Retail Clerks International Association, Local 1625 v. Schermerhorn

• Decision Date: 03 June 1963
• Docket Number: No. 368,AFL-CIO,368
• Citation: 10 L.Ed.2d 678,83 S.Ct. 1461,373 U.S. 746
• Parties: RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION, LOCAL 1625,, et al., Petitioners, v. Alberta SCHERMERHORN et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

373 U.S. 746

83 S.Ct. 1461

10 L.Ed.2d 678

RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION, LOCAL 1625, AFL-CIO, et al., Petitioners,

v Alberta SCHERMERHORN et al.

No. 368.

Argued April 18, 1963.

Decided June 3, 1963.

[Syllabus from 746 intentionally omitted]

S. G. Lippman, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Bernard B. Weksler, Miami, Fla., for respondents.

Mr. Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

Like National Labor Relations Board v. General Motors Corp., 373 U.S. 734, 83 S.Ct. 1453, decided today, this case involves the status of an 'agency shop' arrangement. We have concluded that the contract involved here is within the scope of § 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act and therefore is congressionally made subject to prohibition by Florida law. We have not determined, however, whether the Florida courts, rather than solely the National Labor Relations Board, are tribunals with jurisdiction to enforce

[Amicus Curiae intentionally omitted] the State's prohibition against such arrangements. Accordingly, the case is retained on the calendar for reargument on the undecided issue.

Retail Clerks Local 1625 is the certified bargaining agent for the Food Fair Stores supermarket chain in five South Florida counties. In October 1960 the union and the employer negotiated a collective bargaining agreement effective until April 1963.¹ The contract provided for various terms and conditions of employment, such as protection against discharge except for just cause, paid vacations and holidays, pregnancy leaves of absence, life and hospitalization insurance, paid time off to vote, to serve on juries, and to attend funerals, as well as for wage-and-hour terms; a grievance and arbitration clause was inserted for enforcement of these terms, under which the union and employer agree to divide between them the cost of the grievance-arbitration machinery. The contract also contained Article 19, which is the subject of the present lawsuit:

'Employees shall have the right to voluntarily join or refrain from joining the Union. Employees who choose not to join the Union, however, and who are covered by the terms of this contract, shall be required to pay as a condition of employment, an initial service fee and monthly service fees to the Union for the purpose of aiding the Union in defraying costs in connection with its legal obligations and responsibilities as the exclusive bargaining agent of the employees in the appropriate bargaining unit.

The aforesaid fees shall be payable on or before the first day of each month, and such sums shall in no case exceed the initiation fees and the membership dues paid by those who voluntarily choose to join the Union. Other than the payment of these service fees, those employees who do not choose to join the Union shall be under no further financial obligations or requirements of any kind to the Union. It shall also be a condition of employment that all employees covered by this Agreement shall on the 30th day following the beginning of such employment or the effective date of this agreement, whichever is later, pay established initial and monthly service fees as shown above.'

The union and the employer jointly posted a notice to employees, immediately after execution of the collective agreement, explaining the new contract with particular reference to the agency shop clause:

'The Agency Shop recognizes that union membership in the State of Florida is a voluntary act of the employee. On the other hand, under an Agency Shop Agreement, those Employees who do not become members of the Union nevertheless are required to pay the necessary service fees to the Local Union in order to aid the Union in meeting its authorized expenses as the exclusive bargaining agent.

'Therefore, the Company and the Union have agreed that even though you may not have joined the Union, you are obligated, under the provisions of the Agency Shop, to pay an initial service fee which is the equal of the initiation fee for Union members and a monthly service fee which is the equal of the monthly dues for those who voluntarily become Union members. Note: An Employee who pays the regular initial fee and regular monthly service fee but does not voluntarily join the Union, does not participate in the internal union affairs even though said Employee receives equal treatment under the contract.'

