Court Opinion

ID: 9422290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:01:58.317876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:35.759036
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Black,
dissenting.
This action was brought in a Georgia state court by six railroad employees1 in behalf of themselves “and others similarly situated” against railroads making up the *781Southern Railway System, labor organizations representing employees of that system in collective bargaining, and a number of individuals, to enjoin enforcement and application to them of a union-shop agreement entered into between the railroads and the labor organizations as authorized by § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act.2 The agreement’s terms required all employees, in order to keep their railroad jobs, to join the union and remain members, at least to the extent of tendering periodic dues, initiation fees and assessments, not including fines and penalties.3 The complaint, as amended, charged that the agreement was void because it conflicted with the laws and Constitution of Georgia and the First, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. Section 2, Eleventh provides that such union shops are valid “ [notwithstanding any other . . . statute or law of the United States . . . or of any State.”' Relying on our decision in Railway Employes’ Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225, which upheld contracts made pursuant to that section, the Georgia trial court dismissed the complaint as amended. The State Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for trial, distinguishing our Hanson decision as follows:
“It is alleged that the union dues and other payments they will be required to make to the union *782will be used to ‘support ideological and political doctrines and candidates’ which they are unwilling to support and in which they do not believe, and that this will violate the First, Fifth and Ninth Amendments of the Constitution. While Railway Emp. Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225, supra, upheld the validity of a closed shop contract executed under § 2, Eleventh, that opinion clearly indicates that that court would not approve a requirement that one join the union if his contributions thereto were used as this petition alleges. It is there said (headnote 3c): ‘Judgment is reserved [italics in Georgia Supreme Court opinion] as to the validity or enforceability of a union or closed shop agreement if other conditions of union membership are imposed or if the exaction of dues, initiation fees or assessments is used as a cover for forcing ideological conformity or other action in contravention of the First or the Fifth Amendment.’ We must render judgment now upon this precise question. We do not believe one can constitutionally be compelled to contribute money-to support ideas, politics and candidates which he opposes. . . .”4
On remand, testimony, admissions and stipulations showed without dispute that union funds collected from dues, fees and assessments were regularly used to support and oppose various political and economic programs, candidates, parties and ideological causes, and that the complaining employees were opposed to many of the positions the unions took in these matters. The trial court made lengthy findings, one crucial here being:
“Those funds have been and are being used in substantial amounts to propagate political and *783economic doctrines, concepts and ideologies and to promote legislative programs opposed by plaintiffs and the class they represent.”
The trial court then found and declared § 2, Eleventh “unconstitutional to the extent that it permits, or is applied to permit, the exaction of funds from plaintiffs and the class they represent for the complained of purposes and activities set forth above.” Compulsory membership under these circumstances was held to abridge First Amendment freedoms of association, thought, speech, press and political expression.5 On the basis of this holding the trial court enjoined all the defendants “from enforcing the said union shop agreements . . . and from discharging petitioners, or any member of the class they represent, for refusing to become or remain members of, or pay periodic dues, fees, or assessments to, any of the labor union defendants, provided, however, that said defendants may at any time petition the court to dissolve said injunction upon a showing that they no .longer are engaging in the improper and unlawful activities described above.” Again, the activities referred to were the use of union funds collected from fees, dues and assessments to support candidates, parties, or ideological, economic or political views contrary to the wishes of the complaining employees. The trial court also decreed that the three employees who had been compelled under protest to pay dues, fees and assessments because of the union-shop agreement were entitled to have those payments returned.
The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed, holding that “[o]ne who is compelled to contribute the fruits of his *784labor to support or promote political or economic programs or support candidates for public office is just as much deprived of his freedom of speech as if he were compelled to give his vocal support to doctrines he opposes.” 6 I fully agree with this holding of the Georgia Supreme Court and would affirm its judgment with certain modifications of the relief granted.
I.
Section 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act authorizes unions and railroads to make union-shop agreements notwithstanding any other provision of state or federal law. Such a contract simply means that no person can keep a job with the contracting railroad unless he becomes a member of and pays dues to the contracting union. Neither § 2, Eleventh nor any other part of the Act contains any implication or even a. hint that Congress wanted to limit the purposes for which a contracting union’s dues should or could be spent. All the parties to this litigation have agreed from its beginning, and still agree, that there is no such limitation in the Act. The Court nevertheless, in order to avoid constitutional questions, interprets the Act itself as barring use of dues for political purposes. In doing this I think the Court is once more “carrying the doctine of avoiding constitutional questions to a wholly unjustifiable extreme.” 7 In fact, I think the Court is actually rewriting § 2, Eleventh to make it mean exactly what Congress refused to make it mean. The very legislative history relied on by the Court appears to me to prove that its interpretation of § 2, Eleventh is without justification. For that history shows that Congress with its eyes wide open passed that section, knowing that its broad language would permit the use of union dues *785to advocate causes, doctrines, laws, candidates and parties, whether individual members objected or not.8 Under such circumstances I think Congress has a right to a determination of the constitutionality of the statute it passed, rather than to have the Court rewrite the statute in the name of avoiding decision of constitutional questions.
