dissenting.
A more complete statement of the facts than is found in the Court’s opinion is necessary to disclose the reasons why the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Roberts, Mr. Justice Frankfurter, and I dissent.
*258The Wallace Manufacturing Company employs about 200 employees and makes clothespins and similar wood products at Rich wood, a small community in West Virginia. In July 1941 a union affiliated with the C. I. O., which after the practice of the Court’s opinion we will call the C. I. O., began to organize these employees, and the Company engaged in counter measures. Without detailing the evidence or considering the merits of the Company’s objections we will assume that the Company during this period was guilty of unfair labor practices.
On September 25, the C. I. O. called a strike. About October 2, the Independent union, one of the petitioners here, came into being. On October 10, 1941, the C. I. O. filed charges with the Labor Board, alleging among other things that the Company had violated the Act by sponsoring the formation of the Independent. Again, without weighing the evidence or the objections of the Company or of the Independent, we will assume that the Company was guilty.
On October 14, the Independent demanded recognition as bargaining representative of the employees, and on October 31, it filed with the Labor Board a petition for investigation and certification of it as the representative of the Company’s employees.
The Board, however, did not proceed on either the complaint or the request for certification. Instead, as the Government states, “During the ensuing two and one-half months, representatives of petitioner [the company], the Board, and the two unions engaged in negotiations looking toward settlement of the entire controversy, including disposition of the Union’s charge and the Independent’s petition.” Again, without considering the Company’s or the Independent’s objection or evidence, we will assume that during this two and a half months the Company engaged in unfair labor practices. The strike was proceeding, however, with much bitterness and some *259violence. On December 30, the strike then being in its fourth month, the C. I. O. by telegram offered, with the approval of the Labor Board, to enter into a consent election “with you and your Company Union, on the condition that when we prove a majority and become the exclusive bargaining agency for all your employees, that as a condition of employment all eligible employees must become members of Local Union 129, U. C. W. O. C.” The closed-shop proposal was thus first brought forward by the C. I. O. On January 13, the C. I. O. and the Independent and the Company signed an agreement that the plant should be opened, that everyone should return to work, that the Company would not in any way influence its employees for or against either union, and that the unions would not exercise any coercion. The Company agreed to recognize as exclusive bargaining agent whichever union was proved by a vote conducted by the Board to represent a majority of its employees and to start negotiations immediately after the result of the election was determined and to grant a union shop. All parties are agreed that they employed “union shop” as the equivalent of “closed shop.” There is no finding and no evidence that at the time the company entered into this obligation it had any foreknowledge as to which union would win or what the practice of either as to admission of members would be, nor is there any evidence that either union had decided upon any policy in anticipation of victory. There is no charge, no finding, and no evidence that the Company has not performed its part of this agreement scrupulously.
The parties took this agreement to the office of the Board’s regional manager and on January 19 two agreements were drawn: one by which the C. I. O. withdrew the charges of domination and other charges; and the other for a consent election to determine the employees’ choice of representative. Both of these agreements, after *260signature by all the parties, were approved in writing by the Regional Director, acting on behalf of the National Labor Relations Board and with full knowledge of the agreement that the Company would give to the winner a closed shop.1
The employees, without distinction as to union affiliation, all returned to work. The election was held January 30, under the auspices of the Board. Of the 186 valid votes cast, the Independent received 98, the C. I. O. 83, and 5 votes were cast for neither. The C. I. O. filed no objections, and the Board on February 4 certified the Independent as the exclusive bargaining agent for the employees in the plant.
Thereupon the Company bargained with the certified representative, as it was required by law to do-. The evidence is uncontradicted that the Company was reluctant still to enter into a closed-shop agreement. The Independent, however, insisted that the Company perform the contract by which the strike had been settled. It stated its position in a letter in which it said: “The ‘Closed Shop’ will, therefore, give us some control in preventing the hiring of additional employees who are unfavorable to our interests and who would further jeopardize our majority. It would also provide us with a legal means of disposing of any present employees, including Harvey Dodrill whom *261our members have declared by unanimous ballot that they will not work with, whose presence in the plant is unfavorable to our interests because those who are so unfavorable will not be permitted to become members of our organization and without such membership they would not be permitted to work in the plant under a closed shop contract which we respectfully insist that we must have.”
