Cite as: 518 U. S. 231 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Labor Board or the bargaining parties. Ante, at 236-237. The Court concludes, therefore, that almost any concerted action by employers that touches on a mandatory subject of collective bargaining, no matter how obviously offensive to the policies underlying the Nation's antitrust statutes, should be immune from scrutiny so long as a collective-bargaining process is in place. It notes that a contrary conclusion would require "antitrust courts, insulated from the bargaining process, to investigate an employer group's subjective motive," a task that it believes too "amorphous" to be permissible. Ante, at 247.
The argument that "antitrust courts" should be kept out of the collective-bargaining process has a venerable lineage. See Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 483-488 (1921) (Brandeis, J., joined by Holmes and Clarke, JJ., dissenting). Our prior precedents subscribing to its basic point, however, do not justify the conclusion that employees have no recourse other than the Labor Board when employers collectively undertake anticompetitive action. In fact, they contradict it.
We have previously considered the scope of the nonstatu-tory labor exemption only in cases involving challenges to anticompetitive agreements between unions and employers brought by other employers not parties to those agreements. Ante, at 243. Even then, we have concluded that the exemption does not always apply. See Mine Workers v. Penning-ton, 381 U. S., at 663.
As Pennington explained, the mere fact that an antitrust challenge touches on an issue, such as wages, that is subject to mandatory bargaining does not suffice to trigger the judicially fashioned exemption. Id., at 664. Moreover, we concluded that the exemption should not obtain in Pennington itself only after we examined the motives of one of the parties to the bargaining process. Id., at 667.
The Court's only attempt to square its decision with Pennington occurs at the close of its opinion. It concludes that
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