The present class action was then instituted by respondents, four nonunion employees of Food Fair, who sought a declaration that Article 19 was 'null and void and unenforceable,' a temporary and permanent injunction against petitioner and Food Fair to prevent them from requiring respondents or members of the class on behalf of which they sued (all Food Fair employees covered by the collective agreement) to contribute money to the union under Article 19, and an accounting. The trial court granted a motion to dismiss on the ground that Article 19 did not violate the Florida right-to-work law, Fla.Const. § 12, F.S.A.² 47 L.R.R.M. 2300. The Florida Supreme Court reversed, holding that state law forbade and that its courts could deal with the agency shop clause involved here, and remanded the case for further proceedings in the trial court. 141 So.2d 269, cert. granted, 371 U.S. 909, 83 S.Ct. 253, 9 L.Ed.2d 169.

I.

The case to a great extent turns upon the scope and effect of § 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, added to the Act in 1947, 29 U.S.C. § 164(b):

'Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the execution or application of agreements requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment in any State or Territory in which such execution or application is prohibited by State or Territorial law.'

As is immediately apparent from its language, § 14(b) was designed to prevent other sections of the Act from completely extinguishing state power over certain union-security arrangements. And it was the proviso to § 8(a)(3),³ expressly permitting agreements conditioning employment upon membership in a labor union, which Congress feared might have this result. It was desired to 'make certain' that § 8(a)(3) could not 'be said to authorize arrangements of this sort in States where such arrangements were contrary to the State policy.' H.R.Conf.Rep.No.510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 60, 1 Leg.Hist.L.M.R.A. 564.

The connection between the § 8(a)(3) proviso and § 14(b) is clear. Whether they are perfectly coincident, we need not now decide, but unquestionably they overlap to some extent. At the very least, the agreements requiring 'membership' in a labor union which are expressly permitted by the proviso are the same 'membership' agreements expressly placed within the reach of state law by § 14(b). It follows that the General Motors case rules this one, for we there held that the 'agency shop' arrangement involved here—which imposes on employees the only membership obligation enforceable under § 8(a)(3) by discharge, namely, the obligation to pay initiation fees and regular dues—is the 'practical equivalent' of an 'agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment.' Whatever may be the status of less stringent union-security arrangements, the agency shop is within § 14(b). At least to that extent did Congress intend § 8(a)(3) and § 14(b) to coincide.

Petitioners, belatedly,⁴ would now distinguish the contract involved here from the agency shop contract dealt with in the General Motors case on the basis of allegedly distinctive features which are said to require a different result. Article 19 provides for nonmember payments to the union 'for the purpose of aiding the Union in defraying costs in connection with its legal obligations and responsibilities as the exclusive bargaining agent of the employees in the appropriate bargaining unit,' a provision which petitioners say confines the use of nonmember payments to collective bargaining purposes alone and forbids their use by the union for institutional purposes unrelated to its exclusive agency functions, all in sharp contrast, it is argued, to the General Motors situation where the nonmember contributions are available to the union without restriction.

We are wholly unpersuaded. There is before us little more than a complaint with its exhibits. The agency shop clause of the contract is, at best, ambiguous on its face and it should not, in the present posture of the case, be construed against respondent to raise a substantial difference between this and the General Motors case. There is no ironclad restriction imposed upon the use of nonmember fees, for the clause merely describes the pay- ments as being for 'the purpose of aiding the Union' in meeting collective bargaining expenses. The alleged restriction would not be breached if the service fee was used for both collective bargaining and other expenses, for the union would be 'aided' in meeting its agency obligations, not only by the part spent for bargaining purposes but also by the part spent for institutional items, since an equivalent amount of other union income would thereby be freed to pay the costs of bargaining agency functions.

But even if all collections from nonmembers must be directly committed to paying bargaining costs, this fact is of bookkeeping significance only rather than a matter of real substance. It must be remembered that the service fee is admittedly the exact equal of membership initiation fees and monthly dues, see p. 749, supra,⁵ and that, as the union says in its brief,⁶ 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.' If the union's total budget is divided between collective bargaining and institutional expenses and if nonmember payments, equal to those of a member, go entirely for...