This is the first knowledge it is claimed the Company had or should have had of the Independent’s adoption of an exclusionary policy toward its rivals. The Company yielded, considering the union’s membership policy as something it could not interfere with, and the closed-shop contract was signed. It required that all present and future employees should become members of the Independent within ten days of the date of the contract or from the date of hiring. The contract and notice of the closed-shop arrangement were posted in the plant. On March 18, forty-three employees were dismissed, on demand of the Independent, as not eligible for employment because of non-membership in it. Later it appeared that twelve such dismissed employees never made application for membership in the Independent, and thirty-one members who had applied for membership had been rejected because when their applications came before the meeting in regular course they did not receive the number of ballots necessary under its by-laws to elect to membership. Whether the Company knew that they had applied for membership and had been rejected is disputed, but again we resolve the doubt against the Company and assume that the superintendent knew this fact at the time of discharge.
There is no dispute, however, that when Mr. Wallace, the president of the company, learned of the discharge he attempted to persuade the Independent to allow these employees to be reinstated. On March 20, 1942, he wrote to the business agent of the Independent a letter. The Board has not found that it was not written in good faith. *262To the contrary, counsel for the Board with commendable candor stated that there is no evidence and that he made no contention that it was other than a good-faith statement of the Company’s position. Among other things it says, “When our Mr. Christmas talked to you on March 9th, you will recall that he appealed to you to see that the closed shop clause, which your Union insisted be included in the working agreement, should not be used in any way to unfairly prevent any person from working who wanted to work. We realize, of course, that the contract does not give the Company the right to tell the Union who to admit as members, and for that reason Mr. Christmas’ talk with you and mine over the telephone could only be directed to the sense of fairness which we believe exists in the minds of your members.
“Entirely aside from the fact that having to lay off this large number of experienced people will badly cripple our production which is urgently needed, we feel that it is indeed a sad situation where, account of some individual differences of opinion, people who have perhaps been friends and neighbors for many years cannot work together. I will appreciate your advising me what can be done.”
The Regional Director of the Board was notified of the discharges and, as the Court’s opinion states, he did urge the Company to disregard its closed-shop contract and re-employ nonmembers of the certified union. The Company’s counsel reminded him that he had expressed concern about the closed-shop provision to the Regional Director when it was being negotiated, and that the Director had replied that he probably “would have to agree to it as the C. I. O. certainly would have insisted upon it if they had prevailed in the election.” The Company insisted that “membership in the union is beyond the Company’s control” and that unless the union relented it would stand by the closed-shop contract. The Company sug*263gested, however, to the Independent that it conduct interviews with those it had rejected and reconsider them individually. The Union by unanimous vote rejected the suggestion. The Regional Director of the Board also wrote to the head of the Independent about the individuals discharged “because they were not members of your union. It develops that your union is unwilling to accept them into membership. I need not remind you of the seriousness of these charges.” The Board representatives were unable to persuade the union to accept the rejected members nor the Company to repudiate its agreement.
At the opening of the hearing before the examiner July 9, 1942, the Company declared it was “ready to take any steps which are necessary to the end that these people be put back to work, as it has been throughout, since this agreement was entered into.” It suggested that the attorney for the Board and the attorney for the Independent work out a settlement. The Board’s attorney expressed “to the representative of the Company my thanks for the suggestion.” Adjournment was taken and counsel for the union went from Summerville, the place of hearing, to Richwood and called a meeting of the Independent union. The Board attorney’s objection kept further developments out of the record except that he stated, “I am willing to let the record show that Mr. Ritchie [attorney for the Independent] made me a proposition which I was unable to accept and that I made him one which he was unable to accept.” The case therefore proceeded against the Company.
The Board did not find any unfair labor practice on the part of the Company between the date of the settlement agreement and the election. In fact, it refused to accept the recommendation of the trial examiner for such a finding, saying that “such interference, if any, was too trivial,” was known to the C. I. O., which made no objection to the certification, and had come to the knowledge of the Re*264gional Director prior to the election. “Nevertheless, he proceeded with the election, found it to be a fair one, and certified the Independent.”
