Cite as: 523 U. S. 866 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
decision by an impartial decisionmaker," 475 U. S., at 307, aims to protect the interest of objectors by affording them access to a neutral forum in which their objections can be resolved swiftly; nothing in our decision purports to compel objectors to pursue that remedy. See ibid. ("The nonunion employee, whose First Amendment rights are affected by the agency shop itself and who bears the burden of objecting, is entitled to have his objections addressed in an expeditious, fair, and objective manner."). Indeed, Hudson's emphasis on the need for a speedy remedy weighs against exhaustion, even through an arbitration procedure intended to be expeditious, as an essential prerequisite to federal-court consideration of nonmember challenges. See McCarthy, 503 U. S., at 146 ("[A]dministrative remedies need not be pursued if the litigant's interests in immediate judicial review outweigh the government's interests in the efficiency or administrative autonomy that the exhaustion doctrine is designed to further." (internal quotation marks omitted)). We resist reading Hudson in a manner that might frustrate its very purpose, to advance the swift, fair, and final settlement of objectors' rights.
Against these concerns, ALPA stresses the asserted efficiency gains of requiring objectors to proceed to arbitration first. The Union asserts: "It is difficult to conceive how a court could fairly try an agency-fee dispute ab initio, given that the plaintiffs who challenge an agency-fee calculation are not required to state any grounds whatsoever for their challenge." Reply Brief 6-7. Arbitration, in ALPA's view, will serve a useful, if not essential, role in defining the scope of the dispute. See Brief for Petitioner 21-23; Reply Brief 4-7.
ALPA overstates the difficulties of holding a federal-court hearing without a preparatory arbitration. We have held that "the nonunion employee has the burden of raising an objection, but that the union retains the burden of proof."
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