Cite as: 523 U. S. 866 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
to the agency fee "a reasonably prompt opportunity to challenge the amount of the fee before an impartial decision-maker." Id., at 310.
Petitioner Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA or Union), a private-sector labor organization covered by the RLA, acknowledges that it is bound by Hudson. ALPA endeavored to comply with Hudson's "impartial decisionmaker" requirement by referring all fee disputes to a neutral arbitrator. In the action now before us, nonunion pilots challenged the agency fee collected by the Union in 1992. ALPA urged that the challengers must exhaust the arbitration process before pursuing judicial remedies. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the pilots resisting the agency fee may proceed at once in federal court. We hold, in accord with the Court of Appeals, that employees need not submit fee disputes to arbitration when they have never agreed to do so.
I
ALPA represents, as exclusive bargaining agent, pilots employed by most United States commercial air carriers, including Delta Air Lines (Delta). In November 1991, ALPA and Delta amended their collective-bargaining agreement to include, inter alia, an "agency-shop" clause. That clause, similar to provisions in ALPA's agreements with other carriers, required each pilot who was not an ALPA member to pay the Union a monthly "service charge as a contribution for the administration of [the collective-bargaining agreement] and the representation of such employee." App. 31.
On December 12, 1991, five Delta pilots filed this action against ALPA and Delta in the District Court for the District of Columbia. Their complaint charged that the "agency-shop" clause was unlawful on its face. (Three of the original plaintiffs, plus 150 Delta pilots who subsequently intervened, are respondents here; the other two original plaintiffs were dismissed from the case for reasons unrelated to the issue we resolve. Delta was also dismissed from the
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