No unfair labor practices at any time after the settlement agreement are found or charged against the employer except the making and performing of the closed-shop agreement. The Board states its position as follows: “The issue remains whether, by entering into the closed-shop contract with the Independent with knowledge that the Independent intended to exclude employees from membership and by discharging employees denied membership in the Independent, as set forth above, the respondent violated the Act. The respondent contends, that it was bound to enter into a closed-shop contract by the terms of the election agreement between the respondent, the Union, and the Independent, and urges the Board to regard the discharges as proper since made pursuant to the closed-shop contract.
“We do not agree. An employer may not enter into a closed-shop contract which to h,is knowledge is designed to operate as an instrument for effecting discrimination against his employees solely because of their prior union activities. The proviso in Section 8 (3) of the Act permits an employer to enter into an agreement with the duly designated representative of his employees, requiring membership in that organization as a condition of employment. It is true that under the terms of the election agreement the respondent was bound to execute a union-shop contract with the victorious- union. It by no means follows, however, that the respondent was also bound by the election agreement to acquiesce in a scheme to penalize employees whose choice of representatives was not that of the majority; nor can the proviso in Section 8 (3) be thought to countenance such a result. . . .
“. . . The facts in the case make it apparent that the respondent [Company] was put on notice that its [Inde *265pendent’s] real purpose was to bar from future employment with the respondent persons who had adhered to the charging Union in the election campaign. While the tripartite agreement of January 13, 1942, may have been valid when made, performance of its terms did not require the respondent knowingly to become a party to the Independent’s plan to eliminate from respondent’s pay roll employees solely because of their past union activities. On the contrary, when this unlawful scheme became known to it, the respondent not only had a right to abrogate the tripartite agreement, but also was under an affirmative obligation to do so. . . . Under these circumstances, the closed-shop agreement cannot be deemed a defense, but a discriminatory device to insure perpetuation of the Independent and thus deprive employees of their statutory right to select bargaining representatives.”
Holding that execution and performance of the closed-shop agreement after the settlement and certification by the Board were “unfair labor practices,” the Board held them effective also to revive the old charges- settled by the agreements and election and it went back to those events to find grounds on which to hold that the employer dominates the Independent.
Accordingly it ordered that the Company disestablish and withdraw all recognition from the Independent as representative of any of its employees. It forbade “any continuation, renewal, or modification of the existing contract [which] would perpetuate the conditions which have deprived employees” of their jobs; it ordered the Company to cease giving effect to any contract between it and the Independent or to any modification or extension thereof. It also ordered that the Company “offer the aforesaid 43 employees immediate and full reinstatement to their former or substantially equivalent positions, without prejudice to their seniority or other rights and privileges, and to make them whole for any loss of pay they may have suffered.”
*266The underlying question is, in the language of the Board’s brief, “Whether petitioner by entering into and discharging employees pursuant to the terms of the closed-shop contract with the Independent violated Section 8 (3) and (1) of the Act.” It is one of importance far beyond this little company and its two hundred employees.
Section 8 (3) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer, by discrimination, to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization. If it ended there it would of course outlaw any closed shop, for the very essence of the closed shop is that the employer discriminates in employment to require membership in a particular union. To validate discrimination in such circumstances a proviso follows that no law of the United States “shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a labor organization (not established, maintained, or assisted by any action defined in this Act as an unfair labor practice) to require as a condition of employment membership therein, if such labor organization is the representative of the employees. . . .”
At the time this closed-shop agreement was made the Board had certified the Independent as representative of the employees. Under § 8 it would have been an unfair labor practice had the Company refused to bargain with it. The Board made the certification, without objection by the defeated C. I. O. and with full knowledge that the Company was bound in law and in good faith to give the certified union a closed-shop contract. We do not say, and it is not necessary now to decide, that the Board has no power to protect minorities at this stage of the proceedings. We do not mean to preclude the power of the Board, when the contract settling the strike, withdrawing charges against the company, and consenting to an election with a closed shop to the winner was brought to the Board, to have refused to dismiss charges and undertake an election unless each union agreed that, if it won *267a closed shop, it would open the union to membership from the losers on terms the Board deemed fair. Since no one could tell who would win, this would in any event have been an impartial arrangement. Even after the Independent won, the Board before certifying it might perhaps properly have made conditions as to reasonable terms to the defeated. But the Board made no conditions or reservations of the sort. Instead, it takes the position, and the Court is holding, that such conditions must be imposed on the union by the employer. He must see that the union with which he has been ordered to bargain makes proper terms for admission into that certified union of its former enemies and rivals. We think that the decision to that effect is not only unauthorized by Congress, but is utterly at war with the hands-off requirements which the law lays upon the employer, and that this decision is at war with one of the basic purposes of labor in its struggle to obtain this Act and of Congress in enacting it.
