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Check-off arrangements
[ch 5: pages 135-136]Many employers where unions are recognised have long-standing check-off payroll arrangements in place so that membership subs can be deducted from their pay and sent to the union. You can agree to pay your subs in this way when you become a member. You need to provide your written agreement to payment by check-off, as this is a deduction from your wages (see Chapter 4).
Sometimes there will be a contractual right to check-off. This may be express or implied (see Chapter 3). For example:
A High Court judge ruled that local government staff had the contractual right to have their subs deducted at source and sent to their union, the Public and Commercial Services Union. A paragraph in the staff handbook incorporated into individual employment contracts created the contractual right, by promising that members of recognised trade unions could “ask the Department to deduct all or part of the subscription from [their] pay and to transfer this to the appropriate trade union”. The contractual right could only be removed by agreement.
Hickey v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, [2013] All ER (D) 24
There is no statutory right to pay union subs through check-off, even if the union agrees to pay the full cost of check off administration, which is nominal.
The government has used the removal of check-off facilities as a political tool to destabilise the main civil service union, the Public and Commercial Services Union. From the end of 2014, check-off was removed for staff at the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Work and Pensions and HMRC. Directions for switching the payment of union subs to direct debit can be found on the PCS website.
In July 2014, former Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander wrote to secretaries of state and permanent secretaries confirming that there is no fiscal or policy case for removing check-off.