source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Chief Justice Burger Justice Rehnquist,

license: Public Domain

text:
    THOMAS v. REVIEW BOARD OF THE INDIANA EMPLOYMENT SECURITY DIVISION et al.
    No. 79-952.
    Argued October 7, 1980
    Decided April 6, 1981

      Burger, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BreNNAN, Stewart, White, Marshall, Powell, and SteveNS, JJ., joined, and in Parts I, II, and III of which Blackmun, J., joined. Blackmun, J., filed a statement concurring in part and concurring in the result, post, p. 720. Rehnquist, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 720.

      Blanca Bianchi de la Torre argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the briefs were Seymour H. Moskowitz and Michael Martin Mulder.

      William E. Daily argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Theodore L. Sendak, Attorney General of Indiana, and Janis L. Summers and Cindy A. Ellis, Deputy Attorneys General.

       Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Judith Levin for the American Civil Liberties Union; by Nathan Z. Dershowitz for the American Jewish Congress; and by Leo Pjeffer for the Jewish Peace Fellowship et al.

        Lee Boothby filed a brief for Americans United for Separation of Church and State Fund, Inc., as amicus curiae.

   Chief Justice Burger

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted certiorari to consider whether the State’s denial of unemployment compensation benefits to the petitioner, a Jehovah’s Witness who terminated his job because his religious beliefs forbade participation in the production of armaments, constituted a violation of his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. 444 U. S. 1070 (1980).

I

Thomas terminated his employment in the Blaw-Knox Foundry & Machinery Co. when he was transferred from the roll foundry to a department that produced turrets for military tanks. He claimed his religious beliefs prevented him from participating in the production of war materials. The respondent Review Board denied him unemployment compensation benefits by applying disqualifying provisions of the Indiana Employment Security Act.

Thomas, a Jehovah’s Witness, was hired initially to work in the roll foundry at Blaw-Knox. The function of that department was to fabricate sheet steel for a variety of industrial uses. On his application form, he listed his membership in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and noted that his hobbies were Bible study and Bible reading. However, he placed no conditions on his employment; and he did not describe his religious tenets in any detail on the form.

Approximately a year later, the roll foundry closed, and Blaw-Knox transferred Thomas to a department that fabricated turrets for military tanks. On his first day at this new job, Thomas realized that the work he was doing was weapons related. He checked the bulletin board where in-plant openings were listed, and discovered that all of the remaining departments at Blaw-Knox were engaged directly in the production of weapons. Since no transfer to another department would resolve his problem, he asked for a layoff. When that request was denied, he quit, asserting that he could not work on weapons without violating the principles of his religion. The record does not show that he was offered any non-weapons work by his employer, or that any such work was available.

Upon leaving Blaw-Knox, Thomas applied for unemployment compensation benefits under the Indiana Employment Security Act. At an administrative hearing where he was not represented by counsel, he testified that he believed that contributing to the production of arms violated his religion. He said that when he realized that his work on the tank turret line involved producing weapons for war, he consulted another Blaw-Knox employee — a friend and fellow Jehovah’s Witness. The friend advised him that working on weapons parts at Blaw-Know was not “unscriptural.” Thomas was not able to “rest with” this view, however. He concluded that his friend’s view was based upon a less strict reading of Witnesses’ principles than his own.

When asked at the hearing to explain what kind of work his religious convictions would permit, Thomas said that he would have no difficulty doing the type of work that he had done at the roll foundry. He testified that he could, in good conscience, engage indirectly in the production of materials that might be used ultimately to fabricate arms — for example, as an employee of a raw material supplier or of a roll foundry.

The hearing referee found that Thomas’ religious beliefs specifically precluded him from producing or directly aiding in the manufacture of items used in warfare. He also found that Thomas had terminated his employment because of these religious convictions. The referee reported:

“Claimant continually searched for a transfer to another department which would not be so armament related; however, this did not materialize, and prior to the date of his leaving, claimant requested a layoff, which was denied; and on November 6, 1975, claimant did quit due to his religious convictions.”

