Cite as: 523 U. S. 866 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
jector to traverse two layers of procedure rather than one.5 Furthermore, if the union's arbitration process in fact operates to provide an inexpensive, swift, and sure remedy for agency-fee errors, dissenting employees may avail themselves of that process even if not required to do so. Cf. Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla., 457 U. S. 496, 513, n. 15 (1982) (under a " 'free market' system" of no required exhaustion, "litigants are free to pursue administrative remedies if they truly appear to be cheaper, more efficient, and more effective").
The Union may, nonetheless, face the prospect of defending its fee calculation simultaneously in judicial and arbitral fora. We note that unions do not lack means to limit the expense and disruption occasioned by multiple fee challenges: objections may be consolidated for consideration in a single arbitration, for example, and agency-fee litigation may be consolidated in a single district court. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 1404, 1407. But genuine as the Union's interest in avoiding multiple proceedings may be, that interest does not overwhelm objectors' resistance to arbitration to which they did not consent, and their election to proceed immediately to court for adjudication of their federal rights.6 We hold that, unless they agree to the procedure, agency-fee objectors may
5 Inevitably limiting the utility of exhaustion in relieving the courts of the task of adjudicating agency-fee disputes is the nonbinding character of Hudson arbitration, a characteristic on which the dissent centrally relies. See post, at 880, 881, 882, 883-885.
6 Our recognition of the right of objectors to proceed directly to court does not detract from district courts' discretion to defer discovery or other proceedings pending the prompt conclusion of arbitration. See, e. g., Landis v. North American Co., 299 U. S. 248, 254-255 (1936) ("[T]he power to stay proceedings is incidental to the power inherent in every court to control the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy of time and effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants. How this can best be done calls for the exercise of judgment, which must weigh competing interests and maintain an even balance.").
879
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