46
Opinion of the Court
ultimately wrong. In Air Line Pilots, for example, the union had negotiated a settlement agreement with the employer, which in retrospect proved to be a bad deal for the employees. The fact that the union had not negotiated the best agreement for its workers, however, was insufficient to support a holding that the union's conduct was arbitrary. 499 U. S., at 78-81. A union's conduct can be classified as arbitrary only when it is irrational, when it is without a rational basis or explanation. Ibid.
Under this standard, SAG's negotiation of a union security clause with language derived from the NLRA section authorizing such a clause is far from arbitrary. Petitioner argues that it is irrational to negotiate a clause that cannot be enforced as written. But this clause can be enforced as written, because by tracking the statutory language, the clause incorporates all of the refinements that have become associated with that language. When we interpreted § 8(a)(3) in General Motors and Beck, we held that the section, fairly read, included the rights that we found. To the extent that these interpretations are not obvious, the relevant provisions of § 8(a)(3) have become terms of art; the words and phrasing of the subsection now encompass the rights that we announced in General Motors and Beck. After we stated that the statutory language incorporates an employee's right not to "join" the union (except by paying fees and dues) and an employee's right to pay for only representational activities, we cannot fault SAG for using this very language to convey these very concepts.
Petitioner also invites us to conclude that the union's conduct in negotiating the union security clause breached the duty of fair representation because it was done in bad faith. She argues that the negotiation of this clause was in bad faith because the union had no reason to use the statutory language except to mislead employees about their rights under Beck and General Motors. This argument has two components: that the union intended to mislead workers, and
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