Court Opinion

ID: 9431447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:18.695622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:28.542712
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
with whom Justice O’Connor and Justice Scalia join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree that the District Court and the Court of Appeals properly exercised jurisdiction over respondents’ duty-of-fair-representation and First Amendment claims, and that the National Labor Relations Board had primary jurisdiction over respondents’ claim brought under § 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 158(a)(3). I also agree that the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to decide the § 8(a)(3) question raised by respondents’ duty-of-fair-representation claim.1 I therefore join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion.
My agreement with the majority ends there, however, for I cannot agree with its resolution of the § 8(a)(3) issue. Without the decision in Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740 (1961), involving the Railway Labor Act (RLA), thé Court could not reach the result it does today. Our accepted mode of resolving statutory questions would not lead to a construction of § 8(a)(3) so foreign to that section’s express language and legislative history, which show that Congress did not intend to limit either the amount of “agency fees” (or what the majority labels “dues-equivalents”) a union may collect under a union-security agreement, or the union’s expenditure of such funds. The Court’s excessive reliance on Street to reach a *764contrary conclusion is manifested by its unique line of reasoning. No sooner is the language of § 8(a)(3) intoned, than the Court abandons all attempt at construction of this statute and leaps to its interpretation over a quarter century ago of another statute enacted by a different Congress, a statute with a distinct history and purpose. See ante, at 744-745. I am unwilling to offend our established doctrines of statutory construction and strain the meaning of the language used by Congress in § 8(a)(3), simply to conform §8(a)(3)’s construction to the Court’s interpretation of similar language in a different later-enacted statute, an interpretation which is itself “not .without its difficulties.” Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U. S. 209, 232 (1977) (characterizing the Court’s decision in Street). I therefore dissent from Parts III and IV of the Court’s opinion.
I
As the Court observes, “we have never before delineated the precise limits § 8(a)(3) places on the negotiation and enforcement of union-security agreements.” Ante, at 745. Unlike the majority, however, I think the issue is an entirely new one. I shall endeavor, therefore, to resolve it in accordance with our well-settled principles of statutory construction.
A
As with any question of statutory interpretation, the starting point is the language of the statute itself. Section 8(a)(3) makes it unlawful for an employer to “discriminate] in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.” 29 U. S. C. § 158(a)(3). Standing alone, this proscription, and thus §8(b)(2)’s corollary proscription,2 effectively would outlaw union-security agreements. The proscription, however, is qualified by two provisos. The first, which appeared initially in § 8(a)(3) of the *765NLRA as originally enacted in 1935, 49 Stat. 452, generally excludes union-security agreements from statutory condemnation by explaining that
“nothing in [the NLRA] or in any other statute of the United States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a labor organization ... to require as a condition of employment membership therein ... if such labor organization is the representative of the employees as provided in section 159(a) of this title . . . .” § 8(a)(3), 29 U. S. C. § 158(a)(3).
The second proviso, incorporated in § 8(a)(3) by the Taft-Hartley Amendments of 1947, 61 Stat. 141,3 circumscribes the first proviso’s general exemption by the following limitations:
“[N]o employer shall justify any discrimination against an employee for nonmembership in a labor organization • ... if he has reasonable grounds for believing that membership was denied or terminated for reasons other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.”
The plain language of these statutory provisions, read together, permits an employer and union to enter into ah agreement requiring all employees, as a condition of continued employment, to pay uniform periodic dues and initiation fees.4 The second proviso expressly allows an employer to terminate any “employee,” pursuant to a union-security agreement permitted by the first proviso, if the employee *766fails “to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership” in the union. 29 U. S. C. § 158(a)(3). The term “employee,” as statutorily defined, includes any employee, without regard to union membership. See 29 U. S. C. § 152 (3). Union-member employees and nonunion-member employees are treated alike under § 8(a)(3).
