U.S. Supreme Court Commun. Workers of Amer. v. Beck, 487
U.S. 735 (1988) Communications Workers of America v.
Beck No. 86-637 Argued January 11,
1988 Decided June 29, 1988 487
U.S. 735 CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT Syllabus Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)
permits an employer and a union to enter into an agreement
requiring all employees in the bargaining unit to pay union dues as
a condition of continued employment, whether or not the employees
become union members. Petitioner Communications Workers of America
(CWA) entered into a collective bargaining agreement that contains
a union-security clause under which all represented employees who
do not become union members must pay the union "agency fees" in
amounts equal to the dues paid by union members. Respondents,
bargaining unit employees who chose not to become union members,
filed this suit in Federal District Court, challenging CWA's use of
their agency fees for purposes other than collective bargaining,
contract administration, or grievance adjustment (hereinafter
"collective bargaining" activities). They alleged that expenditure
of their fees on activities such as organizing the employees of
other employers, lobbying for labor legislation, and participating
in social, charitable, and political events violated CWA's duty of
fair representation, § 8(a)(3), and the First Amendment. The court
concluded that CWA's collection and disbursement of agency fees for
purposes other than collective bargaining activities violated the
associational and free speech rights of objecting nonmembers, and
granted injunctive relief and an order for reimbursement of excess
fees. The Court of Appeals, preferring to rest its judgment on a
ground other than the Constitution, ultimately concluded, inter
alia, that the collection of nonmembers' fees for purposes
unrelated to collective bargaining violated CWA's duty of fair
representation. Held: 1. The courts below properly exercised jurisdiction over
respondents' claims that exactions of agency fees beyond those
necessary to finance collective bargaining activities violated the
judicially created duty of fair representation and respondents'
First Amendment rights. Although the National Labor Relations Board
(Board) had primary jurisdiction over respondents' § 8(a)(3) claim, cf. San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 , the
courts below were not precluded from deciding the merits of that
claim insofar as such a decision was necessary Page 487 U. S. 736 to the disposition of respondents' duty of fair representation
challenge. Federal courts may resolve unfair labor practice
questions that emerge as collateral issues in suits brought under
independent federal remedies. Respondents did not attempt to
circumvent the Board's primary jurisdiction by casting their
statutory claim as a violation of CWA's duty of fair
representation. Instead, the necessity of deciding the scope of §
8(a)(3) arose because CWA and its copetitioner local unions sought
to defend themselves on the ground that the statute authorizes the
type of union security agreement in issue. Pp. 487 U. S.
742 -744.

															2. Section 8(a)(3) does not permit a union, over the objections
of dues-paying nonmember employees, to expend funds collected from
them on activities unrelated to collective bargaining activities.
Pp. 487 U. S.
744 -762.

															(a) The decision in Machinists v. Street, 367 U.
S. 740 -- holding that § 2, Eleventh of the Railway
Labor Act (RLA) does not permit a union, over the objections of
nonmembers, to expend agency fees on political causes -- is
controlling, for § 8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh are in all material
respects identical. Their nearly identical language reflects the
fact that, in both, Congress authorized compulsory unionism only to
the extent necessary to ensure that those who enjoy
union-negotiated benefits contribute to their cost. Indeed,
Congress, in 1951, expressly modeled § 2, Eleventh on § 8(a)(3),
which it had added to the NLRA by the Taft-Hartley Act only four
years earlier, and emphasized that it was extending to railroad
labor the same rights and privileges of the union shop that were
contained in the Taft-Hartley Act. Pp. 487 U. S.
744 -747.

															(b) Section 8(a)(3) was intended to correct abuses of compulsory
unionism that had developed under "closed shop" agreements and, at
the same time, to require, through union-security clauses, that
nonmember employees pay their share of the cost of benefits secured
by the union through collective bargaining. These same concerns
prompted Congress' later amendment of the RLA. Given the parallel
purpose, structure, and language of § 8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh,
both provisions must be interpreted in the same manner. Only the
most compelling evidence would support a contrary conclusion, and
petitioners have not proffered such evidence here. Pp. 487 U. S.
747 -754.

															(c) Petitioners claim that the union security provisions of the
RLA and NLRA should be read differently in light of the different
history of unionism in the regulated industries -- that is, the
tradition of voluntary unionism in the railway industry prior to
the 1951 amendment of the RLA and the history of compulsory
unionism in NLRA-regulated industries prior to 1947. Petitioners
contend that, because agreements requiring the payment of uniform
dues were not among the specific abuses Congress sought to remedy
in the Taft-Hartley Act, § 8(a)(3) cannot plausibly be read to
prohibit the collection of fees in excess of those Page 487 U. S. 737 necessary to cover the costs of collective bargaining. This
argument is unpersuasive, because the legislative history of §
8(a)(3) shows that Congress was concerned with numerous and
systemic abuses of the closed shop, and therefore resolved to ban
the closed shop altogether; to the extent it permitted union
security agreements at all, Congress was guided -- as it was in its
later amendment of the RLA -- by the principle that those enjoying
the benefits of union representation should contribute their fair
share to the expense of securing those benefits. Moreover, it is
clear that Congress understood its actions in 1947 and 1951 to have
placed the respective regulated industries on an equal footing
insofar as compulsory unionism was concerned. Pp. 487 U. S.
754 -756.

															(d) The fact that, in the Taft-Hartley Act, Congress expressly
considered proposals regulating union finances, but ultimately
placed only a few limitations on the collection and use of dues and
fees, and otherwise left unions free to arrange their financial
affairs as they saw fit, is not sufficient to compel a broader
construction of § 8(a)(3) than that accorded § 2, Eleventh in Street. The legislative history of § 8(a)(3) shows that
Congress was concerned with the dues and rights of union members,
not the agency fees and rights of nonmembers. The absence, in such
legislative history, of congressional concern for the rights of
nonmembers is consistent with the view that Congress understood §
8(a)(3) to afford nonmembers adequate protection by authorizing the
collection of only those fees necessary to finance collective
bargaining activities. Nor is there any merit to the contention
that, because unions had previously used members' dues for a
variety of purposes in addition to collective bargaining
agreements, Congress' silence in 1947 as to the uses to which
unions could put nonmembers' fees should be understood as an
acquiescence in such union practices. Pp. 756-761.

															(e) Street cannot be distinguished on the theory that
the construction of § 2, Eleventh was merely expedient to avoid the
constitutional question -- as to the use of fees for political
causes that nonmembers find objectionable -- that otherwise would
have been raised because the RLA (unlike the NLRA) preempts state
laws banning union security agreements, and thus nonmember fees
were compelled by "governmental action." Even assuming that the
exercise of rights permitted, though not compelled, by § 8(a)(3)
does not involve state action, and that the NLRA and RLA therefore
differ in such respect, nevertheless the absence of any
constitutional concerns in this case would not warrant reading the
nearly identical language of § 8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh
differently. Pp. 487 U. S.
761 -762.

															800 F.2d 1280, affirmed. Page 487 U. S. 738 BRENNAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C.J., and WHITE, MARSHALL, and STEVENS, JJ., joined, and
in Parts I and II of which BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, and SCALIA, JJ.,
joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and
dissenting in part, in which O'CONNOR and SCALIA, JJ., joined, post, p. 487 U. S. 763 .
KENNEDY, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the
case.

															JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

															Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935
(NLRA), 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3), permits an
employer and an exclusive bargaining representative to enter into
an agreement requiring all employees in the bargaining unit to pay
periodic union dues and initiation fees as a condition of continued
employment, whether or not the employees otherwise wish to become
union members. Today we must decide whether this provision also
permits a union, over the objections of dues-paying nonmember
employees, to expend funds so collected on activities unrelated to
collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance
adjustment, and, if so, whether such expenditures violate the
union's duty of fair representation or the objecting employees'
First Amendment rights. Page 487 U. S. 739 I In accordance with § 9 of the NLRA, 49 Stat. 453, as amended, 29
U.S.C. § 159, a majority of the employees of American Telephone and
Telegraph Company and several of its subsidiaries selected
petitioner Communications Workers of America (CWA) as their
exclusive bargaining representative. As such, the union is
empowered to bargain collectively with the employer on behalf of
all employees in the bargaining unit over wages, hours, and other
terms and conditions of employment, § 9(a), 29 U.S.C. § 159(a), and
it accordingly enjoys "broad authority . . . in the negotiation and
administration of [the] collective bargaining contract." Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335 , 375 U. S. 342 (1964). This broad authority, however, is tempered by the union's
"statutory obligation to serve the interests of all members without
hostility or discrimination toward any," Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171 , 386 U. S. 177 (1967), a duty that extends not only to the negotiation of the
collective bargaining agreement itself, but also to the subsequent
enforcement of that agreement, including the administration of any
grievance procedure the agreement may establish. Ibid. CWA
chartered several local unions, copetitioners in this case, to
assist it in discharging these statutory duties. In addition, at
least in part to help defray the considerable costs it incurs in
performing these tasks, CWA negotiated a union security clause in
the collective bargaining agreement under which all represented
employees, including those who do not wish to become union members,
must pay the union "agency fees" in "amounts equal to the periodic
dues" paid by union members. Plaintiffs' Complaint � 11 and
Plaintiffs' Exhibit A-1, 1 Record. Under the clause, failure to
tender the required fee may be grounds for discharge.

															In June 1976, respondents, 20 employees who chose not to become
union members, initiated this suit challenging CWA's use of their
agency fees for purposes other than collective bargaining, contract
administration, or grievance adjustment Page 487 U. S. 740 (hereinafter "collective bargaining" or "representational"
activities). Specifically, respondents alleged that the union's
expenditure of their fees on activities such as organizing the
employees of other employers, lobbying for labor legislation, and
participating in social, charitable, and political events violated
petitioners' duty of fair representation, § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA,
the First Amendment, and various common law fiduciary duties. In
addition to declaratory relief, respondents sought an injunction
barring petitioners from exacting fees above those necessary to
finance collective bargaining activities, as well as damages for
the past collection of such excess fees.

															The District Court concluded that the union's collection and
disbursement of agency fees for purposes other than bargaining unit
representation violated the associational and free speech rights of
objecting nonmembers, and therefore enjoined their future
collection. 468 F. Supp.
93 (Md.1979). Applying a "clear and convincing" evidentiary
standard, the District Court concluded that the union had failed to
show that more than 21% of its funds were expended on collective
bargaining matters. App. to Pet. for Cert. 119a. The court ordered
reimbursement of all excess fees respondents had paid since
January, 1976, and directed the union to institute a recordkeeping
system to segregate accounts for representational and
non-collective-bargaining activities. Id. at 125a,
108a-109a.

															A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit agreed that respondents stated a valid claim for
relief under the First Amendment, but, preferring to rest its
judgment on a ground other than the Constitution, concluded that
the collection of nonmembers' fees for purposes unrelated to
collective bargaining violated § 8(a)(3). 776 F.2d 1187 (1985).
Turning to the specific activities challenged, the majority noted
that the District Court's adoption of a "clear and convincing"
standard of proof was improper, but found that, for certain
categories of expenditures, such Page 487 U. S. 741 as lobbying, organizing employees in other companies, and
funding various community services, the error was harmless,
inasmuch as the activities were indisputably unrelated to
bargaining unit representation. The majority remanded the case for
reconsideration of the remaining expenditures, which the union
claimed were made in connection with valid collective bargaining
activities. Chief Judge Winter dissented. Id. at 1214. He
concluded that § 8(a)(3) authorized exaction of fees in amounts
equivalent to full union dues, including fees expended on
nonrepresentational activities, and that the negotiation and
enforcement of agreements permitting such exactions was private
conduct incapable of violating the constitutional rights of
objecting nonmembers.