The referee concluded nonetheless that Thomas’ termination was not based upon a “good cause [arising] in connection with [his] work,” as required by the Indiana unemployment compensation statute. Accordingly, he was held not entitled to benefits. The Review Board adopted the referee’s findings and conclusions, and affirmed the denial of benefits.

The Indiana Court of Appeals, accepting the finding that Thomas terminated his employment “due to his religious convictions,” reversed the decision of the Review Board, and held that § 22-4-15-1, as applied, improperly burdened Thomas’ right to the free exercise of his religion. Accordingly, it ordered the Board to extend benefits to Thomas. 178 Ind. App. -, 381 N. E. 2d 888 (1978).

The Supreme Court of Indiana, dividing 3-2, vacated the decision of the Court of Appeals, and denied Thomas benefits. 271 Ind. -, 391 N. E. 2d 1127 (1979). With reference to the Indiana unemployment compensation statute, the court said:

“It is not intended to facilitate changing employment or to provide relief for those who quit work voluntarily for personal reasons. Voluntary unemployment is not compensable under the purpose of the Act, which is to provide benefits for persons unemployed through no fault of their own.
“Good cause which justifies voluntary termination must be job-related and objective in character.” Id., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1129 (footnotes omitted).

The court held that Thomas had quit voluntarily for personal reasons, and therefore did not qualify for benefits. Id., at —, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1130.

In discussing the petitioner’s free exercise claim, the court stated: “A personal philosophical choice rather than a religious choice, does not rise to the level of a first amendment claim.” Id., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1131. The court found the basis and the precise nature of Thomas’ belief unclear — but it concluded that the belief was more “personal philosophical choice” than religious belief. Nonetheless, it held that, even assuming that Thomas quit for religious reasons, he would not be entitled to benefits: under Indiana law, a termination motivated by religion is not for “good cause” objectively related to the work.

The Indiana court concluded that denying Thomas benefits would create only an indirect burden on his free exercise right and that the burden was justified by the legitimate state interest in preserving the integrity of the insurance fund and maintaining a stable work force by encouraging workers not to leave their jobs for personal reasons.

Finally, the court held that awarding unemployment compensation benefits to a person who terminates employment voluntarily for religious reasons, while denying such benefits to persons who terminate for other personal but nonreligious reasons, would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The judgment under review must be examined in light of our prior decisions, particularly Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963).

II

Only beliefs rooted in religion are protected by the Free Exercise Clause, which, by its terms, gives special protection to the exercise of religion. Sherbert v. Verner, supra; Wis consin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 215-216 (1972). The determination of what is a “religious” belief or practice is more often than not a difficult and delicate task, as the division in the Indiana Supreme Court attests. However, the resolution of that question is not to turn upon a judicial perception of the particular belief or practice in question; religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection.

In support of his claim for benefits, Thomas testified:

“Q. And then when it comes to actually producing the tank itself, hammering it out; that you will not do. . . .
“A. That’s right, that’s right when . . . I’m daily faced with the knowledge that these are tanks ....
“A. I really could not, you know, conscientiously continue to work with armaments. It would be against all of the . . . religious principles that ... I have come to learn . . . .” 271 Ind., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1132.

Based upon this and other testimony, the referee held that Thomas “quit due to his religious convictions.” The Review Board adopted that finding, and the finding is not challenged in this Court.

The Indiana Supreme Court apparently took a different view of the record. It concluded that “although the claimant’s reasons for quitting were described as religious, it was unclear what his belief was, and what the religious basis of his belief was.” In that court’s view, Thomas had made a merely “personal philosophical choice rather than a religious choice.”

In reaching its conclusion, the Indiana court seems to have placed considerable reliance on the facts that Thomas was “struggling” with his beliefs and that he was not able to “articulate” his belief precisely. It noted, for example, that Thomas admitted before the referee that he would not object to

“working for United States Steel or Inland Steel . . . producing] the raw product necessary for the production of any kind of tank . . . [because I] would not be a direct party to whoever they shipped it to [and] would not be . . . chargeable in . . . conscience. . . .” 271 Ind., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1131.

