Court Opinion

ID: 9423470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:07:52.864718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:44.490150
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
concurring.
It is true that § 8 (b)(1)(A) makes it an unfair labor practice for a union to restrain or coerce any employees in the exercise of § 7 rights, but the proviso permits the union to make its own rules with respect to acquisition and retention of membership. Hence, a union may expel to enforce its own internal rules, even though a particular rule limits the § 7 rights of its members and *198even though expulsion to enforce it would be a clear and serious brand of “coercion” imposed in derogation of those § 7 rights. Such restraint and coercion Congress permitted by adding the proviso to § 8 (b) (1) (A). Thus, neither the majority nor the dissent in this case questions the validity of the union rule against its members crossing picket lines during a properly called strike, or the propriety of expulsion to enforce the rule. Section 8(b)(1)(A), therefore, does not bar all restraint and coercion by a union to prevent the exercise by its members of their § 7 rights. “Coercive” union rules are enforceable at least by expulsion.
The dissenting opinion in this case, although not questioning the enforceability of coercive rules by expulsion from membership, questions whether fines for violating such rules are enforceable at all, by expulsion or otherwise. The dissent would at least hold court collection of fines to be an unfair labor practice, apparently for the reason that fines collectible in court may be more coercive than fines enforceable by expulsion. My Brother Brennan, for the Court, takes a different view, reasoning that since expulsion would in many cases — certainly in this one involving a strong union — be a far more coercive technique for enforcing a union rule and for collecting a reasonable fine than the threat of court enforcement, there is no basis for thinking that Congress, having accepted expulsion as a permissible technique to enforce a rule in derogation of § 7 rights, nevertheless intended to bar enforcement by another method which may be far less coercive.
I do not mean to indicate, and I do not read the majority opinion otherwise, that every conceivable internal union rule which impinges upon the § 7 rights of union members is valid and enforceable by expulsion and court action. There may well be some internal union rules which on their face are wholly invalid and unenforceable. *199But the Court seems unanimous in upholding the rule against crossing picket lines during a strike and its enforceability by expulsion from membership. On this premise I think the opinion written for the Court is the more persuasive and sensible construction of the statute and I therefore join it, although I am doubtful about the implications of some of its generalized statements.