															On rehearing, the en banc court vacated the panel opinion and by
a 6-to-4 vote again affirmed in part, reversed in part, and
remanded for further proceedings. 800 F.2d 1280 (1986). The court
explained in a brief per curiam opinion that five of the six judges
believed there was federal jurisdiction over both the § 8(a)(3) and
the duty of fair representation claims, and that respondents were
entitled to judgment on both. Judge Murnaghan, casting the deciding
vote, concluded that the court had jurisdiction over only the duty
of fair representation claim; although he believed that § 8(a) (3)
permits union security clauses requiring payment of full union
dues, he concluded that the collection of such fees from nonmembers
to finance activities unrelated to collective bargaining violates
the union's duty of fair representation. All six of these judges
agreed with the panel's resolution of the specific allocations
issue, and accordingly remanded the action. Chief Judge Winter,
joined by three others, again dissented for the reasons set out in
his earlier panel dissent.

															The decision below directly conflicts with that of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. See Price v.
Auto Workers, 795 F.2d 1128 (1986). We granted certiorari to
resolve the important question concerning the Page 487 U. S. 742 validity of such agreements, 482 U.S. 904 (1987), and now
affirm. II At the outset, we address briefly the jurisdictional question
that divided the Court of Appeals. Respondents sought relief on
three separate federal claims: that the exaction of fees beyond
those necessary to finance collective bargaining activities
violates § 8(a)(3); that such exactions violate the judicially
created duty of fair representation; and that such exactions
violate respondents' First Amendment rights. We think it clear that
the courts below properly exercised jurisdiction over the latter
two claims, but that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or
Board) had primary jurisdiction over respondents' § 8(a)(3)
claim.

															In San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959), we held that

															"[w]hen an activity is arguably subject to § 7 or § 8 of the
[NLRA], the States, as well as the federal courts, must
defer to the exclusive competence of the [Board] if the danger of
state interference with national policy is to be averted." Id. at 359 U. S. 245 (emphasis added). A simple recitation of respondents' § 8(a)(3)
claim reveals that it falls squarely within the primary
jurisdiction of the Board: respondents contend that, by collecting
and using agency fees for nonrepresentational purposes, the union
has contravened the express terms of § 8(a)(3), which, respondents
argue, provides a limited authorization for the collection of only
those fees necessary to finance collective bargaining activities.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that the challenged
fee-collecting activity is "subject to" § 8.

															While the five-judge plurality of the en banc court did not
explain the basis of its jurisdictional holding, the panel majority
concluded that, because courts have jurisdiction over challenges to
union security clauses negotiated under § 2, Eleventh of the
Railway Labor Act (RLA), 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U.S.C. § 152, Eleventh,
which is in all material respects identical to § 8(a)(3), there
must be a parity of federal jurisdiction Page 487 U. S. 743 over § 8(a)(3) claims. Unlike the NLRA, however, the RLA
establishes no agency charged with administering its provisions,
and instead leaves it to the courts to determine the validity of
activities challenged under the Act. The primary jurisdiction of
the NLRB, therefore, cannot be diminished by analogies to the RLA,
for, in this regard, the two labor statutes do not parallel one
another. The Court of Appeals erred, then, to the extent that it
concluded it possessed jurisdiction to pass directly on
respondents' § 8(a)(3) claim.

															The court was not precluded, however, from deciding the merits
of this claim insofar as such a decision was necessary to the
disposition of respondents' duty of fair representation challenge.
Federal courts may resolve unfair labor practice questions that
"emerge as collateral issues in suits brought under independent
federal remedies," Connell Construction Co. v. Plumbers, 421 U. S. 616 , 421 U. S. 626 (1975), and one such remedy over which federal jurisdiction is well
settled is the judicially implied duty of fair representation. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171 (1967). This jurisdiction to adjudicate fair representation claims
encompasses challenges leveled not only at a union's contract
administration and enforcement efforts, id. at 386 U. S.
176 -188, but at its negotiation activities as well. Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.
S. 330 (1953). Employees, of course, may not circumvent
the primary jurisdiction of the NLRB simply by casting statutory
claims as violations of the union's duty of fair representation.
Respondents, however, have done no such thing here; rather, they
claim that the union failed to represent their interests fairly and
without hostility by negotiating and enforcing an agreement that
allows the exaction of funds for purposes that do not serve their
interests, and in some cases are contrary to their personal
beliefs. The necessity of deciding the scope of § 8(a)(3) arises
because petitioners seek to defend themselves on the
ground that the statute authorizes precisely this type of
agreement. Under these circumstances, the Court of Appeals Page 487 U. S. 744 had jurisdiction to decide the § 8(a)(3) question raised by
respondents' duty-of-fair-representation claim. [ Footnote 1 ] III Added as part of the 1947 Labor Management Relations Act, or
Taft-Hartley Act, § 8(a)(3) makes it an unfair labor practice for
an employer "by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of
employment . . . to encourage or discourage membership in any labor
organization." 29 U.S.C. § 158 (a)(3). The section contains two
provisos without which all union security clauses would fall within
this otherwise broad condemnation: the first states that nothing in
the Act

															"preclude[s] an employer from making an agreement with a labor
organization . . . to require as a condition of employment
membership therein"

															30 days after the employee attains employment, ibid.; the second, limiting the first, provides:

															"[N]o employer shall justify any discrimination against an
employee for nonmembership in a labor organization (A) if he has
reasonable grounds for believing that such membership was not
available to the employee on the same terms and conditions
generally applicable to other members, or (B) if he has reasonable
grounds for believing that membership was denied or terminated for
reasons other than the failure . . . to tender the periodic Page 487 U. S. 745 dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition
of acquiring or retaining membership." Ibid. Taken as a whole, § 8(a)(3) permits an employer
and a union [ Footnote 2 ] to
enter into an agreement requiring all employees to become union
members as a condition of continued employment, but the
"membership" that may be so required has been "whittled down to its
financial core." NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 373 U. S. 734 , 373 U. S. 742 (1963). The statutory question presented in this case, then, is
whether this "financial core" includes the obligation to support
union activities beyond those germane to collective bargaining,
contract administration, and grievance adjustment. We think it does
not.

															Although we have never before delineated the precise limits §
8(a)(3) places on the negotiation and enforcement of union security
agreements, the question the parties proffer is not an entirely new
one. Over a quarter century ago, we held that § 2, Eleventh of the
RLA does not permit a union, over the objections of nonmembers, to
expend compelled agency fees on political causes. Machinists v.
Street, 367 U. S. 740 (1961). Because the NLRA and RLA differ in certain crucial
respects, we have frequently warned that decisions construing the
latter often provide only the roughest of guidance when
interpreting the former. See, e.g., supra, at 487 U. S. 743 ; First National Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, 452 U.
S. 666 , 452 U. S. 686 ,
n. 23 (1984). Our decision in Street, however, is far more
than merely instructive here: we believe it is controlling, for §
8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh are in all material respects identical.
[ Footnote 3 ] Indeed, we have
previously described Page 487 U. S. 746 the two provisions as "statutory equivalent[s]," Ellis v.
Railway Clerks, 466 U. S. 435 , 466 U. S. 452 ,
n. 13 (1984), and with good reason, because their nearly identical
language reflects the fact that in both Congress authorized
compulsory unionism only to the extent necessary to ensure that
those who enjoy union-negotiated benefits contribute to their cost.
Thus, in amending the RLA in 1951, Congress expressly modeled § 2,
Eleventh on § 8(a)(3), which it had added to the NLRA only four
years earlier, and repeatedly emphasized that it was extending "to
railroad labor the same rights and privileges of the union shop
that are contained in the Taft-Hartley Act." 96 Cong.Rec. 17055
(1951) (remarks of Rep. Brown). [ Footnote 4 ] In Page 487 U. S. 747 these circumstances, we think it clear that Congress intended
the same language to have the same meaning in both statutes. A Both the structure and purpose of § 8(a)(3) are best understood
in light of the statute's historical origins. Prior to the
enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 140, § 8(3) of
the Wagner Act of 1935 (NLRA) permitted majority unions to
negotiate "closed shop" agreements requiring employers to hire only
persons who were already union members. Page 487 U. S. 748 See Algoma Plywood Co. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations
Board, 336 U. S. 301 , 336 U. S.
307 -311 (1949). By 1947, such agreements had come under
increasing attack, and after extensive hearings, Congress
determined that the closed shop and the abuses associated with it
"create[d] too great a barrier to free employment to be longer
tolerated." S.Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1947)
(S.Rep.), Legislative History of Labor Management Relations Act,
1947 (Committee Print compiled for the Subcommittee on Labor of the
Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare), p. 412 (1974)
(Leg.Hist.). The 1947 Congress was equally concerned, however, that
without such agreements, many employees would reap the benefits
that unions negotiated on their behalf without in any way
contributing financial support to those efforts. As Senator Taft,
one of the authors of the 1947 legislation, explained,

															"the argument . . . against abolishing the closed shop . . . is
that, if there is not a closed shop, those not in the union will
get a free ride, that the union does the work, gets the wages
raised, then the man who does not pay dues rides along freely,
without any expense to himself."

															93 Cong.Rec. 4887 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1422. [ Footnote 5 ] Thus, the Taft-Hartley Act was Page 487 U. S. 749 intended to accomplish twin purposes. On the one hand, the most
serious abuses of compulsory unionism were eliminated by abolishing
the closed shop. On the other hand, Congress recognized that, in
the absence of a union security provision,

															"many employees sharing the benefits of what unions are able to
accomplish by collective bargaining will refuse to pay their share
of the cost." NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 373 U.S. at 373 U. S.
740 -741 (quoting S.Rep. at 6, Leg.Hist. 412).

															The legislative solution embodied in § 8(a)(3) allows employers
to enter into agreements requiring all the employees in a given
bargaining unit to become members 30 days after being hired, as
long as such membership is available to all workers on a
nondiscriminatory basis, but it prohibits the mandatory discharge
of an employee who is expelled from the union for any reason other
than his or her failure to pay initiation fees or dues. As we have
previously observed, Congress carefully tailored this solution to
the evils at which it was aimed:

															"Th[e] legislative history clearly indicates that Congress
intended to prevent utilization of union security agreements for
any purpose other than to compel payment of union dues and fees.
Thus, Congress recognized the validity of unions' concerns about
'free riders,' i.e., employees who receive the benefits of
union representation but are unwilling to contribute their fair
share of financial support to such union, and gave unions the
power to contract to meet that problem while withholding
from unions the power to cause the discharge of employees for any
other reason." Radio Officers v. NLRB, 347 U. S.
17 , 347 U. S. 41 (1954) (emphasis added). Page 487 U. S. 750 Indeed,

															"Congress' decision to allow union security agreements at
all reflects its concern that . . . the parties to a
collective bargaining agreement be allowed to provide that there be
no employees who are getting the benefits of union representation
without paying for them." Oil Workers v. Mobil Oil Corp., 426 U.
S. 407 , 426 U. S. 416 (1976) (emphasis added).