Of course the closed shop is well known in labor relations. Its essential philosophy is that once the employees have chosen their representative union, it is entitled to bargain for the employer’s help to maintain its control. Other employer aids to a dominant union, such as the check-off, are also conceded to unions by bargaining on behalf of a majority when they would not be at all permissible for the employer to use in the first place to influence the workmen to choose a particular union because he favored it. But the idea of the closed shop is that, while these acts of influence or pressure on workmen are unfair when exerted by the employer in his own interest, they are fair and lawful when enforced by him as an instrument of the union itself. A closed shop is the ultimate goal of most union endeavor, and not a few employers have found it a stabilizer of labor relations by putting out of their shops men who were antagonistic to the dominant union, thus ending strife for domination. It puts the employ*268ment office under a veto of the union, which uses its own membership standards as a basis on which to exclude men from employment.
Neither the National Labor Relations Act nor any other Act of Congress expressly or by implication gives to the Board any power to supervise union membership or to deal with union practices, however unfair they may be to- members, to applicants, to minorities, to other unions, or to employers. This may or may not have been a mistake, but it was no oversight. We suppose that there is no right which organized labor of every shade of opinion in other matters would unite more strongly in demanding than the right of each union to control its own admissions to membership. Each union has insisted on its freedom to fix its own qualifications of applicants, to determine the vote by which individual admissions will be granted, to prescribe the initiation or admission fees, to fix the dues, to prescribe the duties to which members must be faithful and to decide when and why they may be expelled or disciplined. The exclusion of those whose loyalty is to a rival union or hostile organization is one of the most common and most understandable of practices, designed to defend the union against undermining, spying, and discord, and possible capture and delivery over to a rival. Some unions have battled to exclude Communists, some racketeers, and all to exclude those deemed disloyal to their purposes. See Williams v. Quill, 277 N. Y. 1, 7, 12 N. E. 2d 547; Miller v. Ruehl, 166 Misc. 479, 2 N. Y. S. 2d 394.
There are those who think that the time has come when unions should be denied this control over their own affairs. However this may be, we only know that Congress has included no such principle expressly in the Act. If the Board should attempt to exercise it as we have suggested by way of a condition on its conducting an election or making a certification, a question of its statutory power *269to do so might arise, on which we express no opinion. It' would at least be a forthright exercise of power over the unions by the Board itself acting in the public interest and would not require an employer to engage in interference with union affairs in direct violation of the Act.
But the Court is deciding not only that without authority of Congress the admission practices of a labor organization having a closed shop may be policed, but also, contrary as we think to the Act, that the employer is empowered and required to do the policing. This we think defies both the express terms and the philosophy of the Act. The letter of the Act makes it a forbidden practice for an employer to “interfere with” or “restrain” employees in the “right to self-organization.” We assume this employer knew the Independent would exercise its power over admission privileges to some extent to protect itself against infiltration of hostile elements. The Board must have known it, too. And both must have known the C. I. O. would, also, if it won. However, the Independent has not indiscriminately excluded all who were against it in the election. The C. I. O. had 83 votes; all but 43 of these voters seem to have been admitted to the Independent, and 12 of those never applied, making 31 apparently rejected. In view of the bitterness and duration of the strike, involving some shooting, it is not strange that good will did not descend on the victors at once. The Board may have expected more moderation when it conducted the consent election and certified the Independent. There is nothing to show that the Company did not, too. When it was found how harshly the Independent had behaved, the Company did try persuasion to get the union leaders to relent — the Company’s own interests were to get back more of its experienced employees. How it could have done more without breaking both faith and the law, the Court does not point out, and we do not know.