“[W]e assume ‘that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.’” American Tobacco Co. v. Patterson, 456 U. S. 63, 68 (1982), quoting Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 9 (1962). The terms “dues” and “fees,” as used in the proviso, can refer to nothing other than the regular, periodic dues and initiation fees paid by “voluntary” union members. This was the apparent understanding of the Court in those decisions in which it held that § 8(a)(3) permits union-security agreements. See NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 373 U. S. 734, 736 (1963) (approving a union-security proposal that would have conditioned employment “upon the payment of sums equal to the initiation fee and regular monthly dues paid by the union members”); Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 373 U. S. 746, 753 (1963) (upholding agreement requiring nonmembers to pay a “service fee [which] is admittedly the exact equal of membership initiation fees and monthly dues”). It also has been the consistent view of the NLRB,5 “the agency en*767trusted by Congress with the authority to administer the NLRA.” Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Construction Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 574 (1988). The provisos do not give any employee, union member or not, the right to pay less than the full amount of regular dues and initiation fees charged to all other bargaining-unit employees.
*768The Court’s conclusion that § 8(a)(3) prohibits petitioners from requiring respondents to pay fees for purposes other than those “germane” to collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment simply cannot be derived from the plain language of the statute. In effect, the Court accepts respondents’ contention that the words “dues” and “fees,” as used in § 8(a)(3), refer not to the periodic amount a union charges its members but to the portion of that amount that the union expends on statutory collective bargaining. 6 See Brief for Respondents 17-20. Not only is this reading implausible as a matter of simple English usage, but it is also contradicted by the decisions of this Court and of the NLRB interpreting the section. Section 8(a)(3) does not speak of “dues” and “fees” that employees covered by a *769union-security agreement may be required to tender to their union representative; rather, the section speaks only of “the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership” (emphasis added). Thus, the section, by its terms, defines “periodic dues” and “initiation fees” as those dues and fees “uniformly required” of all members, not as a portion of full dues. As recognized by this Court, “dues collected from members may be used for a variety of purposes, in addition to meeting the union’s costs of collective bargaining. Unions rather typically use their membership dues to do those things which the members authorize the union to do in their interest and on their behalf.” Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 373 U. S., at 753-754 (internal quotations omitted): By virtue of § 8(a)(3), such dues may be required from any employee under a union-security agreement. Nothing in § 8(a)(3) limits, or even addresses, the purposes to which a union may devote the moneys collected pursuant to such an agreement.7
B
The Court’s attempt to squeeze support from the legislative history for its reading of congressional intent contrary to the plain language of § 8(a)(3)- is unavailing. As its own discussion of the relevant legislative materials reveals, ante, at 747-750, there is no indication that the 1947 Congress intended to limit the union’s authority to collect from nonmembers the same periodic dues and initiation fees it collects from members. Indeed, on balance, the legislative history rein*770forces what the statutory language suggests: the provisos neither limit the uses to which agency fees may be put nor require nonmembers to be charged less than the “uniform” dues and initiation fees.
In Machinists v. NLRB, 362 U. S. 411 (1960), the Court stated:
“It is well known, and the legislative history of the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments plainly shows, that § 8(a)(3)— including its proviso — represented the Congressional response to the competing demands of employee freedom of choice and union security. Had Congress thought one or the other overriding, it would doubtless have found words adequate to express that judgment. It did not do so; it accommodated both interests, doubtless in a manner unsatisfactory to the extreme partisans of each, by drawing a line it thought reasonable. It is not for the administrators of the Congressional mandate to approach either side of that line grudgingly.” Id., at 418, n. 7.
