Cite as: 518 U. S. 231 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
and consequently forcing them to choose their collective-bargaining responses in light of what they predict or fear that antitrust courts, not labor law administrators, will eventually decide. Cf. Dallas General Drivers, Warehousemen and Helpers, Local Union No. 745 v. NLRB, 355 F. 2d 842, 844-845 (CADC 1966) ("The problem of deciding when further bargaining . . . is futile is often difficult for the bargainers and is necessarily so for the Board. But in the whole complex of industrial relations few issues are less suited to appellate judicial appraisal . . . or better suited to the expert experience of a board which deals constantly with such problems").
C
Petitioners and their supporters argue in the alternative for a rule that would exempt postimpasse agreement about bargaining "tactics," but not postimpasse agreement about substantive "terms," from the reach of antitrust. See 50 F. 3d, at 1066-1069 (Wald, J., dissenting). They recognize, however, that both the Board and the courts have said that employers can, and often do, employ the imposition of "terms" as a bargaining "tactic." See, e. g., American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U. S. 300, 316 (1965); Colorado-Ute Elec. Assn., Inc. v. NLRB, 939 F. 2d 1392, 1404 (CA10 1991), cert. denied, 504 U. S. 955 (1992); Circuit-Wise, Inc., 309 N. L. R. B. 905, 921 (1992); Hi-Way Billboards, 206 N. L. R. B., at 23; Bonanno Linen, 243 N. L. R. B., at 1094. This concession as to joint "tactical" implementation would turn the presence of an antitrust exemption upon a determination of the employers' primary purpose or motive. See, e. g., 50 F. 3d, at 1069 (Wald, J., dissenting). But to ask antitrust courts, insulated from the bargaining process, to investigate an employer group's subjective motive is to ask them to conduct an inquiry often more amorphous than those we have previously discussed. And, in our view, a labor/ antitrust line drawn on such a basis would too often raise
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