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10 

KNOX v. SERVICE EMPLOYEES 

Opinion of the Court 

involving  a  “mandated  association”  among  those  who  are
required to pay the subsidy.  Id., at 414.  Such situations 
are exceedingly rare because, as we have stated elsewhere, 
mandatory  associations  are  permissible  only  when  they 
serve  a  “compelling  state  interes[t]  . . .  that  cannot  be 
achieved  through  means  significantly  less  restrictive  of 
associational  freedoms.”    Roberts,  supra,  at  623.    Second, 
even  in  the  rare  case  where  a  mandatory  association  can
be  justified,  compulsory  fees  can be  levied  only  insofar as 
they  are  a  “necessary  incident”  of  the  “larger  regulatory
purpose which justified the required association.”  United 
Foods, supra, at 414. 

B 

When  a  State  establishes  an  “agency  shop”  that  ex- 
acts  compulsory  union fees  as  a  condition of  public  employ-
ment,  “[t]he  dissenting  employee  is  forced  to  support
financially  an  organization  with  whose  principles  and 
demands  he  may  disagree.”  Ellis,  466  U. S.,  at  455. 
Because a public-sector union takes many positions during
collective bargaining that have powerful political and civic 
consequences,  see  Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  48–49,  the  compulsory 
fees constitute a form of compelled speech and association
that imposes a “significant impingement on First Amend-
ment rights.”  Ellis, supra, at 455.  Our cases to date have 
tolerated this “impingement,” and we do not revisit today
whether  the  Court’s  former  cases  have  given  adequate 
recognition  to  the  critical  First  Amendment  rights  at 
stake. 

“The  primary  purpose”  of  permitting  unions  to  collect
fees  from  nonmembers,  we  have  said,  is  “to  prevent  non-
members  from  free-riding  on  the  union’s  efforts,  sharing
the employment benefits obtained by the union’s collective
bargaining  without  sharing  the  costs  incurred.”    Daven-
port, 551 U. S., at 181.  Such free-rider arguments, however, 
are  generally  insufficient  to  overcome  First  Amend-