The legislative debates surrounding the adoption of §8 (a)(3) in 1947, show that in crafting the proviso to § 8(a)(3), Congress was attempting “only to ‘remedy the most serious abuses of compulsory union membership ....’” NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 373 U. S., at 741, quoting from the legislative history. The particular “abuses” Congress identified and attempted to correct were two: the closed shop, which “deprives management of any real choice of the men it hires” and gives union leaders “a method of depriving employees of their jobs, and in some cases [of] a means of securing a livelihood in their trade or calling, for purely capricious reasons,” S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1947) (S. Rep.), Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (Committee Print compiled for the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare), p. 412 (1974) (Leg. Hist.); and those union shops in which the union sought to obtain indirectly the same *771result as that obtained through a closed shop by negotiating a union-shop agreement and maintaining a “closed” union where it was free to deny membership to an individual arbitrarily or discriminatorily and then compel the discharge of that person because of his nonmembership, 93 Cong. Rec. 3836-3837, 4193, 4885-4886 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1010, 1096-1097, 1420-1421 (remarks of Sen. Taft); 93 Cong. Rec. 4135, Leg. Hist. 1061-1062 (remarks of Sen. Ellender). Senator Taft, the chief sponsor of the Senate bill, in arguing against an amendment to proscribe all forms of union-security agreements, stated that it was unwise to outlaw union-security agreements altogether “since there had been for such a long time so many union shops in the United States, [and] since in many trades it was entirely customary and had worked satisfactorily,” and that therefore the appropriate approach was to “meet the problem of dealing with the abuses which had appeared.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4885, Leg. Hist. 1420.8 “Con*772gress [also] recognized that in the absence of a union-security provision ‘many employees sharing the benefits of what unions are able to accomplish by collective bargaining will refuse to pay their share of the cost.’” NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 373 U. S., at 740-741, quoting S. Rep., at 6, Leg. Hist. 412.
Congress’ solution was to ban the closed shop and to permit the enforcement of union-shop agreements as long as union membership is available “on the same terms and conditions” to all employees, and mandatory discharge is required only for “nonpayment of regular dues and initiation fees.” S. Rep., at 7, 20, Leg. Hist. 413, 426. Congress was of the view, that, as Senator Taft stated, “[t]he fact that the employee will have to pay dues to the union seems ... to be much less important. The important thing is that the man will have the job.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1422. “[A] man can get a job with an employer and can continue in that job if, in effect, he joins the union and pays the union dues.
“If he pays the dues without joining the union, he has the right to be employed.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg. Hist. *7731421-1422. There is no serious doubt that what Congress had in mind was a situation in which the nonmember employee would “pay the same dues as other members of the union.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4272 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1142 (remarks of Sen. Taft); accord, 93 Cong. Rec. 3557 (1947), Leg. Hist. 740 (remarks of Sen. Jennings) (members of the minority “should go along and contribute dues like the others”). In their financial obligations, therefore, these employees were “in effect,” union members, and could not be discharged pursuant to a union-security agreement as long as they maintained this aspect of union “membership.”9 This solution was viewed as “tak[ing] care” of the free-rider issue. 93 Cong. Rec. 4887 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1422 (remarks of Sen. Taft).
Throughout the hearings and lengthy debate on one of the most hotly contested issues that confronted the 1947 Congress, not once did any Member of Congress suggest that § 8(a)(3) did not leave employers and unions free to adopt and enforce union-security agreements requiring all employees in the bargaining unit to pay an amount equal to full union dues and standard initiation fees. Nor did anyone suggest that § 8(a)(3) affected a union’s expenditure of such funds.
