484
Souter, J., dissenting
tends to further its objectives. But Abood and its subsequent line of cases are not nearly so permissive as the Court makes out. In Abood, we recognized that even in matters directly related to collective bargaining, compulsory funding of union activities has an impact on employees' First Amendment interests, since the employees might disagree with positions taken by the union on issues such as the inclusion of abortion in a medical benefit plan, or negotiating no-strike agreements, or even the desirability of unionism in general. 431 U. S., at 222. To be sure, we concluded that any interference with such interests was "constitutionally justified by the legislative assessment of the important contribution of the union shop to the system of labor relations established by Congress." Ibid.; see also Keller, supra, at 13-14 ("[T]he State's interest in regulating the legal profession and improving the quality of legal services" justifies "the compelled association [inherent in the] integrated bar"). But this was simply a way of saying that the government's objective of guaranteeing the opportunity for a union shop, the importance and legitimacy of which were already settled, see Abood, supra, at 217-232 (following Railway Employes v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225 (1956), and Machinists v. Street, supra), could not be attained without the incidental infringements of the interests in unfettered speech and association that petitioners there claimed. Collective bargaining, and related activities such as grievance arbitration and contract administration, are part and parcel of the very economic transactions between employees and employer that Congress can regulate, and which it could not regulate without these potential impingements on the employees' First Amendment interests. Abood is thus a specific instance of the general principle that government retains its full power to regulate commercial transactions directly, despite elements of speech and association inherent in such transactions. See Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U. S. 447, 456 (1978) (commercial conduct may be regulated without offending First Amend-
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