Cite as: 518 U. S. 231 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
"This Court has held that even a labor organization, the principal intended beneficiary of the so-called labor exemption, may not escape antitrust liability when it acts, not unilaterally and in the sole interest of its own members, but in concert with employers 'to prescribe labor standards outside the bargaining unit[.]' And this is so even when the issue is so central to bargaining as wages. Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. at 668. Compare Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676 (1965). See Ramsey v. Mine Workers, 401 U. S. 302, 307 (1971). . . .
"The separate opinion on which respondents focus did express the view that 'collective bargaining activity on mandatory subjects of bargaining' is exempt from antitrust regulation, without regard to whether the union conduct involved is 'unilateral.' Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. at 732 (concurring opinion). But the author of that opinion agreed with the majority that agreements between unions and nonlabor groups on hard-core restraints like 'price-fixing and market allocation' were not exempt. 381 U. S. at 733. And there is no support in any of the opinions filed in Meat Cutters for Baseball's essential, if tacit, contention that unilateral, hard-core anticompetitive activity by employers acting alone—the present case—is somehow exempt from antitrust regulation." Reply Brief for Petitioner in Flood v. Kuhn, O. T. 1971, No. 71-32, pp. 13-14.
Moreover, Justice Goldberg explained that the extension of antitrust immunity to unilateral, anticompetitive employer action would be particularly inappropriate because baseball's reserve clause predated collective bargaining.
"This case is in fact much clearer than Pennington, Meat Cutters, or Ramsey, for petitioner does not challenge the fruits of collective bargaining activity. He seeks relief from a scheme—the reserve system—which
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