Indeed, the legislative history indicates that Congress affirmatively declined to place limitations on either the amount of dues a union could charge or the uses to which it could put these dues. The Court dismisses as irrelevant the fact that Congress expressly rejected the House proposal that would have empowered the NLRB to regulate the “reasonableness” of union dues and expenditures. The Court finds meaningful the fact that “[t]he House bill did not purport to set out the *774rights of nonmembers who are compelled to pay union dues, but rather sought to establish a ‘bill of rights for union members' vis-á-vis their union leaders. H. R. Rep., at 31, Leg. Hist. 322 (emphasis added).” Ante, at 758. But this is a distinction without a difference. Contrary to the Court’s view, Congress viewed this proposal as directly related to § 8(a)(3); Congress clearly saw the nonmembers’ interests in this context as being represented by union members.10 Thus, Senator Taft explained the Senate conferees’ reasons for refusing to accept the provisions in the House bill:
“In the opinion of the Senate conferees[,] the language which protected an employee from losing his job if a union expelled him for some reason other than nonpayment of dues and initiation fees, uniformly required of all members, was considered sufficient protection.” 93 Cong. Rec. 6443 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1540.
Congress’ decision, in the course of the well-documented Senate-House compromise, not to place any general federal restrictions on the levels or uses of union dues,11 indicates *775that it did not intend the provisos to limit the uses to which agency fees may be put.
The Court invokes what it apparently sees as a single-minded legislative purpose, namely, the eradication of a “free-rider” problem, and then views the legislative history through this narrow prism. The legislative materials demonstrate, however, that, contrary to the impression left by the Court, Congress was not guided solely by a desire to eliminate “free riders.” The 1947 Congress that carefully crafted § 8(a)(3) was focusing on a quite different problem— the most serious abuses of compulsory unionism. As the majority observes, “Congress carefully tailored [its] solution to the evils at which it was aimed.” Ante, at 749. In serving its purpose, Congress went only so far in foreclosing compulsory unionism. It outlawed closed shops altogether, but banned unions from using union-security provisions only where those provisions exact more than the initiation fees and “periodic dues” uniformly required as conditions of union *776membership. Otherwise, it determined that the regulation of union-security agreements should be left to specific federal legislation and to the legislatures and courts of the several States.12 Congress explicitly declined to mandate the kind of particularized regulation of union dues and fees which the Court attributes to it today.
II
By suggesting that the 1947 Congress was driven principally by a desire to eradicate a “free-rider” problem, the Court finds the means not only to distort the legislative justification for § 8(a)(3) and to ignore the provision’s plain language, but also to draw a controlling parallelism to §2, Eleventh of the RLA, 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U. S. C. § 152. As mistaken as the Court is in its view of Congress’ purpose in enacting § 8(a)(3), the Court is even more mistaken in its reliance on this Court’s interpretation of §2, Eleventh in Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740 (1961).
The text of § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA is, of course, very much like the text of the later enacted § 2, Eleventh of the RLA. This similarity, however, does not dictate the conclusion that the 1947 Congress intended § 8(a)(3) to have a meaning identical to that which the 1951 Congress intended § 2, Eleventh to have. The Court previously has held that the scope of the RLA is not identical to that of the NLRA and that courts should be wary of drawing parallels between the two stat*777utes. See, e. g., First National Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, 452 U. S. 666, 686, n. 23 (1981); Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369, 383 (1969). Thus, parallels between § 8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh, “like all parallels between the NLRA and the Railway Labor Act, should be drawn with the utmost care and with full awareness of the differences between the statutory schemes.” Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Transportation Union, 402 U. S. 570, 579, n. 11 (1971). Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, ante, at 750, the two provisions were not born of the “same concern[s]”; indeed, they-were born of competing concerns. This Court’s interpretation of §2, Eleventh, therefore, provides no support for construing § 8(a)(3) in a fashion inconsistent with its plain language and legislative history.13