															This same concern over the resentment spawned by "free riders"
in the railroad industry prompted Congress, four years after the
passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, to amend the RLA. As the House
Report explained, 75 to 80 percent of the 1.2 million railroad
industry workers belonged to one or another of the railway unions.
H.R.Rep. No. 2811, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1950). These unions, of
course, were legally obligated to represent the interests of all
workers, including those who did not become members; thus nonunion
workers were able, at no expense to themselves, to share in all the
benefits the unions obtained through collective bargaining. Ibid. Noting that the

															"principle of authorizing agreements for the union shop and the
deduction of union dues has now become firmly established as a
national policy for all industry subject to the Labor Management
Relations Act of 1947,"

															the House Report concluded that

															"[n]o sound reason exists for continuing to deny to labor
organizations subject to the Railway Labor Act the right to
negotiate agreements with railroads and airlines of a character
permitted in the case of labor organizations in the other large
industries of the country." Ibid. In drafting what was to become § 2, Eleventh, Congress did not
look to § 8(a)(3) merely for guidance. Rather, as Senator Taft
argued in support of the legislation, the amendment

															"inserts in the railway mediation law almost the exact
provisions, so far as they fit, of the Taft-Hartley law, so that
the conditions regarding the union shop and the check-off are
carried into the relations between railroad unions and the
railroads. " Page 487 U. S. 751 96 Cong.Rec. 16267 (1950). [ Footnote 6 ] This was the universal understanding, among
both supporters and opponents, of the purpose and effect of the
amendment. See n 4, supra. Indeed, railroad union representatives themselves
proposed the amendment that incorporated in § 2, Eleventh, §
8(a)(3)'s prohibition against the discharge of employees who fail
to obtain or maintain union membership for any reason other than
nonpayment of periodic dues; in offering this proposal, the unions
argued, in terms echoing the language of the Senate Report
accompanying the Taft-Hartley Act, that such a prohibition

															"remedies the alleged abuses of compulsory union membership, . .
. yet makes possible the elimination of the 'free rider' and the
sharing of the burden of maintenance by all of the beneficiaries of
union activity."

															Hearings on H.R. 7789 before the House Committee on Interstate
and Foreign Commerce, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 253 (1950).

															In Street, we concluded

															"that § 2, Eleventh contemplated compulsory unionism to force
employees to share the costs of negotiating and administering
collective agreements, and the costs of the adjustment and
settlement of disputes,"

															but that Congress did not intend "to provide the unions with a
means for forcing employees, over their objection, to support
political causes which they oppose." 367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 764 .
Construing Page 487 U. S. 752 the statute in light of this legislative history and purpose, we
held that, although § 2, Eleventh on its face authorizes the
collection from nonmembers of "periodic dues, initiation fees, and
assessments . . . uniformly required as a condition of
acquiring or retaining membership" in a union, 45 U.S.C. § 152,
Eleventh (b) (emphasis added), this authorization did not "ves[t]
the unions with unlimited power to spend exacted money." 367 U.S.
at 367 U. S. 768 .
We have since reaffirmed that "Congress' essential justification
for authorizing the union shop" limits the expenditures that may
properly be charged to nonmembers under § 2, Eleventh to those
"necessarily or reasonably incurred for the purpose of performing
the duties of an exclusive [bargaining] representative." Ellis
v. Railway Clerks, 466 U.S. at 466 U. S.
447 -448. Given the parallel purpose, structure, and
language of § 8(a)(3), we must interpret that provision in the same
manner. [ Footnote 7 ] Like § 2,
Eleventh, Page 487 U. S. 753 § 8(a)(3) permits the collection of "periodic dues and
initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or
retaining membership" in the union, [ Footnote 8 ] and, like its counterpart in the RLA, §
8(a)(3) was designed to remedy the inequities posed by "free
riders" who would otherwise unfairly profit from the Page 487 U. S. 754 Taft-Hartley Act's abolition of the closed shop. In the face of
such statutory congruity, only the most compelling evidence could
persuade us that Congress intended the nearly identical language of
these two provisions to have different meanings. Petitioners have
not proffered such evidence here. B (1) Petitioners claim that the union security provisions of the RLA
and NLRA can and should be read differently in light of the vastly
different history of unionism in the industries the two statutes
regulate. Thus, they note that, in Street, we emphasized
the "longstanding tradition of voluntary unionism" in the railway
industry prior to the 1951 amendment, and the fact that, in 1934,
Congress had expressly endorsed an "open shop" policy in the RLA.
367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 750 .
It was this historical background, petitioners contend, that led us
to conclude that, in amending the RLA in 1951, Congress

															"did not completely abandon the policy of full freedom of choice
embodied in the 1934 Act, but rather made inroads on it for the
limited purpose of eliminating the problems created by the 'free
rider.'" Id. at 367 U. S. 767 .
The history of union security in industries governed by the NLRA
was precisely the opposite: under the Wagner Act of 1935, all forms
of compulsory unionism, including the closed shop, were permitted.
Petitioners accordingly argue that the inroads Congress made in
1947 on the policy of compulsory unionism were likewise limited,
and were designed to remedy only those "carefully defined" abuses
of the union shop system that Congress had expressly identified.
Brief for Petitioners 42. Because agreements requiring the payment
of uniform dues were not among these specified abuses, petitioners
contend that § 8(a) (3) cannot plausibly be read to prohibit the
collection of fees in excess of those necessary to cover the costs
of collective bargaining. Page 487 U. S. 755 We find this argument unpersuasive for several reasons. To begin
with, the fact that Congress sought to remedy "the most serious
abuses of compulsory union membership," S.Rep. at 7, Leg.Hist. 413,
hardly suggests that the Taft-Hartley Act effected only limited
changes in union security practices. Quite to the contrary, in Street. we concluded that Congress' purpose in amending
the RLA was "limited" precisely because Congress did not perceive
voluntary unionism as the source of widespread and flagrant abuses,
and thus modified the railroad industry's open shop system only to
the extent necessary to eliminate the problems associated with
"free riders." That Congress viewed the Wagner Act's regime of
compulsory unionism as seriously flawed, on the other hand,
indicates that its purposes in overhauling that system were, if
anything, far less limited, and not, as petitioners and the dissent
contend, equally circumspect. Not surprisingly, therefore -- and in
stark contrast to petitioners' "limited inroads" theory --
congressional opponents of the Taft-Hartley Act's union security
provisions understood the Act to provide only the most grudging
authorization of such agreements, permitting "union-shop
agreement[s] only under limited and administratively burdensome
conditions." S.Rep. pt. 2, p. 8, Leg.Hist. 470 (Minority Report).
That understanding comports with our own recognition that

															"Congress' decision to allow union security agreements at
all reflects its concern that . . . the parties to a
collective bargaining agreement be allowed to provide that there be
no employees who are getting the benefits of union representation
without paying for them." Oil Workers v. Mobil Oil Corp., 426 U.S. at 426 U. S. 416 (emphasis added). Congress thus did not set out in 1947 simply to
tinker in some limited fashion with the NLRA's authorization of
union security agreements. Rather, to the extent Congress preserved
the status quo, it did so because of the considerable
evidence adduced at congressional hearings indicating that "such
agreements promoted stability by eliminating free riders,'"
S.Rep. at 7, Page 487 U. S.
756 Leg.Hist. 413, and Congress accordingly "gave unions the power to contract to meet that problem while withholding from unions the power to cause the discharge of
employees for any other reason." Radio Officers v. NLRB, 347 U.S. at 347 U. S. 41 (emphasis added). We therefore think it not only permissible but
altogether proper to read § 8(a)(3), as we read § 2, Eleventh, in
light of this animating principle.

															Finally, however much union security practices may have differed
between the railway and NLRA-governed industries prior to 1951, it
is abundantly clear that Congress itself understood its actions in
1947 and 1951 to have placed these respective industries on an
equal footing insofar as compulsory unionism was concerned. Not
only did the 1951 proponents of the union shop propose adding to
the RLA language nearly identical to that of § 8(a)(3), they
repeatedly insisted that the purpose of the amendment was to confer
on railway unions precisely the same right to negotiate and enter
into union security agreements that all unions subject to the NLRA
enjoyed. See n 4, supra. Indeed, a subtheme running throughout the comments
of these supporters was that the inequity of permitting "free
riders" in the railroad industry was especially egregious in view
of the fact that the Taft-Hartley Act gave exclusive bargaining
representatives in all other industries adequate means to redress
such problems. It would surely come as a surprise to these
legislators to learn that their efforts to provide these same means
of redress to railway unions were frustrated by the very historical
disparity they sought to eliminate. (2) Petitioners also rely on certain aspects of the Taft-Hartley
Act's legislative history as evidence that Congress intended to
permit the collection and use of full union dues, including those
allocable to activities other than collective bargaining. Again,
however, we find this history insufficient to compel a Page 487 U. S. 757 broader construction of § 8(a)(3) than that accorded § 2,
Eleventh in Street. First and foremost, petitioners point to the fact that Congress
expressly considered proposals regulating union finances, but
ultimately placed only a few limitations on the collection and use
of dues and fees, and otherwise left unions free to arrange their
financial affairs as they saw fit. In light of this history and the
specific prohibitions Congress did enact, petitioners argue that
there is no warrant for implying any further limitations on the
amount of dues equivalents that unions may collect or the manner in
which they may use them. As originally passed, § 7(b) of the House
bill guaranteed union members the "right to be free from
unreasonable or discriminatory financial demands of" unions.
Leg.Hist. 176. Similarly, § 8(c) of the bill, the so-called "bill
of rights for union members," H.R.Rep. at 31, Leg.Hist. 322, set
out 10 protections against arbitrary action by union officers, one
of which made it an unfair labor practice for a union to impose
initiation fees in excess of $25 without NLRB approval, or to fix
dues in amounts that were unreasonable, nonuniform, or not approved
by majority vote of the members. Id. at 53. In addition, §
304 of the bill prohibited unions from making contributions to or
expenditures on behalf of candidates for federal office. Id. at 97-98. The conferees adopted the latter provision, see Pipefitters v. United States, 407 U.
S. 385 , 407 U. S. 405 (1972), and agreed to a prohibition on "excessive" initiation fees, see § 8(b)(5), 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(5), but the Senate
steadfastly resisted any further attempts to regulate internal
union affairs. Referring to the House provisions, Senator Taft
explained:

															"[T]he Senate conferees refused to agree to the inclusion of
this subsection in the conference agreement, since they felt that
it was unwise to authorize an agency of the Government to undertake
such elaborate policing of the internal affairs of unions as this
section contemplated. . . . In the opinion of the Senate conferees,
the language Page 487 U. S. 758 which protected an employee from losing his job if a union
expelled him for some reason other than nonpayment of dues and
initiation fees, uniformly required of all members, was considered
sufficient protection."

