Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf
Page Number: 62.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

7 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

ing fair-share agreements: That rule ensured that a union 
would receive sufficient funds,  despite its legally imposed 
disability,  to  effectively  carry  out  its  duties  as  exclusive 
representative of the government’s employees.

The  majority’s  initial  response  to  this  reasoning  is
simply to dismiss it.  “[F]ree rider arguments,” the majority
pronounces,  “are  generally  insufficient  to  overcome  First 
Amendment  objections.”  Ante,  at  13  (quoting  Knox,  567 
U. S.,  at  311).    “To  hold  otherwise,”  it  continues,  “would 
have  startling  consequences”  because  “[m]any  private 
groups  speak  out”  in  ways  that  will  “benefit[ ]  nonmem-
bers.”  Ante, at 13.  But that disregards the defining char-
acteristic of this free-rider argument—that unions, unlike 
those many other private groups, must serve members and 
non-members alike.  Groups advocating for “senior citizens 
or veterans” (to use the majority’s examples) have no legal
duty to provide benefits to all those individuals: They can 
spur  people  to  pay  dues  by  conferring  all  kinds  of  special
advantages on their dues-paying members.  Unions are— 
by  law—in  a  different  position,  as  this  Court  has  long 
recognized.  See,  e.g.,  Machinists  v.  Street,  367  U. S.  740, 
762  (1961).    Justice  Scalia,  responding  to  the  same  argu-
ment as the majority’s, may have put the point best.  In a 
way  that  is  true  of  no  other  private  group,  the  “law  re-
quires the union to carry” non-members—“indeed, requires
the union to go out of its way to benefit [them], even at the
expense  of  its  other  interests.”    Lehnert  v.  Ferris  Faculty 
Assn.,  500  U. S.  507,  556  (1991)  (opinion  concurring  in
part  and  dissenting  in  part).  That  special  feature  was
what  justified  Abood:  “Where  the  state  imposes  upon  the 
union a duty to deliver services, it may permit the union to 
demand reimbursement for them.”  500 U. S., at 556. 

The majority’s fallback argument purports to respond to 
the distinctive position of unions, but still misses Abood’s 
economic insight.  Here, the majority delivers a four-page
exegesis on why unions will seek to serve as an exclusive