The court found this position inconsistent with Thomas’ stated opposition to participation in the production of armaments. But Thomas’ statements reveal no more than that he found work in the roll foundry sufficiently insulated from producing weapons of war. We see, therefore, that Thomas drew a line, and it is not for us to say that the line he drew was an unreasonable one. Courts should not undertake to dissect religious beliefs because the believer admits that he is “struggling” with his position or because his beliefs are not articulated with the clarity and precision that a more sophisticated person might employ.

The Indiana court also appears to have given significant weight to the fact that another Jehovah’s Witness had no scruples about working on tank turrets; for that other Witness, at least, such work was “scripturally” acceptable. Intrafaith differences of that kind are not uncommon among followers of a particular creed, and the judicial process is singularly ill equipped to resolve such differences in relation to the Religion Clauses. One can, of course, imagine an asserted claim so bizarre, so clearly nonreligious in motivation, as not to be entitled to protection under the Free Exercise Clause; but that is not the case here, and the guarantee of free exercise is not limited to beliefs which are shared by all of the members of a religious sect. Particularly in this sensitive area, it is not within the judicial function and judicial competence to inquire whether the petitioner or his fellow worker more correctly perceived the commands of their common faith. Courts are not arbiters of scriptural interpretation.

The narrow function of a reviewing court in this context is to determine whether there was an appropriate finding that petitioner terminated his work because of an honest conviction that such work was forbidden by his religion. Not surprisingly, the record before the referee and the Review Board was not made with an eye to the microscopic examination often exercised in appellate judicial review. However, judicial review is confined to the facts as found and conclusions drawn. On this record, it is clear that Thomas terminated his employment for religious reasons.

Ill

A

More than 30 years ago, the Court held that a person may not be compelled to choose between the exercise of a First Amendment right and participation in an otherwise available public program. A state may not

“exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation.” Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 16 (1947) (emphasis deleted).

Later, in Sherbert the Court examined South Carolina’s attempt to deny unemployment compensation benefits to a Sabbatarian who declined to work on Saturday. In sustaining her right to receive benefits, the Court held:

“The ruling [disqualifying Mrs. Sherbert from benefits because of her refusal to work on Saturday in violation of her faith] forces her to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting benefits, on the one hand, and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to accept work, on the other hand. Governmental imposition of such a choice puts the same kind of burden upon the free exercise of religion as would a fine imposed against [her] for her Saturday worship.” 374 U. S., at 404.

The respondent Review Board argues, and the Indiana Supreme Court held, that the burden upon religion here is only the indirect consequence of public welfare legislation that the State clearly has authority to enact. “Neutral objective standards must be met to qualify for compensation.” 271 Ind., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1130. Indiana requires applicants for unemployment compensation to show that they left work for “good cause in connection with the work.” Ibid. A similar argument was made and rejected in Sherbert, however. It is true that, as in Sherbert, the Indiana law does not compel a violation of conscience. But, “this is only the beginning, not the end, of our inquiry.” 374 U. S., at 403-404. In a variety of ways we have said that “[a] regulation neutral on its face may, in its application, nonetheless offend the constitutional requirement for governmental neutrality if it unduly burdens the free exercise of religion.” Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S., at 220. Cf. Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970).

Here, as in Sherbert, the employee was put to a choice between fidelity to religious belief or cessation of work; the coercive impact on Thomas is indistinguishable from Sherbert, where the Court held:

“[N]ot only is it apparent that appellant’s declared ineligibility for benefits derives solely from the practice of her religion, but the pressure upon her to forego that practice is unmistakable.” 374 U. S., at 404.

Where the state conditions receipt of an important benefit upon conduct proscribed by a religious faith, or where it denies such a benefit because of conduct mandated by religious belief, thereby putting substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs, a burden upon religion exists. While the compulsion may be- indirect, the infringement upon free exercise is nonetheless substantial.

