workers, even those not bound by union rules. Some claim that financial core members are essentially free riders. However, fi-core workers still pay the majority of union dues; for example, the Financial Core Status deduction for non-members of the Writers Guild of America, West over April 2009–March 2010 was 12.5%.
Read more about this topic: Financial Core
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