The considerations that enabled the Court to conclude in Street, 367 U. S.. at 750, that it is “ ‘fairly possible’ ” and “entirely reasonable” to read §2, Eleventh to proscribe union-security agreements requiring uniform payments from all bargaining-unit employees are wholly absent with respect to §8(a)(3>. In Street, the Court stressed the fact that from 1926, when the RLA was first enacted, until 1951 when § 2, Eleventh assumed its present form, that Act prohibited all forms of union security and declared a “policy of complete freedom of choice of employees to join or not to join a union.” Ibid. By 1951, however, Congress recognized “the expenses and burdens incurred by the unions in the administration of the complex scheme of the [RLA}-” 367 U. S., at 751. The purpose advanced for amending the RLA in 1951 to authorize union-security agreements for the first time was “the elimi*778nation of the ‘free riders.”’ 367 U. S., at 761. Given that background, the Court was persuaded that it was possible to conclude that “Congress did not completely abandon the policy of full freedom of choice embodied in the . . . Act, but rather made inroads on it for the limited purpose of eliminating the problems created by the ‘free rider.’” Id., at 767.
The NLRA does not share the RLA’s underlying policy, which propelled the Court’s interpretation of §2, Eleventh in Street. Indeed, the history of the NLRA points in the opposite direction: the original policy of the Wagner Act was to permit all forms of union-security agreements, and such agreements were commonplace in 1947. Thus, in enacting § 8(a)(3), the 1947 Congress, unlike the 1951 Congress, was not making inroads on a policy of full freedom of choice in order to provide “a specific response,” id., at 751, to a particular problem facing unions. Rather, the 1947 amendments to § 8(a)(3) were designed to make an inroad into a preexisting policy of the absolute freedom of private parties under federal law to negotiate union-security agreements. It was a “limited” inroad, responding to carefully defined abuses that Congress concluded had arisen in the union-security agreements permitted by the Wagner Act. The 1947 Congress did not enact § 8(a)(3) for the “same purpose” as did the 1951 Congress in enacting § 2, Eleventh. Therefore, contrary to the Court’s conclusion, ante, at 762, the latter purpose, “eliminating ‘free riders,”’ does not dictate our construction of § 8(a)(3), regardless of its impact on our construction of § 2, Eleventh.
In order to overcome this inevitable conclusion, the Court relies on remarks made by a few Members of the Congress in enacting the 1951 amendments to §2, Eleventh of the RLA, which the Court contends show that the 1951 Congress viewed those amendments as identical to the amendments that had been made to § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA in 1947. See ante, at 756; see also ante, at 746, and n. 4. But even assuming the Court’s view of the legislative history of § 2, Elev*779enth is correct (and the legislative materials do not obviously impart the message the Court receives 14), it does not provide support for the Court’s strained reading of § 8(a)(3). Its only possible relevance in this case is to evidence the 1951 Congress’ understanding of a statute that particular Congress did not enact. The relevant question here, however, is what the 1947 Congress intended by the statute that it enacted. “[I]t is well settled that ‘“the views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one.’”” Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 26 (1983), quoting Jefferson County Pharmaceutical Assn. v. Abbott Laboratories, 460 U. S. 150, 165, n. 27 (1983), in turn quoting United States v. Price, 361 U. S. 304, 313 (1960). See also United States v. Clark, 445 U. S. 23, 33, n. 9 (1980). It *780would “surely come as a surprise” to the legislators who enacted § 8(a)(3) to learn that, in discerning their intent, the Court listens not to their voices, but to those of a later Congress. Ante, at 756. Unlike the majority, I am unwilling to put the 1951 legislators’ words into the 1947 legislators’ mouths.
The relevant sources for gleaning the 1947 Congress’ intent are the plain language of § 8(a)(3), and, at least to the extent that it might reflect a clear intention contrary to the plain meaning of the statute, the legislative history of § 8(a)(3). Those sources show that the 1947 Congress did not intend § 8(a)(3) to have the same meaning the Court has attributed to § 2, Eleventh of the RLA. I therefore must disagree with the majority’s assertion that the Court’s decision in Street is “controlling” here. See ante, at 745.
Ill
In sum, I conclude that, in enacting § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA, Congress did not intend to prohibit union-security agreements that require the tender of full union dues and standard union initiation fees from nonmember employees, without regard to how the union expends the funds so collected. In finding controlling weight in this Court’s interpretation of § 2, Eleventh of the RLA to reach a contrary conclusion, the Court has not only eschewed our well-established methods of statutory construction, but also interpreted the terms of § 8(a)(3) in a manner inconsistent with the congressional purpose clearly expressed in the statutory language and amply documented in the legislative history. I dissent.