The end result of what the Court is doing is to distort this statute so as to deprive unions of rights I think Congress tried to give them and at the same time, in the companion case of Lathrop v. Donohue, decided today, post, p. 820, leave itself free later to hold that integrated bar associations can constitutionally exercise the powers now denied to labor unions for fear of unconstitutionality. The constitutional question raised alike in this case and in Lathrop is bound to come back here soon with a record so meticulously perfect that the Court cannot escape deciding it. Should the Court then hold that lawyers and workers can constitutionally be compelled to pay for the support of views they are against, the result would be that the labor unions would have lost their case this *786year on a statutory-constitutional basis while the integrated bar would win its case next year or the year after on the ground that the constitutional part of the basis for the holding against the unions today was groundless. Yet no one has suggested that the Court’s statutory construction of § 2, Eleventh could possibly be supported without the crutch of its fear of unconstitutionality. This is why I think the Court’s avoidance of the constitutional issue in both cases today is wholly unfair to the unions as well as to Congress. I must consider this case on the basis of my belief as to the constitutionality of § 2, Eleventh, interpreted so as to authorize compulsion of workers to pay dues to a union for use in advocating causes and political candidates that the protesting workers are against.
II.
It is contended by the unions that precisely the same First Amendment question presented here was considered and decided in Railway Employes’ Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225. I agree that it clearly was not. Section 2, Eleventh was challenged there before it became effective and the main grounds of attack, as our opinion noted, were that the union-shop agreement would deprive employees of their freedom of association under the First Amendment and of their property rights under the Fifth. There were not in the Hanson case, as there are here, allegations, proof and findings that union funds regularly were being used to support political parties, candidates and economic and ideological causes to which the complaining employees were hostile. Our opinion in Hanson carefully pointed to the fact that only general “[wjide-ranged problems” were tendered under the First Amendment and that imposition of “assessments . . . not germane to collective bargaining” would present “a different problem.” The Court went on further to emphasize *787that if at another time “the exaction of dues, initiation fees, or assessments is used as a cover for forcing ideological conformity or other action in contravention of the First Amendment, this judgment will not prejudice the decision in that case. . . . We only hold that the requirement for financial support of the collective-bargaining agency by all who receive the benefits of its work is within the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause and does not violate either, the First or the Fifth Amendments.” 9
Thus the Hanson case held only that workers could be required to pay their part of the cost of actual bargaining-carried on by a union selected as bargaining agent under authority of Congress, just as Congress doubtless could have required workers to pay the cost of such bargaining had it chosen to have the bargaining carried on by the Secretary of Labor or any other appropriately selected bargaining agent. The Hanson case did not hold that railroad workers could be compelled by law to forego their constitutionally protected freedom of association by participating as union “members” against their will. That case cannot, therefore, properly be read to rest on a principle which would permit government — in furtherance of some public interest, be that interest actual or imaginary — to compel membership in Rotary Clubs, fraternal organizations, religious groups, chambers of commerce, bar associations, labor unions, or any other private organizations Government may decide it wants to subsidize, support or control. In a word, the Hanson case did not hold that the existence of union-shop contracts could be used as an excuse to force workers to associate with people they do not want to associate with, or to pay their money to support causes they detest.
*788III.
The First Amendment provides:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Probably no one would suggest that Congress could, without violating this Amendment, pass a law taxing workers, or any persons for that matter (even lawyers), to create a fund to be used in helping certain political parties or groups favored by the Government to elect their candidates or promote their controversial causes. Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate laws or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.
There is, of course, no constitutional reason why a union or other private group may not spend its funds for political or ideological causes if its members voluntarily join it and can voluntarily get out of it.10 Labor unions made up of voluntary members free to get in or out of the unions when they please have played important and useful roles in politics and economic affairs.11 How to spend its money is a question for each voluntary group to decide for itself in the absence of some valid law for*789bidding activities for which the money is spent.12 But a different situation arises when a federal law steps in and authorizes such a group to carry on activities at the expense of persons who do not choose to be members of the group as well as those who do. Such a law, even though validly passed by Congress, cannot be used in a way that abridges the specifically defined freedoms of the First Amendment. And whether there is such abridgment depends not only on how the law is written but also on how it works.13
