Financial core

Financial core (also known as ficore or fi-core) refers to a legal carve-out that permits workers opposed to participating in a labor union to be employed under the benefits of a union's contracts without compelling them to be a member of that union.

The term "financial core" was first used in a 1963 United States Supreme Court decision, National Labor Relations Board v. General Motors.^[1] The court determined that while workers cannot be compelled to be a union "member" as a condition of employment, they would be compelled to pay their share of a union's collective bargaining activities. The court referred to these collective bargaining costs as a union's financial core.^[2]

The worker who chooses financial core status is not a union member, cannot run or vote in union elections, and is referred to by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as an "objector" or "union objector".^[3]

The court's decision requiring all workers in a union facility or profession to pay toward collective bargaining costs stemmed from its determination that all workers employed in a union environment—even those opposed to being union members—benefit from the union's collective bargaining which improves wages, working conditions, safety, and protections.^[4]

While union members pay "dues" toward collective bargaining, the decision required workers who elect financial core status pay an equal amount the union which the court referred to as "fees". Twenty Five years later, in 1988, a subsequent Supreme Court decision allowed FiCore workers a slight reduction in fees if they opted out of the portion of fees paid toward union organizing and lobbying. This optional fee reduction is known as Beck Rights.

Labor unions list the number of objectors who refuse union membership as "fee paying non members" or an "agency fee payers" in the union's annual Office of Labor-Management Standards, LM-2 filing. On the job, objectors are often referred to as financial core workers, or ficore workers. Union slang refers to ficore workers as "scabs"^[5] since they work outside the union's membership rules and refuse to stand in solidarity with their coworkers.

While the financial core ruling came out of General Motors's (GM) dispute with the United Auto Workers (UAW), this Supreme Court ruling applies to all unions in the United States.

Although GM sought to undermine the UAW, the court's ruling that collective bargaining led to better working conditions for all workers was a win for unions. The court's carve-out for financial core status has had a limited effect on unions in most cases.

The exception is the entertainment unions with contracts in the film, television, and television commercial industry, which in some cases have been negatively affected. Ficore status allows fee paying non-members to circumvent entertainment union rules that require members only accept work under union contracts. Since ficore workers are not bound by union regulations and rules, they can accept work from non-union employers outside union contracts.