The respondents also contend that Sherbert is inapposite because, in that case, the employee was dismissed by the employer’s action. But we see that Mrs. Sherbert was dismissed because she refused to work on Saturdays after the plant went to a 6-day workweek. Had Thomas simply presented himself at the Blaw-Knox plant turret line but refused to perform any assigned work, it must be assumed that he, like Sherbert, would have been terminated by the employer’s action, if no other work was available. In both cases, the termination flowed from the fact that the employment, once acceptable, became religiously objectionable because of changed conditions.

B

The mere fact that the petitioner’s religious practice is burdened by a governmental program does not mean that an exemption accommodating his practice must be granted. The state may justify an inroad on religious liberty by showing that it is the least restrictive means of achieving some compelling state interest. However, it is still true that “[t]he essence of all that has been said and written on the subject is that only those interests of the highest order . . . can overbalance legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion.” Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra, at 215.

The purposes urged to sustain the disqualifying provision of the Indiana unemployment compensation scheme are twofold: (1) to avoid the widespread unemployment and the consequent burden on the fund resulting if people were permitted to leave jobs for “personal” reasons; and (2) to avoid a detailed probing by employers into job applicants’ religious beliefs. These are by no means unimportant considerations. When the focus of the inquiry is properly narrowed, however, we must conclude that the interests advanced by the State do not justify the burden placed on free exercise of religion.

There is no evidence in the record to indicate that the number of people who find themselves in the predicament of choosing between benefits and religious beliefs is large enough to create “widespread unemployment,” or even to seriously affect unemployment — and no such claim was advanced by the Review Board. Similarly, although detailed inquiry by employers into applicants’ religious beliefs is undesirable, there is no evidence in the record to indicate that such inquiries will occur in Indiana, or that they have occurred in any of the states that extend benefits to people in the petitioner’s position. Nor is there any reason to believe that the number of people terminating employment for religious reasons will be so great as to motivate employers to make such inquiries.

Neither of the interests advanced is sufficiently compelling to justify the burden upon Thomas’ religious liberty. Accordingly, Thomas is entitled to receive benefits unless, as the respondents contend and the Indiana court held, such payment would violate the Establishment Clause.

IV

The respondents contend that to compel benefit payments to Thomas involves the State in fostering a religious faith. There is, in a sense, a “benefit” to Thomas deriving from his religious beliefs, but this manifests no more than the tension between the two Religious Clauses which the Court resolved in Sherbert:

“In holding as we do, plainly we are not fostering the 'establishment’ of the Seventh-day Adventist religion in South Carolina, for the extension of unemployment benefits to Sabbatarians in common with Sunday wor-shippers reflects nothing more than the governmental obligation of neutrality in the face of religious differences, and does not represent that involvement of religious with secular institutions which it is the object of the Establishment Clause to forestall.” Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S., at 409.

See also Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S., at 220-221; Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S., at 668-669; O’Hair v. Andrus, 198 U. S. App. D. C. 198, 201-204, 613 F. 2d 931, 93A-937 (1979) (Leventhal, J.).

Unless we are prepared to overrule Sherbert, supra, Thomas cannot be denied the benefits due him on the basis of the findings of the referee, the Review Board, and the Indiana Court of Appeals that he terminated his employment because of his religious convictions.

Reversed.

Justice Blackmun joins Parts I, II, and III of the Court’s opinion. As to Part IV thereof, he concurs in the result.

Justice Rehnquist,

dissenting.

The Court today holds that the State of Indiana is constitutionally required to provide direct financial assistance to a person solely on the basis of his religious beliefs. Because I believe that the decision today adds mud to the already muddied waters of First Amendment jurisprudence, I dissent.