															93 Cong.Rec. 6443 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1540.

															Petitioners would have us infer from the demise of this "bill of
rights" that Congress

															"'rejected . . . general federal restrictions on either the dues
equivalents that employees may be required to pay or the uses to
which unions may put such dues equivalents,'"

															and that, aside from the prohibition on political expenditures,
Congress placed no limitations on union exactions other than the
requirement that they be equal to uniform dues. Brief for
Petitioners 39-40 (quoting Brief for United States as Amicus
Curiae 19). We believe petitioners' reliance on this
legislative compromise is misplaced. The House bill did not purport
to set out the rights of nonmembers who are compelled to
pay union dues, but rather sought to establish a "bill of rights
for union members " vis-a-vis their union leaders.
H.R.Rep. at 31, Leg.Hist. 322 (emphasis added). Thus, § 8(c) of the
House bill sought to regulate, among other things, the ability of
unions to fine, discipline, suspend, or expel members; the manner
in which unions conduct certain elections or maintain financial
records; and the extent to which they can compel contributions to
insurance or other benefit plans, or encumber the rights of members
to resign. Leg.Hist. 52-56. The debate over these provisions
focused on the desirability of Government oversight of internal
union affairs, and a myriad of reasons having nothing whatever to
do with the rights of nonmembers accounted for Congress' decision
to forgo such detailed regulation. In rejecting any limitation on
dues, therefore, Congress was not concerned with restrictions on
"dues equivalents," but rather with the administrative burdens
and Page 487 U. S. 759 potential threat to individual liberties posed by Government
regulation of purely internal union matters. [ Footnote 9 ]

															It simply does not follow from this that Congress left unions
free to exact dues equivalents from nonmembers in any amount they
please, no matter how unrelated those fees may be to collective
bargaining activities. On the contrary, the complete lack of
congressional concern for the rights of nonmembers in the debate
surrounding the House "bill of rights" is perfectly consistent with
the view that Congress understood § 8(a)(3) to afford nonmembers
adequate protection by authorizing the collection of only those
fees necessary to finance collective bargaining activities: because
the amount of such fees would be fixed by their underlying purpose
-- defraying the costs of collective bargaining -- Congress would
have every reason to believe that the lack of any limitations on
union dues was entirely irrelevant so far as the rights of
nonmembers were concerned. In short, we think it far safer and far
more appropriate to construe § 8(a)(3) in light of its legislative
justification, i.e., ensuring that nonmembers who obtain
the benefits of union representation can be made to pay for them,
than by drawing inferences from Congress' rejection of a proposal
that did not address the rights of nonmembers at all.

															Petitioners also deem it highly significant that, prior to 1947,
unions " rather typically'" used their members' dues for a
"`variety of purposes . . . in addition to meeting the . . . costs
of collective bargaining,'" Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 373 U. S. 746 , 373 U. S. 754 (1963), and yet Congress, which was presumably well aware of the
practice, in no way limited the Page 487 U. S. 760 uses to which unions could put fees collected from nonmembers.
This silence, petitioners suggest, should be understood as
congressional acquiescence in these practices. The short answer to
this argument is that Congress was equally well aware of the same
practices by railway unions, see Street, 367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 767 ("We may assume that Congress was . . . fully conversant with the
long history of intensive involvement of the railroad unions in
political activities"); Ellis, 466 U.S. at 466 U. S. 446 ("Congress was adequately informed about the broad scope of union
activities"), yet neither in Street nor in any of the
cases that followed it have we deemed Congress' failure in § 2,
Eleventh to prohibit or otherwise regulate such expenditures as an
endorsement of fee collections unrelated to collective bargaining
expenses. We see no reason to give greater weight to Congress'
silence in the NLRA than we did in the RLA, particularly where such
silence is again perfectly consistent with the rationale underlying
§ 8(a)(3): prohibiting the collection of fees that are not germane
to representational activities would have been redundant if
Congress understood § 8(a)(3) simply to enable unions to charge
nonmembers only for those activities that actually benefit
them.

															Finally, petitioners rely on a statement Senator Taft made
during floor debate in which he explained how the provisos of §
8(a)(3) remedied the abuses of the closed shop. "The great
difference [between the closed shop and the union shop]," the
Senator stated,

															"is that [under the union shop] a man can get a job without
joining the union or asking favors of the union. . . . The fact
that the employee has to pay dues to the union seems to me to be
much less important."

															93 Cong.Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1422. On its face, the
statement -- made during a lengthy legislative debate -- is
somewhat ambiguous, for the reference to "union dues" could connote
"full union dues" or could as easily be a shorthand method of
referring to "collective bargaining-related dues." In any event, as
noted above, Senator Taft later described § 2, Eleventh as "almost
the exact provisions . . . of the Taft-Hartley law," 96 Cong. Page 487 U. S. 761 Rec. 16267 (1950), and we have construed the latter statute as
permitting the exaction of only those dues related to
representational activities. In view of Senator Taft's own
comparison of the two statutory provisions, his comment in 1947
fails to persuade us that Congress intended virtually identical
language in two statutes to have different meanings. (3) We come then to petitioners' final reason for distinguishing Street. Five years prior to our decision in that case, we
ruled in Railway Employees v. Hanson, 351 U.
S. 225 (1956), that, because the RLA preempts all state
laws banning union security agreements, the negotiation and
enforcement of such provisions in railroad industry contracts
involves "governmental action," and is therefore subject to
constitutional limitations. Accordingly, in Street, we
interpreted § 2, Eleventh to avoid the serious constitutional
question that would otherwise be raised by a construction
permitting unions to expend governmentally compelled fees on
political causes that nonmembers find objectionable. See 367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 749 .
No such constitutional questions lurk here, petitioners contend,
for § 14(b) of the NLRA expressly preserves the authority of States
to outlaw union security agreements. Thus, petitioners' argument
runs, the federal preemption essential to Hanson's finding
of governmental action is missing in the NLRA context, and we
therefore need not strain to avoid the plain meaning of § 8(a)(3)
as we did with § 2, Eleventh.

															We need not decide whether the exercise of rights permitted,
though not compelled, by § 8(a)(3) involves state action. Cf.
Steelworkers v. Sadlowski, 457 U. S. 102 , 457 U. S. 121 ,
n. 16 (1982) (union's decision to adopt an internal rule governing
its elections does not involve state action); Steelworkers v.
Weber, 443 U. S. 193 , 443 U. S. 200 (1979) (negotiation of collective bargaining agreement's
affirmative action plan does not involve state action). Even
assuming that it does not, and Page 487 U. S. 762 that the NLRA and RLA therefore differ in this respect, we do
not believe that the absence of any constitutional concerns in this
case would warrant reading the nearly identical language of §
8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh differently. It is of course true that
federal statutes are to be construed so as to avoid serious doubts
as to their constitutionality, and that, when faced with such
doubts the Court will first determine whether it is fairly possible
to interpret the statute in a manner that renders it
constitutionally valid. Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida
Gulf Coast Building & Construction Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568 (1988); Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S.
22 , 285 U. S. 62 (1932). But statutory construction may not be pressed " to the
point of disingenuous evasion,'" United States v. Locke, 471 U. S. 84 , 471 U. S. 96 (1985) (quoting George Moore Ice Cream Co. v. Rose, 289 U. S. 373 , 289 U. S. 379 (1933)), and in avoiding constitutional questions, the Court may
not embrace a construction that "is plainly contrary to the intent
of Congress." DeBartolo, supra, at 485 U. S. 575 .
In Street, we concluded that our interpretation of § 2,
Eleventh was "not only `fairly possible' but entirely reasonable,"
367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 750 ,
and we have adhered to that interpretation since. We therefore
decline to construe the language of § 8(a)(3) differently from that
of § 2, Eleventh on the theory that our construction of the latter
provision was merely constitutionally expedient. Congress enacted
the two provisions for the same purpose, eliminating "free riders,"
and that purpose dictates our construction of § 8(a)(3) no less
than it did that of § 2, Eleventh, regardless of whether the
negotiation of union security agreements under the NLRA partakes of
governmental action. We conclude that § 8(a)(3), like its statutory equivalent, § 2,
Eleventh of the RLA, authorizes the exaction of only those fees and
dues necessary to "performing the duties of an exclusive
representative of the employees in dealing with the Page 487 U. S. 763 employer on labor-management issues." Ellis, 466 U.S.
at 466 U. S. 448 .
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed. JUSTICE KENNEDY took no part in the consideration or decision of
this case.

															[ Footnote 1 ]

															The courts below, of course, possessed jurisdiction over
respondents' constitutional challenges. Whether or not the NLRB
entertains constitutional claims, see Florida Gulf Coast
Building & Construction Trades Council (Edward J. DeBartolo
Corp.), 273 N.L.R.B. 1431, 1432 (1985) (Board "will presume
the constitutionality of the Act [it] administer[s]"); Handy
Andy, Inc., 228 N.L.R.B. 447, 452 (1977) (Board lacks the
authority "to determine the constitutionality of mandatory language
in the Act"); see also Johnson v. Robison, 415 U.
S. 361 , 415 U. S. 368 (1974) ("Adjudication of the constitutionality of congressional
enactments has generally been thought beyond the jurisdiction of
administrative agencies"); cf. NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of
Chicago, 440 U. S. 490 , 440 U. S.
495 -499 (1979) (reviewing Board's history of determining
its jurisdiction over religious schools in light of Free Exercise
Clause concerns), such claims would not fall within the Board's
primary jurisdiction.

															[ Footnote 2 ]

															Section 8(b)(2) makes it unlawful for unions "to cause or
attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee in
violation of subsection (a)(3)," 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(2);
accordingly, the provisos to § 8(a)(3) also allow unions to seek
and enter into union security agreements.

															[ Footnote 3 ]

															Section 2, Eleventh provides, in pertinent part:

															"Notwithstanding any other provisions of this chapter, or of any
other statute or law of the United States, or Territory thereof, or
of any State, any carrier or carriers as defined in this chapter
and a labor organization or labor organizations duly designated and
authorized to represent employees in accordance with the
requirements of this chapter shall be permitted -- "

															"(a) to make agreements, requiring, as a condition of continued
employment, that within sixty days following the beginning of such
employment, or the effective date of such agreements, whichever is
later, all employees shall become members of the labor organization
representing their craft or class: Provided, That no such
agreement shall require such condition of employment with respect
to employees to whom membership is not available upon the same
terms and conditions as are generally applicable to any other
member or with respect to employees to whom membership was denied
or terminated for any reason other than the failure of the employee
to tender the periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments (not
including fines and penalties) uniformly required as a condition of
acquiring or retaining membership."

															45 U.S.C. § 152, Eleventh.

															Although § 2, Eleventh allows termination of an employee for
failure to pay "periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments
(not including fines and penalties), " the italicized language
was added to the RLA only because some railway unions required only
nominal dues, and financed their bargaining activities through
monthly assessments; having added "assessments" as a proper element
of agency fees, Congress simply clarified that the term did not
refer, as it often did in the parlance of other industries, to
fines or penalties. See Machinists v. Street, 367 U.
S. 740 , 367 U. S. 766 (1961). In addition, § 2, Eleventh preempts state laws that would
otherwise ban union shops. This difference, however, has no bearing
on the types of union security agreements that the statute permits,
and thus does not distinguish the union shop authorization of § 2,
Eleventh from that of § 8(a)(3).

