Opinion ID: 106288
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the safeguarding of rights of dissent.

Text: To the contrary, Congress incorporated safeguards in the statute to protect dissenters' interests. Congress became concerned during the hearings and debates that the union shop might be used to abridge freedom of speech and beliefs. The original proposal for authorization of the union shop was qualified in only one respect. It provided That no such agreement shall require such condition of employment with respect to employees to whom membership is not available upon the same terms and conditions as are generally applicable to any other member. . . . This was primarily designed to prevent discharge of employees for nonmembership where the union did not admit the employee to membership on racial grounds. See House Hearings, p. 68; Senate Hearings, pp. 22-25. But it was strenuously protested that the proposal provided no protection for an employee who disagreed with union policies or leadership. It was argued, for example, that the right of free speech is at stake. . . . A man could feel that he was no longer able freely to express himself because he could be dismissed on account of criticism of the union . . . . House Hearings, p. 115; see also Senate Hearings, pp. 167-169, 320. Objections of this kind led the rail unions to propose an addition to the proviso to § 2, Eleventh to prevent loss of job for lack of union membership with respect to employees to whom membership was denied or terminated for any reason other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues, fees, and assessments uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership. House Hearings, p. 247. Mr. Harrison presented this text and stated, It is submitted that this bill with the amendment as suggested in this statement remedies the alleged abuses of compulsory union membership as claimed by the opposing witnesses, yet makes possible the elimination of the `free rider' and the sharing of the burden of maintenance by all of the beneficiaries of union activity. House Hearings, p. 253. Mr. Harrison also sought to reassure Committee members as to the possible implications of other language of the proposed bill; he explained that fees meant initiation fees, and assessments was intended primarily to cover the situation of a union which had only nominal dues, so that its members paid an assessment to finance the activities of the general negotiating committee . . . it will vary month by month, based on the expenses and work of that committee. P. 257. Or, he explained, an assessment might cover convention expenses. So we had to use the word `assessment' in addition to dues and fees because some of the unions collect a nominal amount of dues and an assessment month after month to finance part of the activities, although in total it perhaps is no different than the dues paid in the first instance which comprehended all of those expenses. P. 258. In reporting the bill, the Senate Committee expressly noted the protective proviso, S. Rep. No. 2262, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 3-4, and affixed the Senate additional limitations. The words not including fines and penalties were added, to make it clear that termination of union membership for their nonpayment would not be grounds for discharge. It was also made explicit that fees meant initiation fees. See 96 Cong. Rec. 16267-16268. A congressional concern over possible impingements on the interests of individual dissenters from union policies is therefore discernible. It is true that opponents of the union shop urged that Congress should not allow it without explicitly regulating the amount of dues which might be exacted or prescribing the uses for which the dues might be expended. [16] We may assume that Congress was also fully conversant with the long history of intensive involvement of the railroad unions in political activities. But it does not follow that § 2, Eleventh places no restriction on the use of an employee's money, over his objection, to support political causes he opposes merely because Congress did not enact a comprehensive regulatory scheme governing expenditures. For it is abundantly clear that Congress did not completely abandon the policy of full freedom of choice embodied in the 1934 Act, but rather made inroads on it for the limited purpose of eliminating the problems created by the free rider. That policy survives in § 2, Eleventh in the safeguards intended to protect freedom of dissent. Congress was aware of the conflicting interests involved in the question of the union shop and sought to achieve their accommodation. As was said by the Presidential Emergency Board which recommended the making of the union-shop agreement involved in this case: It is not as though Congress had believed it was merely removing some abstract legal barrier and not passing on the merits. It was made fully aware that it was deciding these critical issues of individual right versus collective interests which have been stressed in this proceeding. Indeed, Congress gave very concrete evidence that it carefully considered the claims of the individual to be free of arbitrary or unreasonable restrictions resulting from compulsory unionism. It did not give a blanket approval to union-shop agreements. Instead it enacted a precise and carefully drawn limitation on the kind of union-shop agreements which might be made. The obvious purpose of this careful prescription was to strike a balance between the interests pressed by the unions and the considerations which the Carriers have urged. By providing that a worker should not be discharged if he was denied or if he lost his union membership for any reason other than nonpayment of dues, initiation fees or assessments, Congress definitely indicated that it had weighed carefully and given effect to the policy of the arguments against the union shop. Report of Presidential Emergency Board No. 98, appointed pursuant to Exec. Order No. 10306, Nov. 15, 1951, p. 6. We respect this congressional purpose when we construe § 2, Eleventh as not vesting the unions with unlimited power to spend exacted money. We are not called upon to delineate the precise limits of that power in this case. We have before us only the question whether the power is restricted to the extent of denying the unions the right, over the employee's objection, to use his money to support political causes which he opposes. Its use to support candidates for public office, and advance political programs, is not a use which helps defray the expenses of the negotiation or administration of collective agreements, or the expenses entailed in the adjustment of grievances and disputes. In other words, it is a use which falls clearly outside the reasons advanced by the unions and accepted by Congress why authority to make union-shop agreements was justified. On the other hand, it is equally clear that it is a use to support activities within the area of dissenters' interests which Congress enacted the proviso to protect. We give § 2, Eleventh the construction which achieves both congressional purposes when we hold, as we do, that § 2, Eleventh is to be construed to deny the unions, over an employee's objection, the power to use his exacted funds to support political causes which he opposes. [17] We express no view as to other union expenditures objected to by an employee and not made to meet the costs of negotiation and administration of collective agreements, or the adjustment and settlement of grievances and disputes. We do not understand, in view of the findings of the Georgia courts and the question decided by the Georgia Supreme Court, that there is before us the matter of expenditures for activities in the area between the costs which led directly to the complaint as to free riders, and the expenditures to support union political activities. [18] We are satisfied, however, that § 2, Eleventh is to be interpreted to deny the unions the power claimed in this case. The appellant unions, in insisting that § 2, Eleventh contemplates their use of exacted funds to support political causes objected to by the employee, would have us hold that Congress sanctioned an expansion of historical practices in the political area by the rail unions. This we decline to do. Both by tradition and, from 1934 to 1951, by force of law, the rail unions did not rely upon the compulsion of union security agreements to exact money to support the political activities in which they engage. Our construction therefore involves no curtailment of the traditional political activities of the railroad unions. It means only that those unions must not support those activities, against the expressed wishes of a dissenting employee, with his exacted money. [19]