I

The Court correctly acknowledges that there is a “tension” between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Although the relationship of the two Clauses has been the subject of much commentary, the “tension” is of fairly recent vintage, unknown at the time of the framing and adoption of the First Amendmént. The causes of the tension, it seems to me, are threefold. First, the growth of social welfare legislation during the latter part of the 20th century has greatly magnified the potential for conflict between the two Clauses, since such legislation touches the individual at so many points in his life. Second, the decision by this Court that the First Amendment was “incorporated” into the Fourteenth Amendment and thereby made applicable against the States, Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940), similarly multiplied the number of instances in which the “tension” might arise. The third, and perhaps most important, cause of the tension is our overly expansive interpretation of both Clauses. By broadly construing both Clauses, the Court has constantly narrowed the channel between the Scylla and Charybdis through which any state or federal action must pass in order to survive constitutional scrutiny.

None of these developments could have been foreseen by those who framed and adopted the First Amendment. The First Amendment was adopted well before the growth of much social welfare legislation and at a time when the Federal Government was in a real sense considered a government of limited delegated powers. Indeed, the principal argument against adopting the Constitution without a “Bill of Rights” was not that such an enactment would be undesirable, but that it was unnecessary because of the limited nature of the Federal Government. So long as the Government enacts little social welfare legislation, as was the case in 1791, there are few occasions in which the two Clauses may conflict. Moreover, as originally enacted, the First Amendment applied only to the Federal Government, not the government of the States. Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243 (1833). The Framers could hardly anticipate Barron being superseded by the “selective incorporation” doctrine adopted by the Court, a decision which greatly expanded the number of statutes which would be subject to challenge under the First Amendment. Because those who drafted and adopted the First Amendment could not have foreseen either the growth of social welfare legislation or the incorporation of the First Amendment into the Fourteenth Amendment, we simply do not know how they would view the scope of the two Clauses.

II

The decision today illustrates how far astray the Court has gone in interpreting the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment. Although the Court holds that a State is constitutionally required to provide direct financial assistance to persons solely on the basis of their religious beliefs and recognizes the “tension” between the two Clauses, it does little to help resolve that tension or to offer meaningful guidance to other courts which must decide cases like this on a day-by-day basis. Instead, it simply asserts that there is no Establishment Clause violation here and leaves the tension between the two Religion Clauses to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. As suggested above, however, I believe that the “tension” is largely of this Court's own making, and would diminish almost to the vanishing point if the Clauses were properly interpreted.

Just as it did in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963), the Court today reads the Free Exercise Clause more broadly than is warranted. As to the proper interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause, I would accept the decision of Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599 (1961), and the dissent in Sherbert. In Braunfeld, we held that Sunday closing laws do not violate the First Amendment rights of Sabbatarians. Chief Justice Warren explained that the statute did not make unlawful any religious practices of appellants; it simply made the practice of their religious beliefs more expensive. We concluded that “[t]o strike down, without the most critical scrutiny, legislation which imposes only an indirect burden on the exercise of religion, i. e. legislation which does not make unlawful the religious practice itself, would radically restrict the operating latitude of the legislature.” 366 U. S., at 606. Likewise in this case, it cannot be said that the State discriminated against Thomas on the basis of his religious beliefs or that he was denied benefits because he was a Jehovah’s Witness. Where, as here, a State has enacted a general statute, the purpose and effect of which is to advance the State’s secular goals, the Free Exercise Clause does not in my view require the State to conform that statute to the dictates of religious conscience of any group. As Justice Harlan recognized in his dissent in Sherbert v. Verner, supra: “Those situations in which the Constitution may require special treatment on account of religion are . . . few and far between.” Id., at 423. Like him I believe that although a State could choose to grant exemptions to religious persons from state unemployment regulations, a State is not constitutionally compelled to do so. Id., at 422-423.

The Court’s treatment of the Establishment Clause issue is equally unsatisfying. Although today’s decision requires a State to provide direct financial assistance to persons solely on the basis of their religious beliefs, the Court nonetheless blandly assures us, just as it did in Sherbert, that its decision “plainly” does not foster the “establishment” of religion. Ante, at 719. I would agree that the Establishment Clause, properly interpreted, would not be violated if Indiana voluntarily chose to grant unemployment benefits to those persons who left their jobs for religious reasons. But I also believe that the decision below is inconsistent with many of our prior Establishment Clause cases. Those cases, if faithfully applied, would require us to hold that such voluntary action by a State did violate the Establishment Clause.