There can be no doubt that the federally sanctioned union-shop contract here, as it actually works, takes a part of the earnings of some men and turns it over to others, who spend a substantial part of the funds so received in efforts to thwart the political, economic and ideological hopes of those whose money has been forced from them under authority of law. This injects federal compulsion into the political and ideological processes, a result which I have supposed everyone would agree the First Amendment was particularly intended to prevent. And it makes no difference if, as is urged, political and legislative activities are helpful adjuncts of collective bargaining. Doubtless employers could make the same *790arguments in favor of compulsory contributions to an association of employers for use in political and economic programs calculated to help collective bargaining on their side. But the argument is equally unappealing whoever makes it. The stark fact is that this Act of Congress is being used as a means to exact money from these employees to help get votes to win elections for parties and candidates and to support doctrines they are against. If this is constitutional the First Amendment is not the charter of political and religious liberty its sponsors believed it to be. James Madison, who wrote the Amendment, said in arguing for religious liberty that “the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute, three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever.” 14 And Thomas Jefferson said that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.” 15 These views of Madison and Jefferson authentically represent the philosophy embodied in the safeguards of the First Amendment. That Amendment leaves the Federal Government no power whatever to compel one man to expend his energy, his time or his money to advance the fortunes of candidates he would like to see defeated or to urge ideologies and causes he believes would be hurtful to the country.
The Court holds that § 2, Eleventh denies “unions, over an employee’s objection, the power to use his exacted funds to support political causes which he opposes.” While I do not so construe § 2, Eleventh, I want to make clear that I believe the First Amendment bars use of dues extorted from an employee by law for the promotion of causes, doctrines and laws that unions generally favor to *791help the unions, as well as any other political purposes. I think workers have as much right to their own views about matters affecting unions as they have to views about other matters in the fields of politics and economics. Indeed, some of their most strongly held views are apt to be precisely on the subject of unions, just as questions of law reform, court procedure, selection of judges and other aspects of the “administration of justice” give rise to some of the deepest and most irreconcilable differences among lawyers. In my view, § 2, Eleventh can constitutionally authorize no more than to make a worker pay dues to a union for the sole purpose of defraying the cost of acting as his bargaining agent. Our Government has no more power to compel individuals to support union programs or union publications than it has to compel the support of political programs, employer programs or church programs. And the First Amendment, fairly construed, deprives the Government of all power to make any person pay out one single penny against his will to be used in any way to advocate doctrines or views he is against, whether economic, scientific, political, religious or any other.16
I would therefore hold that § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act, in authorizing application of the union-shop contract to the named protesting employees who are appellees here, violates the freedom of speech guarantee of the First Amendment.
IV.
The remedy:
The Georgia court enjoined the unions and the railroads from certain future activities under the contract and also required repayment of dues paid by three employees who had protested use of union funds to support *792candidates or advocate views the protesting employees were against.
I am not so sure as the Court that the injunction bars “the collection of all funds from anyone who can show that he is opposed to the expenditure of any of his money for political purposes which he disapproves.” So construed the injunction would take away the First Amendment right of employees to contribute their money voluntarily to a collective fund to be used to support and oppose candidates and causes even though individual contributors might disagree with particular choices of the group. So far as it may be ambiguous in this respect, I think the injunction should be modified to make sure that it does not interfere with the valuable rights of citizens to make their individual voices heard through voluntary collective action.
For much the same basic reasons I think the injunction is too broad in that it runs not only in favor of the six protesting employees but also in favor of the “class they represent.” No one of that “class” is shown to have protested at all. The State Supreme Court nevertheless rejected the unions’ contention that the so-called class was so indefinite, and its members so lacking in common, identifiable interests and mental attitudes, that a decree purporting to bind all of them, the railroads, the individual defendants and the unions, would not comport with the due process requirements of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. For reasons to be stated, I agree with this contention of the unions and consequently would hold that the judgment here cannot stand insofar as it purports finally to adjudicate rights as between the party defendants and railroad employees who were neither named party plaintiffs nor intervenors in the suit.
The trial court defined the “class” as composed of “all non-operating employees of the railroad defendants affected by, and opposed to, the . . . union shop agree-
*793ments, who also are opposed to the collection and use of periodic dues, fees and assessments for support of ideological and political doctrines and candidates and legislative programs . . . .”17 As applied to the facts here, this class, as defined, could include employees not only from Georgia, but also- from Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Illinois, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Kentucky and the District of Columbia. Genuine class actions result in binding judgments either for or against each member of the class.18 Obviously, to make a judgment binding, the parties for or against whom it is to operate must be identifiable when the judgment is rendered. That would not be possible here since the only employees included in the class would be those who personally oppose the views they allege the union is using their dues to promote. This would make the “class” depend on the views entertained by each member, views which may change from day to day or year to year. Under these circumstances, when this decree was rendered neither the court nor the adverse