Cite as: 518 U. S. 231 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
gaining" that followed amounted to nothing more than the employers' notice to the union that they had decided to implement a decision to replace individual salary negotiations with a uniform wage level for a specific group of players.5
Given these features of the case, I do not see why the employers should be entitled to a judicially crafted exemption from antitrust liability. We have explained that "[t]he nonstatutory exemption has its source in the strong labor policy favoring the association of employees to eliminate competition over wages and working conditions." Connell Constr. Co., 421 U. S., at 622. I know of no similarly strong labor policy that favors the association of employers to eliminate a competitive method of negotiating wages that predates collective bargaining and that labor would prefer to preserve.
Even if some collective action by employers may justify an exemption because it is necessary to maintain the "integrity of the multiemployer bargaining unit," NLRB v. Brown, 380 U. S. 278, 289 (1965), no such justification exists here. The employers imposed a fixed wage even though there was no dispute over the pre-existing principle that player salaries should be individually negotiated. They sought only to prevent certain owners from evading roster limits and thereby gaining an unfair advantage. Because "the employer's interest is a competitive interest rather than an interest in regulating its own labor relations," Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. 657, 667 (1965), there would seem to be no
player to negotiate his individual salary. Upshaw said that no matter what salary level we proposed to pay developmental players, whether it was our $1,000 weekly or a higher number, the union would not 'in principle' permit two classes of players to exist, one with individual bargaining rights and one without." App. 19-20.
5 The unique features of this case presumably explain why the National Labor Relations Board (Labor Board) can endorse the position of the players in this case without fearing the adverse impact on the bargaining process in the hypothetical cases that concern the Court. Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 27, n. 10.
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