*270Of course, if the employer in a closed shop is to be responsible for the discriminations or unfairness of the union, he must have a right to be informed about its admissions. If, in collective bargaining, a union asked a closed shop, the employer would have to demand to know the rules and practices about admission, the fees, the bylaws, the method of electing members. If he should demand this as a condition of collective bargaining, we should expect the Board to hold him guilty of unfair practices, and we have no doubt it would ask this Court to sustain it. Yet here the sole ground of penalizing this employer is that he did not do just that. Should the employer have made the union admit all of its former enemies? If not, by what standard could he allow it to select? Must it also be made to admit even those who would not sign applications or pay initiation fees claimed to be too onerous? The employer is required to reinstate with back pay a dozen who never even asked to join the certified union. But neither the Court nor the Board says what the employer should have required the union to adopt as an admission policy.
The statute expressly permits a closed shop. It can be denied only when the certified union is “established, maintained, or assisted” by unfair labor practices of the employer. But the statute cannot mean that the making and performance of a closed-shop contract in itself is an unfair practice which invalidates a closed shop. To so interpret it would be to believe the Congress by this provision was perpetrating a hoax. But if it means that the union can have a closed shop and the employer will supervise its membership, it is a strange contradiction in an Act whose chief purpose was to sterilize the employers and to free workmen of the influence they exerted through control of the right to work.
We can quite understand, and we do not mean to criticize, the motives which animated the Board. We are deal*271ing here with an industry located in a small community where opportunities for other employment are probably not plentiful. It is not unlikely that denial of the right to work for this company will keep these men from earning a livelihood in a place they long have lived. In so far as the Board has been stirred by concern for individual and minority protection against arbitrary union action, we both understand and sympathize with their concern. The employer is the only one it can lay hands on, and the temptation is great to use him to protect minority rights in the labor movement. This and the other cases before us give ground for belief that the labor movement in the United States is passing into a new phase. The struggle of the unions for recognition and rights to bargain, and of workmen for the right to join without interference, seems to be culminating in a victory for labor forces. We appear now to be entering the phase of struggle to reconcile the rights of individuals and minorities with the power of those who control collective bargaining groups. We have joined in the opinion in Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., ante, p. 192. That case arose under the Railway Labor Act, which contains no authorization whatever for a closed shop, on the contrary forbids the discrimination underlying the adoption of a closed shop, and deals with an industry and a labor group which never has had or sought a closed shop. But here we deal with a minority which the statute has subjected to closed-shop practices. Whether the closed shop, with or without the closed union, should or should not be permitted without supervision is in the domain of policy-making, which it is not for this Court to undertake. Neither do we find any authority in the National Labor Relations Board to undertake it.
It happens to be an independent that won here. But counsel for the Board assured us on argument that this is not a one-way policy to require independent unions to admit their enemies. It would, as we understand it, *272have been applied in the same manner if the C. I. O. had won and had excluded some Independent members— on suspicion, perhaps, that they were company spies. The obstacle that this decision will interpose to all future bargaining for closed shops is likely to be felt by C. I. O. and A. F. of L. unions many times as often as by independents.
Of course it is the employer who is penalized here, and on shallow and superficial examination it may seem like another victory for labor. The employer must pay many thousands of dollars for hours unworked, because it performed reluctantly but in good faith its closed-shop agreement made under authority of Congress and with knowledge and encouragement of the Board, and with the approval and instigation of the C. I. O. union whose members now gain back pay by its repudiation. We think this cannot be justified as an unfair labor practice outlawed by Congress. That resistance to closed-shop unions will likely be stiffened if employers must underwrite the fairness of closed-shop unions to applicants and members, and that a good deal labor has fought for may be jeopardized if the price of obtaining it is to have the union policed by the employer, are considerations beyond our concern. We can only view this as a very unfair construction of the statute to the employer and one not warranted by anything Congress has directed or authorized.
The Board has declared its policy with respect to consent elections as follows: “However, the Board does not ordinarily order elections in the presence of unremedied unfair labor practices, whether merely alleged or already found by the Board, unless the labor organization which instituted the charges has agreed in advance that it will not rely upon the unfair labor practices as a basis for objecting to the conduct or results of the election. The Board orders an election only when it is satisfied, after considering all evidence, respecting the employer’s compliance with a prior order concerning unfair labor practices, that 'an election free from all employer compulsions, restraints and interference, can be held.’ ” Eighth Annual Report (1943) 49.