 Like the majority, I do not reach the First Amendment issue raised below by respondents, and therefore similarly do not address whether a union’s exercise of rights pursuant to § 8(a)(3) involves state action. See ante, at 761.

Section 8(b)(2) makes it unlawful for a union “to cause or attempt to cause an employer” to violate § 8(a)(3). 29 U. S. C. § 158(b)(2).

 The Taft-Hartley Act also amended the first proviso to prohibit the application of a union-security agreement to an individual until he has been employed for 30 days. See 29-U. S. C. § 158(a)(3).

 This reading, of course, flows from the fact that “membership” as used in the first proviso, means not actual membership in the union, but rather “the payment of initiation fees and monthly dues.” NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 373 U. S. 734, 742 (1963).

See, e. g., In re Union Starch & Refining Co., 87 N. L. R. B. 779, (1949), enf’d, 186 F. 2d 1008 (CA7), cert. denied, 342 U. S. 815 (1951); Detroit Mailers Union No. 40, 192 N. L. R. B. 951, 951-952 (1971). In Detroit Mailers, the Board explained:
“Neither on its face nor in the congressional purpose behind [§ 8(a)(3)] can any warrant be found for making any distinction here between dues which may be allocated for collective-bargaining purposes and those earmarked for institutional expenses of the union. . . . ‘[D]ues collected from members may be used for a variety of purposes, in addition to meeting the union’s costs of collective bargaining.’ Unions ‘rather typically’ use their membership dues ‘to do those things which the members authorized the union to do in their interest and on their behalf.’ By virtue of Sec*767tion 8(a)(3)', such dues may be required from an employee under a union-security contract so long as they are periodic and uniformly required and are not devoted to a purpose which would make their mandatory extraction otherwise inimical to public policy.” Id., at 952, quoting Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 373 U. S., at 753-754 (internal quotations omitted).
The United States, appearing here as amicus curiae, maintains that position in this case.
Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, the NLRB has not embraced and then “repudiated” the view that, for purposes of § 8(a)(3), “periodic dues and initiation fees” mean only “those fees necessary to finance collective-bargaining activities.” Ante, at 752, n. 7. Teamsters Local No. 939, 167 N. L. R. B. 1042 (1967), does not demonstrate otherwise. In Teamsters Local, the NLRB held that “working dues” designated to fund a union building program and a credit union were actually “assessments” not contemplated by the proviso to § 8(a)(3). id., at 1044. The Board found that the union itself regarded the levy as a “temporary assessment,” clearly distinct from its ‘Tegular dues.” Ibid. Moreover, because the financing for the programs was constructed in such a way that the union treasury might never have received 90% of the moneys, the Board concluded that the “working dues" were actually “special purposes funds,” and that “the support of such funds cannot come from ‘periodic dues’ as that term is used in § 8(a)(3).” Ibid. In Detroit Mailers, the NLRB distinguished such assessments from “periodic and uniformly required” dues, which, in its view, a union is not precluded from demanding of nonmembers pursuant to § 8(a)(3). 192 N. L. R. B., at 952.
While the majority credits an interpretation of Teamsters Local propounded by a dissenting member of the Board in Detroit Mailers, ante, at 752-753, n. 7, I prefer to take the Board’s word at face value: Teamsters Local did not create “controlling precedent” endorsing the view of § 8(a)(3) enunciated by the Court today. 192 N. L. R. B., at 952. Significantly, the majority cannot cite one case in which the Board has held that uniformly required, periodic dues used for purposes other than “collective bargaining” are not dues within the meaning of § 8(a)(3).

 The Court’s insistence that it has not changed the meaning of the term “uniform,” see ante, at 753, n. 8, misses the point. The uniformity requirement obviously requires that the union can collect from nonmembers under a union-security agreement only those “periodic dues and initiation fees” collected equally from its members. But this begs the question: what “periodic dues and initiation fees”? It is the meaning of those terms which the Court misconceives.
Under our settled doctrines of statutory construction, were there any ambiguity in the meaning of § 8(a)(3) — which there is not — the Court would be constrained to defer to the interpretation of the NLRB, unless the agency’s construction were contrary to the clear intent of Congress. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-843, and n. 9 (1984). Although the Court apparently finds such ambir guity, it fails to apply this doctrine. By reference to a narrow view of congressional “purpose" gleaned from isolated statements in the legislative history, and in reliance upon this Court's interpretation of another statute, the Court constructs an interpretation that not only finds no support in the statutory language or legislative history of § 8(a)(3), but also contradicts the Board's settled interpretation of the statutory provision. The Court previously has directed: “Where the Board’s construction of the Act is reasonable, it should not be rejected ‘merely because the courts might prefer another view of the statute.’” Pattern Makers v. NLRB, 473 U. S. 95, 114 (1985), quoting Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 441 U. S. 488, 497 (1979). Here, the only apparent motivation for holding that the Board’s interpretation of § 8(a)(3) is impermissible, is the Court’s view of another statute.