parties nor anyone else could know, with certainty, to what individuals the unions owed a duty under the decree. In Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S. *79432, 44, this Court pointed out the insuperable obstacles in attempting to treat as members of the same class parties to a contract such as the one here, some of whom might prefer to have the contract enforced and some of whom might not. Notice to persons whose rights are to be adjudicated is too important an element of our system of justice to permit a holding that this Georgia action has finally determined the issues for all the unidentifiable members of this “class” of plaintiffs spread territorially all the way from Florida to Illinois and from the District of Columbia to Missouri. After all the class suit doctrine is only a narrow judicially created exception to the rule that a case or controversy involves litigants who have been duly notified and given an opportunity to be present in court either in person or by counsel.19 I would hold that there was no known common interest among the members of the described class here which justified this class action. From the very nature of the rights asserted, which depended on the unknown, perhaps fluctuating mental attitudes of employees, the rights of each employee were the basis for separable claims, in which the relief for each might vary as it did here as to the amount of damages awarded. Under these circumstances the class judgment should not stand.
The decree, modified to eliminate its class aspect, does not unconditionally forbid the application of the contract to all people under all circumstances, as did the one we struck down in the Hanson case. The decree so modified would simply forbid use of the union-shop contract to bar employment of the six protesting employees so long as the unions do not discontinue the practice of spending union funds to support any causes or doctrines, political, economic or other, over the expressed objection of the six particular employees. Other employees who have not *795protested are of course in the entirely different position of voluntary or acquiescing dues payers, which they have every right to be, and since they have asked for no relief the decree in this case should not affect them. Thus modified I think the relief afforded by the decree is justified.
The decree requires the union to refund dues, fees and assessments paid under protest by three of the complaining employees and exempts the six complaining employees from the payment of any union dues, fees or assessments so long as funds so received are used by the union to promote causes they are against. The state court found that these payments had been and would be made by these employees only because they had been compelled to join the union to save their jobs, despite their objections to paying the union so long as it used its funds for candidates, parties and ideologies contrary to these employees’ wishes. The Court does not challenge this finding but nevertheless holds that relieving protesting workers of all payment of dues would somehow interfere with the union’s statutory duty to act as a bargaining agent. In the first place, this would interfere with the union’s activities only to the extent that it bars compulsion of dues payments from protesting workers to be used in some unknown part for unconstitutional purposes, and I think it perfectly proper to hold that such payments cannot be compelled. Furthermore, I think the remedy suggested by the Court will work a far greater interference with the union’s bargaining activities because it will impose much greater trial and accounting burdens on both unions and workers. The Court’s remedy is to give the wronged employees a right to a refund limited either to "the proportion of the union’s total expenditures made for such political activities” or to the “proportion . . . [of] expenditures for political purposes which he had advised the union he disapproved.” It may be that courts and lawyers with *796sufficient skill in accounting, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus will be able to extract the proper microscopic answer from the voluminous and complex accounting records of the local, national and international unions involved. It seems to me, however, that while the Court’s remedy may prove very lucrative to special masters, accountants and lawyers, this formula, with its attendant trial burdens, promises little hope for financial recompense to the individual workers whose First Amendment freedoms have been flagrantly violated. Undoubtedly, at the conclusion of this long exploration of accounting intricacies, many courts could with plausibility dismiss the workers’ claims as de minimis when measured only in dollars and cents.
I cannot agree to treat so lightly the value of a man’s constitutional right to be wholly free from any sort of governmental compulsion in the expression of opinions. It should not be forgotten that many men have left their native lands, languished in prison, and even lost their lives, rather than give support to ideas they were conscientiously against. The three workers who paid under protest here were forced under authority of a federal statute to pay all current dues or lose their jobs. They should get back all they paid with interest.
Unions composed of a voluntary membership, like all other voluntary groups, should be free in this country to fight in the public forum to advance their own causes, to promote their choice of candidates and parties and to work for the doctrines or the laws they favor. But to the extent that Government steps in to force people to help espouse the particular causes of a group, that group— whether composed of railroad workers or lawyers — loses its status as a voluntary group. The reason our Constitution endowed individuals with freedom to think and speak and advocate was to free people from the blighting effect of either a partial or a complete governmental *797monopoly of ideas. Labor unions have been peculiar beneficiaries of that salutary constitutional principle, and lawyers, I think, are charged with a peculiar responsibility to preserve and protect this principle of constitutional freedom, even for themselves. A violation of it, however small, is, in my judgment, prohibited by the First Amendment and should be stopped dead in its tracks on its first appearance. With so vital a principle at stake, I cannot agree to the imposition of parsimonious limitations on the kind of decree the courts below can fashion in their efforts to afford effective protection to these priceless constitutional rights.
I would affirm the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court, with the modifications I have suggested.

