Cite as: 525 U. S. 33 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
elaborate on our conclusion that the union's statutory violation was a breach of the duty of fair representation, we must have concluded that it was "arbitrary." Brief for Petitioner 12. Under this reading, the "arbitrary" prong of the duty of fair representation standard is equated with "statutory violation." This is an inaccurate reading of our decision in Beck. It is true that the focus of our attention in Beck was whether the union's conduct was consistent with § 8(a)(3) and that once we found that it was inconsistent with the statute, we did not tarry to explain how this conduct breached the duty of fair representation. But we did not hold that the finding of a mere statutory violation was sufficient to support a conclusion that the union breached its duty. In Beck, the union collected fees and dues from bargaining unit employees under its statutory grant of authority to serve as the exclusive bargaining representative. But then it used that money for purposes wholly unrelated to the grant of authority that gave it the right to collect that money, and in ways that were antithetical to the interests of some of the workers that it was required to serve. 487 U. S., at 743-744. It was this latter aspect of the union's conduct, and not just the fact that the conduct violated the statute, that made the union's actions a breach of the duty of fair representation.
That our holding in Beck did not alter the standard for finding conduct "arbitrary" is confirmed by our decision in Air Line Pilots. In that case, decided three years after Beck, we specifically considered the appropriate standard for evaluating conduct under the "arbitrary" prong of the duty of fair representation. We held that under the "arbitrary" prong, a union's actions breach the duty of fair representation "only if [the union's conduct] can be fairly characterized as so far outside a 'wide range of reasonableness' that it is wholly 'irrational' or 'arbitrary.' " 499 U. S., at 78 (quoting Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, supra, at 338). This "wide range of reasonableness" gives the union room to make discretionary decisions and choices, even if those judgments are
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