The Court's answer to the absolute lack of evidence that Congress intended to regulate such expenditures is no answer at all: the Court simply reiterates that in Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740 (1961), it did not give weight to congressional silence in the RLA on this issue. See ante, at 760. The point, however, is not that the Court should give weight to Congress’ silence in the NLRA; the point is that the Court must find some support in the NLRA for its proposition. Congress’ silence simply highlights that there is no support for the Court's interpretation of the 1947 Congress’ intent.

‘See also, e. g., 93 Cong. Rec. 3837 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1010 (remarks of Sen. Taft) (“[Blecause the union shop has been in force in many industries for so many years ... to upset it today probably would destroy relationships of long standing and probably would bring on more strikes than it would cure”).
Despite a legislative history rife with unequivocal statements to the contrary, the Court concludes that the 1947 Congress did not set out to restrict union-security agreements in a “limited fashion.” Ante, at 755. Quite apart from the Court’s unorthodox reliance on representations of those opposed to the Taft-Hartley amendments, the majority’s observation that “Congress viewed the Wagner Act’s regime of compulsory unionism as seriously flawed,” ibid., begs the question. The perceived flaws were embedded in the closed-shop system, not the union-shop system. Thus, as is characteristic of the majority’s opinion, its comparison to the RLA, under which there was no closed-shop system, is beside the point. See ibid. Congress was aware that under the NLRA, “the one system [the closed shop] ha[d] led to very serious abuses and the other system [the union shop] ha[d] not led to such serious abuses.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1421 (remarks of Sen. Taft). Accordingly, Congress banned closed shops altogether, but it made only limited inroads on the union-shop system that had been in effect prior to 1947, carefully describing its limitations.on such agreements. H. R. Rep. No, 245, 80th Cong., *7721st Sess., 9 (1947), Leg. Hist. 300; S. Rep., at 6-7, Leg. Hist. 412-413. It could not be clearer from the legislative history that in enacting the provisos to S 8(a)(3), Congress attempted to deal only with specific abuses in the union -shop system, only the “actual problems that ha[d] arisen. ” 93 Cong. Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1421 (remarks of Sen. Taft); accord, 93 Cong. Rec. 3836-3837 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1010-1011 (remarks of Sen. Taft). Congress’ philosophy was that it had “to decree either an open shop or an open union, fit] decreed an open union . . . [which would] permit the continuation of existing relationships, and [would] not violently tear apart a great many long-existing relationships and make trouble in the labor movement; and yet at the same time it [would] meet the abuses which exist.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1420 (remarks of Sen. Taft). Union-security agreements requiring the payment of uniform periodic dues and standard initiation fees were not among the specified abuses. There was no testimony regarding problems arising from such arrangements. Indeed, the subtext of the entire debate was that such arrangements were acceptable. The Court’s suggestion to the contrary is simply untenable.

The Senate Report explained: Congress “did not desire to limit the labor organization with respect to either its selection of membership or expulsion therefrom. But Tit} did wish to protect the employee in his job if unreasonably expelled or denied membership. The tests provided by the amendment are based upon facts readily ascertainable and do not require the employer to inquire into the internal affairs of the union.” S. Rep., at 20, Leg. Hist. 426.

The Court appears to believe that Congress intended §8(a)(3) to protect the interests of individual nonmembers in the uses to which the union puts their moneys. See ante, at 759. It could not be clearer, however, that Congress did not have this in mind at all. As Senator Taft explained to his colleague who complained that requiring a man to join a union he does not wish to join (pursuant to S 8(a)(3)) was no less restrictive than a closed shop: in enacting § 8(a)(3), Congress was not trying “to go into the broader fields of the rights of particular persons." 93 Cong. Rec. 4886 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1421.
The only “rights” protected by the § 8(a)(3) provisos are workers’ employment rights. As the legislative debates reflect. Congress was principally concerned with insulating workers' jobs from capricious actions by union leaders. “The purpose of the union unfair labor practice provisions added to § 8(a)(3) was to ‘preven[t] the union from inducing the employer to use the emoluments of the job to enforce the union’s rules.’” Pattern Makers v. NLRB, 473 U. S., at 126 (dissenting opinion), quoting Scofield v. NLRB, 394 U. S. 423, 429 (1969).

