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6  JANUS v. STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

effective employee representative and bargaining partner.
See id., at 221.  And third, agency fees are often needed to
ensure such stable funding.  That is because without those 
fees,  employees  have  every  incentive  to  free  ride  on  the 
union dues paid by others.  See id., at 222. 

The  majority  does  not  take  issue  with  the  first  point.
See  ante,  at  33  (It  is  “not  disputed  that  the  State  may 
require  that  a  union  serve  as  exclusive  bargaining  agent 
for  its  employees”  in  order  to  advance  the  State’s  “inter-
ests  as  an  employer”).  The  majority  claims  that  the  sec-
ond point never appears in Abood, but is willing to assume 
it  for  the  sake  of  argument.  See  ante,  at  31–32;  but  see 
Abood, 431 U. S., at 221 (The tasks of an exclusive repre-
sentative  “often  entail  expenditure  of  much  time  and 
money”).  So  the  majority  stakes  everything  on  the  third 
point—the  conclusion  that  maintaining  an  effective  sys-
tem  of  exclusive  representation  often  entails  agency  fees. 
Ante, at 12 (It “is simply not true” that exclusive represen-
tation and agency fees are “inextricably linked”); see ante, 
at 14. 

But  basic  economic  theory  shows  why  a  government 
would  think  that  agency  fees  are  necessary  for  exclusive
representation  to  work.  What  ties  the  two  together,  as 
Abood recognized, is the likelihood of free-riding when fees
are  absent.  Remember  that  once  a  union  achieves 
exclusive-representation  status,  the  law  compels  it  to 
fairly represent all workers in the bargaining unit, whether 
or not they join or contribute to the union.  See supra, at 4. 
Because  of  that  legal  duty,  the  union  cannot  give  special
advantages to its own members.  And that in turn creates
a  collective  action  problem  of  nightmarish  proportions.
Everyone—not  just  those  who  oppose  the  union,  but  also
those who back it—has an economic incentive to withhold 
dues;  only  altruism  or  loyalty—as  against  financial  self-
interest—can  explain  why  an  employee  would  pay  the 
union for its services.  And so emerged Abood’s rule allow-