 Although there were more complainants when the suit was brought, there were only six when the trial was completed.

 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U. S. C. § 152, Eleventh.

 In accordance with the requirements of the statute, the agreement provided, in language almost identical to that of the statute, that no employee would be required to become or remain a member of the union “if such membership is not available to such employe upon the same terms and' conditions as are generally applicable to any other member, or if the membership of such employe is denied or terminated for any reason other than the failure of the employe to tender the periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments (not including fines and penalties) uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.”

 Looper v. Georgia Southern & F. R. Co., 213 Ga. 279, 284, 99 S. E. 2d 101, 104^105.

 The trial court also held that the section as enforced violated the Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. My view as to the First Amendment makes it unnecessary for me to consider the claims under the other Amendments.

 215 Ga. 27, 46, 108 S. E. 2d 796, 808.

 Clay v. Sun Insurance Office, 363 U. S. 207, 213 (dissenting opinion).

 The specific problem of use of the compelled dues for political purposes was raised during both the hearings and the floor debates. Hearings on S. 3295, Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 316-317; Hearings on H. R. 7789, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., p. 160; 96 Cong. Rec. 17049-17050.
Again, in 1958, when Senator Potter introduced his amendment to limit the use of compelled dues to collective bargaining and related purposes, he pointed out on the floor of the Senate that “the fact is that under current practices in some of our labor organizations, dissenters are being denied the freedom not to support financially political or ideological or other activities which they may oppose.” 104 Cong. Rec. 11214. It could hardly be contended that the debate on his proposal, which was defeated, indicated any generally held belief that such use of compelled dues was already proscribed under § 2, Eleventh or any other existing statute. See 104 Cong. Rec. 11214— 11224, 11330-11347.

 351 U. S., at 235, 236, 238. See also id., at 242 (concurring opinion).

 See DeMille v. American Federation of Radio Artists, 175 P. 2d 851, 854 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App.), aff’d, 31 Cal. 2d 139, 147-149, 187 P. 2d 769, 775-776, cert. denied, 333 U. S. 876.

 United States v. C. I. O., 335 U. S. 106, 144 (concurring opinion).

 See, e. g., Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490.

 We held in the Hanson case, with respect to this very same § 2, Eleventh, that even though the statutory provision authorizing union shops is only permissive, that provision, “which expressly declares that state law is superseded,” is “the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed” and therefore is “the governmental action on which the Constitution operates.” 351 U. S., at 232. Even though § 2, Eleventh is permissive in form, Congress was fully aware when enacting it that the almost certain result would be the establishment of union shops throughout the railroad industry. Witness after witness so testified during the hearings on the bill, and this testimony was never seriously disputed. See Hearings on S. 3295, supra, note 8, passim; Hearings on H. R. 7789, supra, note 8, passim.

 1 Stokes, Church and State in the United States, 391 (1950).

 Brant, James Madison: The Nationalist, 354 (1948).

 Cf. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 16.

 The trial court went on to include in the class other employees who opposed the use of union funds for any purposes “other than the negotiation, maintenance and administration of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules and working conditions, or wages, hours, terms or other conditions of employment or the handling of disputes relating to the above.” I read the two opinions of the Georgia Supreme Court, however, as limiting its holding to the precise question of whether the First Amendment is violated by the'compulsory legal requirement that employees pay dues and other fees which are partly-used to propagate political and ideological views obnoxious to the employees. I consequently do not reach or consider the different question lurking in this part of the trial court’s definition of class.

 See, e. g., Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U. S. 356, 367.

 Cf. Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S., at 41-42.