Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-1121c4d6.pdf
Page Number: 15

Cite as:  567 U. S. ____ (2012) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

ment objections.  Consider the following examples: 

“If  a  community  association  engages  in  a  clean-up
campaign or opposes encroachments by industrial de-
velopment, no one suggests that all residents or prop-
erty owners who benefit be required to contribute.  If 
a  parent-teacher  association  raises  money  for  the 
school  library,  assessments  are  not  levied  on  all  par-
ents.  If an association of university professors has as
a  major  function  bringing  pressure  on  universities  to 
observe  standards  of  tenure  and  academic  freedom, 
most professors would consider it an outrage to be re-
quired to join.  If a medical association lobbies against
regulation  of  fees,  not  all  doctors  who  share  in  the
benefits share in the costs.”2 

Acceptance  of  the  free-rider  argument  as  a  justification
for compelling nonmembers to pay a portion of union dues 
represents  something  of  an  anomaly—one  that  we  have
found  to  be  justified  by  the  interest  in  furthering  “labor 
peace.”  Hudson,  475  U. S.,  at  303.    But  it  is  an  anomaly 
nevertheless. 

Similarly,  requiring  objecting  nonmembers  to  opt  out
of  paying  the  nonchargeable  portion  of  union  dues—as
opposed  to  exempting  them  from  making  such  payments 
unless  they  opt  in—represents  a  remarkable  boon  for 
unions.  Courts “do not presume acquiescence in the loss of
fundamental  rights.”  College  Savings  Bank  v.  Florida 
Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U. S. 666, 682 
(1999)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  Once  it  is 
recognized,  as  our  cases  have,  that  a  nonmember  cannot
be  forced  to  fund  a  union’s  political  or  ideological  activi-
ties,  what  is  the  justification  for  putting  the  burden  on 
the  nonmember  to  opt  out  of  making  such  a  payment? 
—————— 

2 Summers, Book Review, Sheldon Leader, Freedom of Association: A 
Study  in  Labor  Law  and  Political  Theory,  16  Comparative  Labor  L.  J.
262, 268 (1995).