Cite as: 523 U. S. 866 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
the union [is] obliged to perform its statutory functions, but who refus[e] to contribute to the cost thereof." Ellis v. Railway Clerks, 466 U. S. 435, 447 (1984). Under agency-shop arrangements, nonmembers must pay their fair share of union expenditures "necessarily or reasonably incurred for the purpose of performing the duties of an exclusive representative of the employees in dealing with the employer on labor-management issues." Id., at 448. To avoid constitutional questions that might arise were we to adopt a contrary interpretation of the RLA, however, we have held that costs unrelated to those representative duties may not be imposed on objecting employees. See id., at 448-455; see also Railway Clerks v. Allen, 373 U. S. 113, 121 (1963) (§ 2, Eleventh, distinguishes between "the union's political expenditures," to which nonmembers may not be compelled to contribute, and expenditures "germane to collective bargaining," to which they may); Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740, 768-769 (1961) ("§ 2, Eleventh is to be construed to deny the unions, over an employee's objection, the power to use his exacted funds to support political causes which he opposes"); see also Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735, 762-763 (1988) (same limitations apply under NLRA).
A similar rule—based explicitly on the Constitution—applies to public-sector employment. In Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209, 232 (1977), we upheld the constitutionality of agency-shop agreements made by government employers with their workers' exclusive bargaining representatives. As the Court explained, imposition of agency fees under the RLA "is constitutionally justified by the legislative assessment of the important contribution of the union shop to the system of labor relations established by Congress," and "[t]he same important government interests . . . presumptively support" agency-shop arrangements in the public sector. Id., at 222, 225.
The agency fees assessed from nonmembers, we said in Abood, may be "used to finance expenditures by the Union
873
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007