															[ Footnote 4 ] See also S.Rep. No. 2262, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 3
(1950) ("[T]he terms of [the bill] are substantially the same as
those of the Labor-Management Relations Act"); H.R.Rep. No. 2811,
81st Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1950) (the bill allows unions "to
negotiate agreements with railroads and airlines of a character
permitted in the case of labor organizations in the other large
industries of the country"); 96 Cong.Rec. 15737 (1950) (remarks of
Sen. Hill) ("The bill . . . is designed merely to extend to
employees and employers subject to the [RLA] rights now possessed
by employees and employers under the Taft-Hartley Act"); id. at 15740 (remarks of Sen. Lehman) ("The railroad
brotherhoods should have the same right that any other union has to
negotiate for the union shop"); id. at 16267 (remarks of
Sen. Taft) ("[T]he bill inserts in the railway mediation law almost
the exact provisions . . . of the Taft-Hartley law"); id. at 17049 (remarks of Rep. Beckworth) (the bill permits railway
unions "to bring about agreements with carriers providing for union
shops, a principle enacted into law in the Taft-Hartley bill"); id. at 17055 (remarks of Rep. Biemiller) ("[The] provision
. . . gives to railway labor the right to bargain for the union
shop just as any other labor group in the country may do"); id. at 17056 (remarks of Rep. Bennett) ("The purpose of
the bill is to amend the [RLA] to give railroad workers . . . the
same right to enjoy the benefits and privileges of a union shop
arrangement that is now accorded to all workmen in most other types
of employment"); ibid. (remarks of Rep. Heselton) ("[T]his
bill primarily provides for the same kind of treatment of railroad
and airline employees as is now accorded employees in all other
industries under existing law"); id. at 17059 (remarks of
Rep. Harris) ("The fundamental proposition involved in the bill [is
to extend] the national policy expressed in the Taft-Hartley Act
regarding the lawfulness of . . . the union shop . . . to . . .
railroad and airline labor organizations"); id. at 17061
(remarks of Rep. Vursell) ("This bill simply extends to the
railroad workers and employers the benefit of this provision now
enjoyed by all other laboring men under the Taft-Hartley Act").

															[ Footnote 5 ]

															This sentiment was repeated throughout the hearings and lengthy
debate that preceded passage of the bill. See, e.g., 93
Cong.Rec. 3557 (1947), Leg.Hist. 740 (remarks of Rep. Jennings)
(because members of the minority "would get the benefit of that
contract made between the majority of their fellow workmen and the
management, . . . it is not unreasonable that they should go along
and contribute dues like the others"); 93 Cong Rec. 3558, Leg.Hist.
741 (remarks of Rep. Robison) ("If [union-negotiated] benefits come
to the workers all alike, is it not only fair that the
beneficiaries, whether the majority or the minority, contribute
their equal share in securing these benefits?"); 93 Cong.Rec. 3837,
Leg.Hist. 1010 (remarks of Sen. Taft) ([T]he legislation, "in
effect, . . . say[s], that no one can get a free ride in such a
shop. That meets one of the arguments for a union shop. The
employee has to pay the union dues"); S.Rep. at 6, Leg.Hist. 412
("In testifying before this Committee, . . . leaders of organized
labor have stressed the fact that, in the absence of [union
security] provisions, many employees sharing the benefits of what
unions are able to accomplish by collective bargaining will refuse
to pay their share of the cost"). See also H.R.Rep. No.
245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 80 (1947) (H.R.Rep.), Leg.Hist. 371
("[Closed shop] agreements prevent nonunion workers from sharing in
the benefits resulting from union activities without also sharing
in the obligations").

															[ Footnote 6 ]

															Although Senator Taft qualified his comparison by explaining
that the provisions of the Taft-Hartley law were incorporated into
the RLA "so far as they fit," this qualification merely reflected
the fact that the laws were not identical in all respects, their
chief difference inhering in their preemptive effect, or lack
thereof, on all state regulation of union security agreements. See n 3, supra. This difference, of course, does not detract from
the near identity of the provisions insofar as they confer on
unions and employers authority to enter into union security
agreements, nor does it in any way undermine the force of Senator
Taft's comparison with respect to this authority. Indeed, Taft
himself explained that he initially

															"objected to some of the original terms of the bill, but when
the [bill's] proponents agreed to accept amendments which made the
provisions identical with the Taft-Hartley law,"

															he decided to support the law. 96 Cong.Rec. 16267 (1950)
(emphasis added).

															[ Footnote 7 ]

															We note that the NLRB, at least for a time, also took the
position that the uniform "periodic dues and initiation fees"
required by § 8(a)(3) were limited by the congressional concern
with free riders to those fees necessary to finance collective
bargaining activities. In Teamsters Local No. 959, 167
N.L.R.B. 1042, 1045 (1967), the Board explained:

															"[T]he right to charge 'periodic dues' granted unions by the
proviso to Section 8(a)(3) is concerned exclusively with the
concept that those enjoying the benefits of collective bargaining
should bear their fair share of the costs incurred by the
collective bargaining agent in representing them. But it is
manifest that dues that do not contribute, and are not intended to
contribute, to the cost of operation of a union in its capacity as
collective bargaining agent cannot be justified as necessary for
the elimination of 'free riders.'"

															The Board, however, subsequently repudiated that view. See
Detroit Mailers Union No. 40, 192 N.L.R.B. 951, 952
(1971).

															Notwithstanding this unequivocal language, the dissent advises
us, post at 487 U. S. 767 ,
n. 5, that we have misread Teamsters Local. Choosing to
ignore the above-quoted passage, the dissent asserts that the Board
never "embraced . . . the view," post at 487 U. S. 767 ,
n. 5, that "periodic dues and initiation fees" are limited to those
that finance the union in its capacity as collective bargaining
agent, because, in Teamsters Local itself, the Board
concluded that the dues in question "were actually special
purpose funds,'" and were thus "`assessments' not contemplated by
the proviso to § 8(a)(3)." Post at 487 U. S. 767 ,
n. 5 (quoting Teamsters Local, supra, at 1044). This
observation, however, avails the dissent nothing; obviously, once
the Board determined that the dues were not used for collective
bargaining purposes, the conclusion that they were not dues within
the meaning of § 8(a)(3) followed automatically. Under the
dissent's reading, had the union simply built the increase into its
dues base, rather than initially denominating it as a "special
assessment," it would have been entitled to exact the fees as
"periodic dues" and spend them for precisely the same purposes
without running afoul of § 8(a)(3). The Board made entirely clear,
however, that it was the purpose of the fee, not the
manner in which it was collected, that controlled, and thus
explained that "[m]onies collected for a credit union or building fund, even if
regularly recurring, as here, are obviously not 'for the
maintenance of the' [union] as an organization, but are for a
'special purpose,' and could be terminated without affecting the continued existence of [the union] as the bargaining
representative. " Teamsters Local, supra, at 1045 (emphasis added).
Finally, the dissent's portrayal of Teamsters Local as
part of an unbroken string of consistent Board decisions on the
issue is belied by the dissenting statement in Detroit
Mailers, in which Member Jenkins, who joined the decision in Teamsters Local, charged that the Board had ignored the
clear holding of that earlier case. 192 N.L.R.B. at 952-953.

															[ Footnote 8 ]

															Construing both § 8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh as permitting the
collection and use of only those fees germane to collective
bargaining does not, as petitioners seem to believe, read the term
"uniform" out of the statutes. The uniformity requirement makes
clear that the costs of representational activities must be borne
equally by all those who benefit; without this language, unions
could conceivably establish different dues rates both among members
and between members and nonmembers, and thereby apportion the costs
of collective bargaining unevenly. Indeed, the uniformity
requirement inures to the benefit of dissident union members as
well, by ensuring that, if the union discriminates against them by
charging higher dues, their failure to pay such dues cannot be
grounds for discharge. See § 8(b)(2), 29 U.S.C. §
158(b)(2) (making it an unfair labor practice for a union "to cause
or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an
employee . . . with respect to whom membership in [the union] has
been denied or terminated on some ground other than [the] failure
to tender the periodic dues and initiation fees uniformly
required") (emphasis added).

															[ Footnote 9 ] See, e.g., H.R.Rep. at 76-77, Leg.Hist. 367-368
(Minority Views) (charging that Government regulation was
essentially impossible; that the encroachment on the rights of
voluntary organizations such as unions was "without parallel"; and
that such regulation invited harassment by rival unions and
employers, and ultimately complete governmental control over union
affairs).

															JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR and JUSTICE SCALIA
join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

															I agree that the District Court and the Court of Appeals
properly exercised jurisdiction over respondents' duty of fair
representation and First Amendment claims, and that the National
Labor Relations Board had primary jurisdiction over respondents'
claim brought under § 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act
of 1935, 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3). I also
agree that the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to decide the §
8(a)(3) question raised by respondents' duty of fair representation
claim. [ Footnote 2/1 ] I therefore
join Parts I and II of the Court's opinion.

															My agreement with the majority ends there, however, for I cannot
agree with its resolution of the § 8(a)(3) issue. Without the
decision in Machinists v. Street, 367 U.
S. 740 (1961), involving the Railway Labor Act, the
Court could not reach the result it does today. Our accepted mode
of resolving statutory questions would not lead to a construction
of § 8(a)(3) so foreign to that section's express language and
legislative history, which show that Congress did not intend to
limit either the amount of "agency fees" (or what the majority
labels "dues equivalents") a union may collect under a union
security agreement, or the union's expenditure of such funds. The
Court's excessive reliance on Street to reach a Page 487 U. S. 764 contrary conclusion is manifested by its unique line of
reasoning. No sooner is the language of § 8(a)(3) intoned than the
Court abandons all attempt at construction of this statute, and
leaps to its interpretation over a quarter century ago of another
statute enacted by a different Congress, a statute with a distinct
history and purpose. See ante at 487 U. S.
744 -745. I am unwilling to offend our established
doctrines of statutory construction and strain the meaning of the
language used by Congress in § 8(a)(3) simply to conform §
8(a)(3)'s construction to the Court's interpretation of similar
language in a different, later-enacted statute, an interpretation
which is itself "not without its difficulties." Abood v.
Detroit Board of Education, 431 U. S. 209 , 431 U. S. 232 (1977) (characterizing the Court's decision in Street ). I
therefore dissent from Parts 487 U. S. S.
762|>IV of the Court's opinion. I As the Court observes, "we have never before delineated the
precise limits § 8(a)(3) places on the negotiation and enforcement
of union security agreements." Ante at 487 U. S. 745 .
Unlike the majority, however, I think the issue is an entirely new
one. I shall endeavor, therefore, to resolve it in accordance with
our well-settled principles of statutory construction. A As with any question of statutory interpretation, the starting
point is the language of the statute itself. Section 8(a)(3) makes
it unlawful for an employer to

															"discriminat[e] in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any
term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage
membership in any labor organization."

															29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3). Standing alone, this proscription, and
thus § 8(b)(2)'s corollary proscription, [ Footnote 2/2 ] effectively would outlaw union security
agreements. The proscription, however, is qualified by two
provisos. The first, which appeared initially in § 8(3) of the Page 487 U. S. 765 NLRA as originally enacted in 1935, 49 Stat. 452, generally
excludes union security agreements from statutory condemnation by
explaining that

															"nothing in [ the NLRA] or in any other statute of the United
States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a
labor organization . . . to require as a condition of employment
membership therein . . . if such labor organization is the
representative of the employees as provided in section 159(a) of
this title. . . ."

