874
Opinion of the Court
for the purposes of collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment." Id., at 225-226. We cautioned, however, in view of the presence of state action, that objecting employees have a First Amendment right to "prevent the Union's spending a part of their required service fees to contribute to political candidates and to express political views unrelated to its duties as exclusive bargaining representative." Id., at 234. In Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Assn., 500 U. S. 507, 519 (1991), we relied on both public-sector and RLA cases to hold that agency fees assessed by public-employee unions "must (1) be 'germane' to collective-bargaining activity; (2) be justified by the government's vital policy interest in labor peace and avoiding 'free riders'; and (3) not significantly add to the burdening of free speech that is inherent in the allowance of an agency or union shop."
In Hudson, a public-sector case, we held that the First Amendment required unions and employers to provide procedural protections for nonunion workers who object to the calculation of the agency fee. Three safeguards, we declared, are essential to "minimize the infringement" on non-members' rights and provide workers with "a fair opportunity to identify the impact of [the agency-fee assessment] on [their] interests," Hudson, 475 U. S., at 303: Employees must receive "sufficient information to gauge the propriety of the union's fee," id., at 306; the union must give objectors "a reasonably prompt opportunity to challenge the amount of the fee before an impartial decisionmaker," id., at 310; and any amount of the objector's fee "reasonably in dispute" must be held in escrow while the challenge is pending, ibid.
B
The Court of Appeals held that Hudson's procedural requirements transfer fully to employment relations governed by the RLA, 108 F. 3d, at 1419, and the parties have not
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