132
Opinion of the Court
from the Commissioner's rule that an employee forfeits his state-law rights the moment a collective-bargaining agreement with an arbitration clause is entered into. But cf. Metropolitan Edison, 460 U. S., at 708. Hence, our holding that the Commissioner's unusual policy is irreconcilable with the structure and purposes of the Act should cast no shadow on the validity of these familiar and narrowly drawn opt-out provisions.26
III
Having determined that the Commissioner's policy is in fact pre-empted by federal law, we find strong support in our precedents for the position taken by both courts below that Livadas is entitled to seek relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for the Commissioner's abridgment of her NLRA rights. Section 1983 provides a federal cause of action for the deprivation, under color of law, of a citizen's "rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws" of the United States, and we have given that provision the effect its terms require, as affording redress for violations of federal statutes, as well as of constitutional norms. Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1, 4 (1980). We have, it is true, recognized that even the broad statutory text does not authorize a suit for every alleged violation of federal law. A particular statutory provision, for example, may be so manifestly preca-tory that it could not fairly be read to impose a "binding obligatio[n]" on a governmental unit, Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 27 (1981), or its terms may be so "vague and amorphous" that determining whether a "deprivation" might have occurred would strain judicial competence. See Wright v. Roanoke Redevelop-26 Nor does it seem plausible to suggest that Congress meant to preempt such opt-out laws, as "burdening" the statutory right of employees not to join unions by denying nonrepresented employees the "benefit" of being able to "contract out" of such standards. Cf. Addendum B to Brief for Employers Group as Amicus Curiae (collecting state statutes containing similar provisions).
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