															§ 8(a)(3), 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3). The second proviso,
incorporated in § 8(a)(3) by the Taft-Hartley Amendments of 1947,
61 Stat. 141, [ Footnote 2/3 ]
circumscribes the first proviso's general exemption by the
following limitations:

															"[N]o employer shall justify any discrimination against an
employee for nonmembership in a labor organization . . . if he has
reasonable grounds for believing that membership was denied or
terminated for reasons other than the failure of the employee to
tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required
as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership."

															The plain language of these statutory provisions, read together,
permits an employer and union to enter into an agreement requiring all employees, as a condition of continued employment, to
pay uniform periodic dues and initiation fees. [ Footnote 2/4 ] The second proviso expressly allows
an employer to terminate any "employee," pursuant to the union
security agreement permitted by the first proviso, if the
employee Page 487 U. S. 766 fails "to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees
uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining
membership" in the union. 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3). The term
"employee," as statutorily defined, includes any employee, without
regard to union membership. See 29 U.S.C. § 152(3).
Union-member employees and non-union-member employees are treated
alike under § 8(a)(3).

															"[W]e assume that the legislative purpose is expressed by
the ordinary meaning of the words used.'" American Tobacco Co.
v. Patterson, 456 U. S. 63 , 456 U. S. 68 (1982), quoting Richards v. United States, 369 U. S.
1 , 369 U. S. 9 (1962).
The terms "dues" and "fees," as used in the proviso, can refer to
nothing other than the regular, periodic dues and initiation fees
paid by "voluntary" union members. This was the apparent
understanding of the Court in those decisions in which it held that
§ 8(a)(3) permits union security agreements. See NLRB v.
General Motors Corp., 373 U. S. 734 , 373 U. S. 736 (1963) (approving a union security proposal that would have
conditioned employment "upon the payment of sums equal to the
initiation fee and regular monthly dues paid by the union
members"); Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 373 U.
S. 746 , 373 U. S. 753 (1963) (upholding agreement requiring nonmembers to pay a "service
fee [which] is admittedly the exact equal of membership initiation
fees and monthly dues"). It also has been the consistent view of
the NLRB, [ Footnote 2/5 ] "the
agency entrusted Page 487 U. S. 767 by Congress with the authority to administer the NLRA." Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building &
Construction Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568 , 485 U. S. 574 (1988). The provisos do not give any employee, union member or not,
the right to pay less than the full amount of regular dues and
initiation fees charged to all other bargaining unit employees. Page 487 U. S. 768 The Court's conclusion that § 8(a)(3) prohibits petitioners from
requiring respondents to pay fees for purposes other than those
"germane" to collective bargaining, contract administration, and
grievance adjustment simply cannot be derived from the plain
language of the statute. In effect, the Court accepts respondents'
contention that the words "dues" and "fees," as used in § 8(a)(3),
refer not to the periodic amount a union charges its members, but
to the portion of that amount that the union expends on statutory
collective bargaining. [ Footnote
2/6 ] See Brief for Respondents 17-20. Not only is this
reading implausible as a matter of simple English usage, but it is
contradicted by the decisions of this Court and of the NLRB
interpreting the section. Section 8(a)(3) does not speak of "dues"
and "fees" that employees covered by a Page 487 U. S. 769 union security agreement may be required to tender to their
union representative; rather, the section speaks only of "the
periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a
condition of acquiring or retaining membership " (emphasis
added). Thus, the section, by its terms, defines "periodic dues"
and "initiation fees" as those dues and fees "uniformly required"
of all members, not as a portion of full dues. As recognized by
this Court,

															"dues collected from members may be used for a variety of
purposes, in addition to meeting the union's costs of collective
bargaining. Unions rather typically use their membership dues to do
those things which the members authorize the union to do in their
interest and on their behalf." Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 373 U.S. at 373 U. S.
753 -754 (internal quotations omitted). By virtue of §
8(a)(3), such dues may be required from any employee under
a union security agreement. Nothing in § 8(a)(3) limits, or even
addresses, the purposes to which a union may devote the moneys
collected pursuant to such an agreement. [ Footnote 2/7 ] B The Court's attempt to squeeze support from the legislative
history for its reading of congressional intent contrary to the
plain language of § 8(a)(3) is unavailing. As its own discussion of
the relevant legislative materials reveals, ante at 487 U. S.
747 -750, there is no indication that the 1947 Congress
intended to limit the union's authority to collect from nonmembers
the same periodic dues and initiation fees it collects from
members. Indeed, on balance, the legislative history reinforces Page 487 U. S. 770 what the statutory language suggests: the provisos neither limit
the uses to which agency fees may be put nor require nonmembers to
be charged less than the "uniform" dues and initiation fees.

															In Machinists v. NLRB, 362 U.
S. 411 (1960), the Court stated:

															"It is well known, and the legislative history of the 1947
Taft-Hartley amendments plainly shows, that § 8(a)(3) -- including
its proviso -- represented the Congressional response to the
competing demands of employee freedom of choice and union security.
Had Congress thought one or the other overriding, it would
doubtless have found words adequate to express that judgment. It
did not do so; it accommodated both interests, doubtless in a
manner unsatisfactory to the extreme partisans of each, by drawing
a line it thought reasonable. It is not for the administrators of
the Congressional mandate to approach either side of that line
grudgingly." Id. at 362 U. S. 418 ,
n. 7.

															The legislative debates surrounding the adoption of § 8(a)(3) in
1947 show that, in crafting the proviso to § 8(a)(3), Congress was
attempting "only to remedy the most serious abuses of
compulsory union membership. . . .'" NLRB v. General Motors
Corp., 373 U.S. at 373 U. S. 741 ,
quoting from the legislative history. The particular "abuses"
Congress identified and attempted to correct were two: the closed
shop, which "deprives management of any real choice of the men it
hires" and gives union leaders "a method of depriving employees of their jobs, and in some
cases [of] a means of securing a livelihood in their trade or
calling, for purely capricious reasons,"

															S.Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1947) (S.Rep.),
Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947
(Committee Print compiled for the Subcommittee on Labor of the
Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare), p. 412 (1974)
(Leg.Hist.); and those union shops in which the union sought to
obtain indirectly the same Page 487 U. S. 771 result as that obtained through a closed shop by negotiating a
union-shop agreement and maintaining a "closed" union where it was
free to deny membership to an individual arbitrarily or
discriminatorily and then compel the discharge of that person
because of his nonmembership, 93 Cong.Rec. 3836-3837, 4193,
4885-4886 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1010, 10961097, 1420-1421 (remarks of
Sen. Taft); 93 Cong.Rec. 4135, Leg.Hist. 1061-1062 (remarks of Sen.
Ellender). Senator Taft, the chief sponsor of the Senate bill, in
arguing against an amendment to proscribe all forms of union
security agreements, stated that it was unwise to outlaw union
security agreements altogether,

															"since there had been for such a long time so many union shops
in the United States, [and] since, in many trades, it was entirely
customary, and had worked satisfactorily,"

															and that therefore the appropriate approach was to "meet the
problem of dealing with the abuses which had appeared." 93
Cong.Rec. 4885, Leg.Hist. 1420. [ Footnote 2/8 ]

															"Congress Page 487 U. S. 772 [also] recognized that, in the absence of a union security
provision"

															"many employees sharing the benefits of what unions are able to
accomplish by collective bargaining will refuse to pay their share
of the cost." NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 373 U.S. at 373 U. S.
740 -741, quoting S.Rep. at 6, Leg.Hist. 412.

															Congress' solution was to ban the closed shop and to permit the
enforcement of union shop agreements as long as union membership is
available "on the same terms and conditions" to all employees, and
mandatory discharge is required only for "nonpayment of regular
dues and initiation fees." S.Rep. at 7, 20, Leg.Hist. 413, 426.
Congress was of the view that, as Senator Taft stated,

															"[t]he fact that the employee will have to pay dues to the union
seems . . . to be much less important. The important thing is that
the man will have the job."

															93 Cong.Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1422.

															"[A] man can get a job with an employer, and can continue in
that job if, in effect, he joins the union and pays the union
dues."

															" * * * *" "If he pays the dues without joining the union, he has the right
to be employed."

															93 Cong.Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg.Hist. Page 487 U. S. 773 1421-1422. There is no serious doubt that what Congress had in
mind was a situation in which the nonmember employee would "pay the
same dues as other members of the union." 93 Cong.Rec. 4272 (1947),
Leg.Hist. 1142 (remarks of Sen. Taft); accord, 93
Cong.Rec. 3557 (1947), Leg.Hist. 740 (remarks of Sen. Jennings)
(members of the minority "should go along and contribute dues like
the others"). In their financial obligations, therefore, these
employees were, "in effect," union members, and could not be
discharged pursuant to a union security agreement as long as they
maintained this aspect of union "membership." [ Footnote 2/9 ] This solution was viewed as "tak[ing]
care" of the free-rider issue. 93 Cong.Rec. 4887 (1947), Leg.Hist.
1422 (remarks of Sen. Taft).

															Throughout the hearings and lengthy debate on one of the most
hotly contested issues that confronted the 1947 Congress, not once
did any Member of Congress suggest that § 8(a)(3) did not leave
employers and unions free to adopt and enforce union security
agreements requiring all employees in the bargaining unit to pay an
amount equal to full union dues and standard initiation fees. Nor
did anyone suggest that § 8(a)(3) affected a union's expenditure of
such funds.

															Indeed, the legislative history indicates that Congress
affirmatively declined to place limitations on either the amount of
dues a union could charge or the uses to which it could put these
dues. The Court dismisses as irrelevant the fact that Congress
expressly rejected the House proposal that would have empowered the
NLRB to regulate the "reasonableness" of union dues and
expenditures. The Court finds meaningful the fact that

															"[t]he House bill did not purport to set out the Page 487 U. S. 774 rights of nonmembers who are compelled to pay union
dues, but rather sought to establish a 'bill of rights for union members ' vis-a-vis their union leaders. H.R.Rep.
at 31, Leg.Hist. 322 (emphasis added)." Ante at 487 U. S. 758 .
But this is a distinction without a difference. Contrary to the
Court's view, Congress viewed this proposal as directly related to
§ 8(a)(3); Congress clearly saw the nonmembers' interests in this
context as being represented by union members. [ Footnote 2/10 ] Thus, Senator Taft explained the
Senate conferees' reasons for refusing to accept the provisions in
the House bill:

															"In the opinion of the Senate conferees[,] the language which
protected an employee from losing his job if a union expelled him
for some reason other than nonpayment of dues and initiation fees,
uniformly required of all members, was considered sufficient
protection."

															93 Cong.Rec. 6443 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1540. Congress' decision, in
the course of the well-documented Senate-House compromise, not to
place any general federal restrictions on the levels or uses of
union dues, [ Footnote 2/11 ]
indicates Page 487 U. S. 775 that it did not intend the provisos to limit the uses to which
agency fees may be put.