 Congress placed only one limitation on the uses which can be made of union dues. “[W]ith little apparent discussion or opposition,” the Senate *775conferees adopted the House bill’s prohibition limiting what unions may spend from dues money on federal elections. Pipefitters v. United States, 407 U. S. 385, 405 (1972). In § 304 of the Labor Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act, 61 Stat. 159-160, which is now incorporated in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 490, 2 U. S. C. §441b(a), Congress made it unlawful for a union “to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with” certain political elections, primaries, or political conventions.
The Senate conferees also agreed- with the House that some safeguard was needed to prevent unions from charging new members exorbitant initiation fees that effectively “close" the union, thereby “frustrating] the intent of [§ 8(a)(3)!” 93 Cong. Rec. 6443 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1540 (remarks of Sen. Taft). Hence, § 8(b)(5) was added to the final bill, which makes it an unfair labor practice for a union which has negotiated a union-security agreement to require initiation fees that the NLRB “finds excessive or discriminatory under all the circumstances.” 29 U. S. C. § 158(b)(5). The Senate passed § 8(b)(5) only after receiving assurances from Senator Taft that it would not allow the NLRB to regulate union expenditures. See 93 Cong. Rec. 6859 (1947), Leg. Hist. 1623 (stressing that the provision “is limited to initiation fees and does not cover dues”).

 “It was never the intention of the [NLRA] ... to preempt the field in this regard so as to deprive the States of their powers to prevent compulsory unionism.” H. R. Conf. Rep. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 60 (1947J, Leg. Hist. 564. Accordingly, Congress added § 14(b) to the final bill, which, as enacted, expressly preserves the authority of the States to regulate union-security agreements, including the use of funds collected from employees pursuant to such an agreement. See Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 373 U. S., at 751-752. Many States in fact have imposed limitations on the union-security agreements that are permitted in their jurisdictions. See 2 C. Morris, The Developing Labor Law 1391-1392 (2d ed. 1983).

 The dissent in the original panel decision in this case appropriately observed: “If the legislative purposes behind 8 8(a)(3) and 8 2, Eleventh were identical, one would expect that [this] Court in Street would have looked to the NLRA for guidance in interpreting 8 2, Eleventh. The Street opinion, however, does not significantly rely on or discuss either the NLRA or § 8(a)(3). Instead, it focuses on the distinctive features of the railroad industry and the Railway Labor Act in construing S 2, Eleventh.” 776 F. 2d 1187, 1220 (CA4 1985).

The Court overstates the clarity of what was said about § 8(a)(3) when §2, Eleventh was amended in 1951. As the Court's recitation of various statements reflects, the extent to which the 1951 Congress saw itself en-grafting onto the RLA terms identical', in all respects, to the terms of § 8(a)(3) is uncertain. See anter at 746-747, n. 4. The remarks are only general comments about the similarity of the NLRA union-security provisions, rather than explicit comparisions of § 8(a)(3) with the provisions of the RLA. For example, Senator Taft explained: “In effect, the bill inserts in the railway mediation law almost the exact prorisions, safaras they fit, of the Taft-Hartley law, so that the conditions regarding the union shop and the check-off are carried into the relations between railroad unions and the railroads.” 96 Cong. Rec. 16267 (1950) (emphasis added). See also, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 2811, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1950) (§2, Eleventh allows agreements “of a character” permitted in § 8(a)(3)); 96 Cong. Rec. 17049 (1951) (remarks of Rep. Beckworth) (§ 2, Eleventh extends to railroads “a principle” embodied in § 8(a)(3)). Especially when it is remembered that Congress was extending to unions in the railroad industry the authority to enter into agreements for which they previously had no authority, whereas the 1947 Congress had rescinded authorization for certain kinds of union-security agreements, the import of these statements is ambiguous. To borrow a phrase from the majority, I “think it far safer and far more appropriate to construe § 8(a)(3) in light of its” language and legislative 'history, “than by drawing inferences from" ambiguous statements made by Members of a later Congress in enacting a different statute. Ante, at 759.