Cite as: 512 U. S. 107 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
tude to "balance the desirability of a particular substantive labor standard against the right of self-determination regarding the terms and conditions of employment," see id., at 22, the policy challenged here differs in two crucial respects from the "unexceptional exercise of the [State's] police power," ibid. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), defended in those terms in our earlier case. Most fundamentally, the Maine law treated all employees equally, whether or not represented by a labor organization. All were entitled to the statutory severance payment, and all were allowed to negotiate agreements providing for different benefits. See id., at 4, n. 1. Second, the minimum protections of Maine's plant-closing law were relinquished not by the mere act of signing an employment contract (or collective-bargaining agreement), but only by the parties' express agreement on different terms, see id., at 21.25
While the Commissioner and her amici call our attention to a number of state and federal laws that draw distinctions between union and nonunion represented employees, see, e. g., D. C. Code Ann. § 36-103 (1993) ("Unless otherwise specified in a collective agreement . . . [w]henever an employer discharges an employee, the employer shall pay the employee's wages earned not later than the working day following such discharge"); 29 U. S. C. § 203(o) ("Hours [w]orked" for Fair Labor Standards Act measured according to "express terms of . . . or practice under bona fide collective-bargaining agreement"), virtually all share the important second feature observed in Coyne, that union-represented employees have the full protection of the minimum standard, absent any agreement for something different. These "opt out" statutes are thus manifestly different in their operation (and their effect on federal rights)
25 It bears mention that the law in Fort Halifax pegged the benefit payment to an employee's wages, meaning that the State Labor Commissioner would "look to" the collective-bargaining agreement in enforcing claims in precisely the same manner that respondent would here.
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