															The Court invokes what it apparently sees as a single-minded
legislative purpose, namely, the eradication of a "free-rider"
problem, and then views the legislative history through this narrow
prism. The legislative materials demonstrate, however, that,
contrary to the impression left by the Court, Congress was not
guided solely by a desire to eliminate "free riders." The 1947
Congress that carefully crafted § 8(a)(3) was focusing on a quite
different problem -- the most serious abuses of compulsory
unionism. As the majority observes, "Congress carefully tailored
[its] solution to the evils at which it was aimed." Ante at 487 U. S. 749 .
In serving its purpose, Congress went only so far in foreclosing
compulsory unionism. It outlawed closed shops altogether, but
banned unions from using union security provisions only where those
provisions exact more than the initiation fees and "periodic dues"
uniformly required as conditions of union Page 487 U. S. 776 membership. Otherwise, it determined that the regulation of
union security agreements should be left to specific federal
legislation and to the legislatures and courts of the several
States. [ Footnote 2/12 ] Congress
explicitly declined to mandate the kind of particularized
regulation of union dues and fees which the Court attributes to it
today. II By suggesting that the 1947 Congress was driven principally by a
desire to eradicate a "free-rider" problem, the Court finds the
means not only to distort the legislative justification for §
8(a)(3) and to ignore the provision's plain language, but also to
draw a controlling parallelism to § 2, Eleventh of the Railway
Labor Act (RLA), 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U.S.C. § 152. As mistaken as the
Court is in its view of Congress' purpose in enacting § 8(a)(3),
the Court is even more mistaken in its reliance on this Court's
interpretation of § 2, Eleventh in Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740 (1961).

															The text of § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA is, of course, very much like
the text of the later-enacted § 2, Eleventh of the RLA. This
similarity, however, does not dictate the conclusion that the 1947
Congress intended § 8(a)(3) to have a meaning identical to that
which the 1951 Congress intended § 2, Eleventh to have. The Court
previously has held that the scope of the RLA is not identical to
that of the NLRA, and that courts should be wary of drawing
parallels between the two statutes. Page 487 U. S. 777 See, e.g., First National Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, 452 U. S. 666 , 452 U. S. 686 ,
n. 23 (1981); Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal
Co., 394 U. S. 369 , 394 U. S. 383 (1969). Thus, parallels between § 8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh,

															"like all parallels between the NLRA and the Railway Labor Act,
should be drawn with the utmost care and with full awareness of the
differences between the statutory schemes." Chicago & N.W. R. Co. v. Transportation Union, 402 U. S. 570 , 402 U. S. 579 ,
n. 11 (1971). Contrary to the majority's conclusion, ante at 487 U. S. 750 ,
the two provisions were not born of the "same concern[s]"; indeed,
they were born of competing concerns. This Court's interpretation
of § 2, Eleventh, therefore, provides no support for construing §
8(a)(3) in a fashion inconsistent with its plain language and
legislative history. [ Footnote
2/13 ]

															The considerations that enabled the Court to conclude in Street, 367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 750 ,
that it is " fairly possible'" and "entirely reasonable" to read
§ 2, Eleventh to proscribe union security agreements requiring
uniform payments from all bargaining unit employees are wholly
absent with respect to § 8(a)(3). In Street, the Court
stressed the fact that, from 1926, when the RLA was first enacted,
until 1951, when § 2, Eleventh assumed its present form, that Act
prohibited all forms of union security and declared a "policy of
complete freedom of choice of employees to join or not to join a
union." Ibid. By 1951, however, Congress recognized "the
expenses and burdens incurred by the unions in the administration
of the complex scheme of the [RLA]." 367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 751 .
The purpose advanced for amending the RLA in 1951 to authorize
union security agreements for the first time was "the
elimination Page 487 U. S. 778 of the `free riders.'" 367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 761 .
Given that background, the Court was persuaded that it was possible
to conclude that

															"Congress did not completely abandon the policy of full freedom
of choice embodied in the . . . Act, but rather made inroads on it
for the limited purpose of eliminating the problems created by the
'free rider.'" Id. at 367 U. S.
767 .

															The NLRA does not share the RLA's underlying policy, which
propelled the Court's interpretation of § 2, Eleventh in Street. Indeed, the history of the NLRA points in the
opposite direction: the original policy of the Wagner Act was to
permit all forms of union security agreements, and such agreements
were commonplace in 1947. Thus, in enacting § 8(a)(3), the 1947
Congress, unlike the 1951 Congress, was not making inroads on a
policy of full freedom of choice in order to provide "a specific
response," id. at 367 U. S. 751 , to a particular problem facing unions.
Rather, the 1947 amendments to § 8(a)(3) were designed to make an
inroad into a preexisting policy of the absolute freedom of private
parties under federal law to negotiate union security agreements.
It was a "limited" inroad, responding to carefully defined abuses
that Congress concluded had arisen in the union security agreements
permitted by the Wagner Act. The 1947 Congress did not enact §
8(a)(3) for the "same purpose" as did the 1951 Congress in enacting
§ 2, Eleventh. Therefore, contrary to the Court's conclusion, ante at 487 U. S. 762 ,
the latter purpose, "eliminating free riders,'" does not dictate our construction of § 8(a)(3), regardless of
its impact on our construction of § 2, Eleventh. In order to overcome this inevitable conclusion, the Court
relies on remarks made by a few Members of the Congress in enacting
the 1951 amendments to § 2, Eleventh of the RLA, which the Court
contends show that the 1951 Congress viewed those amendments as
identical to the amendments that had been made to § 8(a)(3) of the
NLRA in 1947. See ante at 487 U. S. 756 ; see also ante at 487 U. S. 746 ,
and n. 4. But even assuming the Court's view of the legislative
history of § 2, Eleventh Page 487 U. S. 779 is correct (and the legislative materials do not obviously
impart the message the Court receives [ Footnote 2/14 ]), it does not provide support for the
Court's strained reading of § 8(a)(3). Its only possible relevance
in this case is to evidence the 1951 Congress' understanding of a
statute that particular Congress did not enact. The relevant
question here, however, is what the 1947 Congress intended by the
statute that it enacted. "[I]t is well settled that "the views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for
inferring the intent of an earlier one."'" Russello v. United
States, 464 U. S. 16 , 464 U. S. 26 (1983), quoting Jefferson County Pharmaceutical Assn. v. Abbott
Laboratories, 460 U. S. 150 , 460 U. S. 165 ,
n. 27 (1983), in turn quoting United States v. Price, 361 U. S. 304 , 361 U. S. 313 (1960). See also United States v. Clark, 445 U. S.
23 , 445 U. S. 33 , n.
9 (1980). It Page 487 U. S. 780 would "surely come as a surprise" to the legislators who enacted
§ 8(a)(3) to learn that, in discerning their intent, the Court
listens not to their voices, but to those of a later Congress. Ante at 487 U. S. 756 .
Unlike the majority, I am unwilling to put the 1951 legislators'
words into the 1947 legislators' mouths.

															The relevant sources for gleaning the 1947 Congress' intent are
the plain language of § 8(a)(3), and, at least to the extent that
it might reflect a clear intention contrary to the plain meaning of
the statute, the legislative history of § 8(a)(3). Those sources
show that the 1947 Congress did not intend § 8(a)(3) to have the
same meaning the Court has attributed to § 2, Eleventh of the RLA.
I therefore must disagree with the majority's assertion that the
Court's decision in Street is "controlling" here. See
ante at 487 U. S.
745 . III In sum, I conclude that, in enacting § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA,
Congress did not intend to prohibit union security agreements that
require the tender of full union dues and standard union initiation
fees from nonmember employees, without regard to how the union
expends the funds so collected. In finding controlling weight in
this Court's interpretation of § 2, Eleventh of the RLA to reach a
contrary conclusion, the Court has not only eschewed our
well-established methods of statutory construction, but also
interpreted the terms of § 8(a)(3) in a manner inconsistent with
the congressional purpose clearly expressed in the statutory
language and amply documented in the legislative history. I
dissent.

															[ Footnote 2/1 ]

															Like the majority, I do not reach the First Amendment issue
raised below by respondents, and therefore similarly do not address
whether a union's exercise of rights pursuant to § 8(a)(3) involves
state action. See ante at 487 U. S.
761 .

															[ Footnote 2/2 ]

															Section 8(b)(2) makes it unlawful for a union "to cause or
attempt to cause an employer" to violate § 8(a)(3). 29 U.S.C. §
158(b)(2).

															[ Footnote 2/3 ]

															The Taft-Hartley Act also amended the first proviso to prohibit
the application of a union security agreement to an individual
until he has been employed for 30 days. See 29 U.S.C. §
158(a)(3).

															[ Footnote 2/4 ]

															This reading, of course, flows from the fact that "membership,"
as used in the first proviso, means not actual membership
in the union, but rather "the payment of initiation fees and
monthly dues." NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 373 U.
S. 734 , 373 U. S. 742 (1963).

															[ Footnote 2/5 ] See, e.g., In re Union Starch & Refining Co., 87
N.L.R.B. 779, (1949), enf'd, 186 F.2d 1008 (CA7), cert. denied, 342 U.S. 815 (1951); Detroit Mailers
Union No. 40, 192 N.L.R.B. 951, 951-952 (1971). In Detroit
Mailers, the Board explained:

															"Neither on its face nor in the congressional purpose behind [§
8(a)(3)] can any warrant be found for making any distinction here
between dues which may be allocated for collective bargaining
purposes and those earmarked for institutional expenses of the
union. . . . '[D]ues collected from members may be used for a
variety of purposes, in addition to meeting the union's costs of
collective bargaining.' Unions 'rather typically' use their
membership dues 'to do those things which the members authorized
the union to do in their interest and on their behalf.' By virtue
of Section 8(a)(3), such dues may be required from an employee
under a union security contract so long as they are periodic and
uniformly required and are not devoted to a purpose which would
make their mandatory extraction otherwise inimical to public
policy." Id. at 952, quoting Retail Clerks v.
Schermerhorn, 373 U.S. at 373 U. S.
753 -754 (internal quotations omitted). The NLRB,
appearing here as amicus curiae, maintains that position
in this case.

															Contrary to the Court's suggestion, the NLRB has not embraced
and then "repudiated" the view that, for purposes of § 8(a)(3),
"periodic dues and initiation fees" mean only "those fees necessary
to finance collective bargaining activities." Ante at 487 U. S. 752 ,
n. 7. Teamsters Local No. 959, 167 N.L.R.B. 1042 (1967),
does not demonstrate otherwise. In Teamsters Local, the
NLRB held that "working dues" designated to fund a union building
program and a credit union were actually "assessments" not
contemplated by the proviso to § 8(a)(3). Id. at 1044. The
Board found that the union itself regarded the levy as a "temporary
assessment," clearly distinct from its "regular dues." Ibid. Moreover, because the financing for the programs was
constructed in such a way that the union treasury might never have
received 90% of the moneys, the Board concluded that the "working
dues" were actually "special purposes funds," and that "the support
of such funds cannot come from periodic dues' as that term is
used in § 8(a)(3)." Ibid. In Detroit Mailers, the
NLRB distinguished such assessments from "periodic and uniformly
required" dues, which, in its view, a union is not precluded from
demanding of nonmembers pursuant to § 8(a)(3). 192 N.L.R.B. at
952. While the majority credits an interpretation of Teamsters
Local propounded by a dissenting member of the Board in Detroit Mailers, ante at 487 U. S.
752 -753, n. 7, I prefer to take the Board's word at face
value: Teamsters Local did not create "controlling
precedent" endorsing the view of § 8(a)(3) enunciated by the Court
today. 192 N.L.R.B. at 952. Significantly, the majority cannot cite
one case in which the Board has held that uniformly required,
periodic dues used for purposes other than "collective bargaining"
are not dues within the meaning of § 8(a)(3).

															[ Footnote 2/6 ]

															The Court's insistence that it has not changed the meaning of
the term "uniform," see ante at 487 U. S. 753 ,
n. 8, misses the point. The uniformity requirement obviously
requires that the union can collect from nonmembers under a union
security agreement only those "periodic dues and initiation fees"
collected equally from its members. But this begs the question:
what "periodic dues and initiation fees"? It is the meaning of
those terms which the Court misconceives.

															Under our settled doctrines of statutory construction, were
there any ambiguity in the meaning of § 8(a)(3) -- which there is
not -- the Court would be constrained to defer to the
interpretation of the NLRB, unless the agency's construction were
contrary to the clear intent of Congress. Chevron
U.S.A. Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council,
Inc. , 467 U. S. 837 , 467 U. S.
842 -843, and n. 9 (1984). Although the Court apparently
finds such ambiguity, it fails to apply this doctrine. By reference
to a narrow view of congressional "purpose" gleaned from isolated
statements in the legislative history, and in reliance upon this
Court's interpretation of another statute, the Court constructs an
interpretation that not only finds no support in the statutory
language or legislative history of § 8(a)(3), but also contradicts
the Board's settled interpretation of the statutory provision. The
Court previously has directed:

															"Where the Board's construction of the Act is reasonable, it
should not be rejected 'merely because the courts might prefer
another view of the statute.'" Pattern Makers v. NLRB, 473 U. S.
95 , 473 U. S. 114 (1985), quoting Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 441 U.
S. 488 , 441 U. S. 497 (1979). Here, the only apparent motivation for holding that the
Board's interpretation of § 8(a)(3) is impermissible is the Court's
view of another statute.

															[ Footnote 2/7 ]

															The Court's answer to the absolute lack of evidence that
Congress intended to regulate such expenditures is no answer at
all: the Court simply reiterates that, in Machinists v.
Street, 367 U. S. 740 (1961), it did not give weight to congressional silence in the RLA
on this issue. See ante at 760. The point, however, is not that the Court should give weight to Congress' silence
in the NLRA; the point is that the Court must find some support in the NLRA for its proposition. Congress' silence simply
highlights that there is no support for the Court's interpretation
of the 1947 Congress' intent.

															[ Footnote 2/8 ] See also e.g., 93 Cong.Rec. 3837 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1010
(remarks of Sen. Taft) ("[B]ecause the union shop has been in force
in many industries for so many years, . . . to upset it today
probably would destroy relationships of long standing, and probably
would bring on more strikes than it would cure").

															Despite a legislative history rife with unequivocal statements
to the contrary, the Court concludes that the 1947 Congress did not
set out to restrict union security agreements in a "limited
fashion." Ante at 487 U. S. 755 . Quite apart from the Court's unorthodox
reliance on representations of those opposed to the
Taft-Hartley amendments, the majority's observation that "Congress
viewed the Wagner Act's regime of compulsory unionism as seriously
flawed," ibid., begs the question. The perceived flaws
were embedded in the closed shop system, not the union shop system. Thus, as is characteristic of the
majority's opinion, its comparison to the RLA, under which there
was no closed shop system, is beside the point. See ante at 487 U. S. 755 .
Congress was aware that, under the NLRA,

															"the one system [the closed shop] ha[d] led to very serious
abuses, and the other system [the union shop] ha[d] not led to such
serious abuses."

															93 Cong.Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1421 (remarks of Sen. Taft).
Accordingly, Congress banned closed shops altogether, but it made
only limited inroads on the union shop system that had been in
effect prior to 1947, carefully describing its limitations on such
agreements. H.R.Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1947),
Leg.Hist. 300; S.Rep. at 6-7, Leg.Hist. 412-413. It could not be
clearer from the legislative history that, in enacting the provisos
to § 8(a)(3), Congress attempted to deal only with specific abuses
in the union shop system, only the "actual problems that ha[d]
arisen." 93 Cong.Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1421 (remarks of Sen.
Taft); accord, 93 Cong.Rec. 3836-3837 (1947), Leg.Hist.
1010-1011 (remarks of Sen. Taft). Congress' philosophy was that it
had

															"to decree either an open shop or an open union. [It] decreed an
open union . . . [which would] permit the continuation of existing
relationships, and [would] not violently tear apart a great many
long-existing relationships and make trouble in the labor movement;
and yet, at the same time, it [would] meet the abuses which
exist."

															93 Cong.Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1420 (remarks of Sen. Taft).
Union security agreements requiring the payment of uniform periodic
dues and standard initiation fees were not among the specified
abuses. There was no testimony regarding problems arising from such
arrangements. Indeed, the subtext of the entire debate was that
such arrangements were acceptable. The Court's suggestion to the
contrary is simply untenable.

															[ Footnote 2/9 ]

															The Senate Report explained: Congress

															"did not desire to limit the labor organization with respect to
either its selection of membership or expulsion therefrom. But [it]
did wish to protect the employee in his job if unreasonably
expelled or denied membership. The tests provided by the amendment
are based upon facts readily ascertainable, and do not require the
employer to inquire into the internal affairs of the union."

															S.Rep. at 20, Leg.Hist. 426.

															[ Footnote 2/10 ]

															The Court appears to believe that Congress intended § 8(a)(3) to
protect the interests of individual nonmembers in the uses to which
the union puts their moneys. See ante at 487 U. S. 759 .
It could not be clearer, however, that Congress did not have this
in mind at all. As Senator Taft explained to his colleague who
complained that requiring a man to join a union he does not wish to
join (pursuant to § 8(a)(3)) was no less restrictive than a closed
shop: in enacting § 8(a)(3), Congress was not trying "to go into
the broader fields of the rights of particular persons." 93
Cong.Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1421.

															The only "rights" protected by the § 8(a)(3) provisos are
workers' employment rights. As the legislative debates reflect,
Congress was principally concerned with insulating workers' jobs
from capricious actions by union leaders.

															"The purpose of the union unfair labor practice provisions added
to § 8(a)(3) was to 'preven[t] the union from inducing the employer
to use the emoluments of the job to enforce the union's
rules.'" Pattern Makers v. NLRB, 473 U.S. at 473 U. S. 126 (dissenting opinion), quoting Scofield v. NLRB, 394 U. S. 423 , 394 U. S. 429 (1969).

															[ Footnote 2/11 ]

															Congress placed only one limitation on the uses which can be
made of union dues. "[W]ith little apparent discussion or
opposition," the Senate conferees adopted the House bill's
prohibition limiting what unions may spend from dues money on
federal elections. Pipefitters v. United States, 407 U. S. 385 , 407 U. S. 405 (1972). In § 304 of the Labor Management Relations (Taft-Hartley)
Act, 61 Stat. 159-160, which is now incorporated in the Federal
Election Campaign Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 490, 2 U.S.C. § 441b(a),
Congress made it unlawful for a union "to make a contribution or
expenditure in connection with" certain political elections,
primaries, or political conventions.

															The Senate conferees also agreed with the House that some
safeguard was needed to prevent unions from charging new members
exhorbitant initiation fees that effectively "close" the union,
thereby "frustrat[ing] the intent of [§ 8(a)(3)]." 93 Cong.Rec.
6443 (1947), Leg.Hist. 1540 (remarks of Sen. Taft). Hence, §
8(b)(5) was added to the final bill, which makes it an unfair labor
practice for a union which has negotiated a union security
agreement to require initiation fees that the NLRB "finds excessive
or discriminatory under all the circumstances." 29 U.S.C. §
158(b)(5). The Senate passed § 8(b)(5) only after receiving
assurances from Senator Taft that it would not allow the NLRB to
regulate union expenditures. See 93 Cong.Rec. 6859 (1947),
Leg.Hist. 1623 (stressing that the provision "is limited to
initiation fees, and does not cover dues").

															[ Footnote 2/12 ]

															"It was never the intention of the [NLRA] . . . to preempt the
field in this regard, so as to deprive the States of their powers
to prevent compulsory unionism."

															H.R. Conf Rep. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 60 (1947), Leg.Hist.
564. Accordingly, Congress added § 14(b) to the final bill, which,
as enacted, expressly preserves the authority of the States to
regulate union security agreements, including the use of funds
collected from employees pursuant to such an agreement. See
Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 373 U.S. at 373 U. S.
751 -752. Many States, in fact, have imposed limitations
on the union security agreements that are permitted in their
jurisdictions. See 2 C. Morris, The Developing Labor Law
1391-1392 (2d ed.1983).

															[ Footnote 2/13 ]

															The dissent in the original panel decision in this case
appropriately observed:

															"If the legislative purposes behind § 8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh
were identical, one would expect that [this] Court in Street would have looked to the NLRA for guidance in
interpreting § 2, Eleventh. The Street opinion, however,
does not significantly rely on or discuss either the NLRA or §
8(a)(3). Instead, it focuses on the distinctive features of the
railroad industry and the Railway Labor Act in construing § 2,
Eleventh."

															776 F.2d 1187, 1220 (CA4 1985).

															[ Footnote 2/14 ]

															The Court overstates the clarity of what was said about §
8(a)(3) when § 2, Eleventh was amended in 1951. As the Court's
recitation of various statements reflects, the extent to which the
1951 Congress saw itself engrafting onto the RLA terms identical, in all respects, to the terms of § 8(a)(3) is
uncertain. See ante at 487 U. S.
746 -747, n. 4. The remarks are only general comments
about the similarity of the NLRA union security provisions, rather
than explicit comparisons of § 8(a)(3) with the provisions of the
RLA. For example, Senator Taft explained:

															"In effect, the bill inserts in the railway mediation law almost the exact provisions, so far as they fit, of the
Taft-Hartley law, so that the conditions regarding the union shop
and the check-off are carried into the relations between railroad
unions and the railroads."

															96 Cong.Rec. 16267 (1950) (emphasis added). See also,
e.g., H.R.Rep. No. 2811, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1950) (§ 2,
Eleventh allows agreements "of a character" permitted in §
8(a)(3)); 96 Cong.Rec. 17049 (1951) (remarks of Rep. Beckworth) (§
2, Eleventh extends to railroads "a principle" embodied in §
8(a)(3)). Especially when it is remembered that Congress was extending to unions in the railroad industry the authority
to enter into agreements for which they previously had no authority, whereas the 1947 Congress had rescinded authorization
for certain kinds of union security agreements, the import of these
statements is ambiguous. To borrow a phrase from the majority, I
"think it far safer and far more appropriate to construe § 8(a)(3)
in light of its" language and legislative history, "than by drawing
inferences from" ambiguous statements made by Members of a later
Congress in enacting a different statute. Ante at 487 U. S.
759 .

Summary:
Here is a summary of the case:

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union entered into a collective bargaining agreement with an employer, including a union-security clause requiring non-member employees to pay "agency fees" equal to union dues. Non-member employees challenged the CWA's use of their fees for purposes beyond collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment, arguing it violated their associational rights, free speech rights, and the union's duty of fair representation under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

The courts ruled that while the NLRA's Section 8(a)(3) allows unions to collect dues from non-members, it does not permit spending those fees on unrelated activities, violating the duty of fair representation and non-members' First Amendment rights. The union's collection and disbursement of agency fees for purposes beyond collective bargaining activities were deemed unlawful, and the non-member employees were granted injunctive relief and reimbursement of excess fees.

This case established important limits on how unions can spend agency fees collected from non-members, balancing the rights of workers who choose not to join a union with the union's need for financial resources to carry out its collective bargaining functions effectively.