Justice Stewart noted this point in his concurring opinion in Sherbert, 374 U. S., at 414-417. He observed that decisions like Sherbert, and the one rendered today, squarely conflict with the more extreme language of many of our prior Establishment Clause cases. In Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1 (1949), the Court stated that the Establishment Clause bespeaks a “government . . . stripped of all power ... to support, or otherwise to assist any or all religions . . . ,” and no State “can pass laws which aid one religion . . . [or] all religions.” Id., at 11, 15. In Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 495 (1961), the Court asserted that the government cannot “constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers.” And in Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 217 (1963), the Court adopted Justice Rutledge’s words in Everson that the Establishment Clause forbids “ 'every form of public aid or support for religion.’ ” See also Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 431 (1962).

In recent years the Court has moved away from the mechanistic “no-aid-to-religion” approach to the Establishment Clause and has stated a three-part test to determine the constitutionality of governmental aid to religion. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971); Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 772-773 (1973). First, the statute must serve a secular legislative purpose. Second, it must have a “primary effect” that neither advances nor inhibits religion. And third, the State and its administration must avoid excessive entanglement with religion. Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970).

It is not surprising that the Court today makes no attempt to apply those principles to the facts of this case. If Indiana were to legislate what the Court today requires — an unemployment compensation law which permitted benefits to be granted to those persons who quit their jobs for religious reasons — the statute would “plainly” violate the Establishment Clause as interpreted in such cases as Lemon and Nyquist. First, although the unemployment statute as a whole would be enacted to serve a secular legislative purpose, the proviso would clearly serve only a religious purpose. It would grant financial benefits for the sole purpose of accommodating religious beliefs. Second, there can be little doubt that the primary effect of the proviso would be to “advance” religion by facilitating the exercise of religious belief. Third, any statute including such a proviso would surely “entangle” the State in religion far more than the mere grant of tax exemptions, as in Walz, or the award of tuition grants and tax credits, as in Nyquist. By granting financial benefits to persons solely on the basis of their religious beliefs, the State must necessarily inquire whether the claimant’s belief is “religious” and whether it is sincerely held. Otherwise any dissatisfied employee may leave his job without cause and claim that he did so because his own particular beliefs required it.

It is unclear from the Court’s opinion whether it has temporarily retreated from its expansive view of the Establishment Clause, or wholly abandoned it. I would welcome the latter. Just as I think that Justice Harlan in Sherbert correctly stated the proper approach to free exercise questions, I believe that Justice Stewart, dissenting in Abington School District v. Schempp, supra, accurately stated the reach of the Establishment Clause. He explained that the Establishment Clause is limited to “government support of proselytizing activities of religious sects by throwing the weight of secular authorities] behind the dissemination of religious tenets." Id., at 314. See McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 248 (1948) (Reed, J., dissenting) (impermissible aid is only “purposeful assistance directly to the church itself or to some religious group . . . performing ecclesiastical functions”)- Conversely, governmental assistance which does not have the effect of “inducing” religious belief, but instead merely “accommodates” or implements an independent religious choice does not impermissibly involve the government in religious choices and therefore does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. I would think that in this case, as in Sherbert, had the State voluntarily chosen to pay unemployment compensation benefits to persons who left their jobs for religious reasons, such aid would be constitutionally permissible because it redounds directly to the benefit of the individual. Accord, Wolman v. Walter, 433 U. S. 229 (1977) (upholding various disbursements made to pupils in parochial schools).

In sum, my difficulty with today’s decision is that it reads the Free Exercise Clause too broadly and it fails to squarely acknowledge that such a reading conflicts with many of our Establishment Clause cases. As such, the decision simply exacerbates the “tension” between the two Clauses. If the Court were to construe the Free Exercise Clause as it did in Braunfeld and the Establishment Clause as Justice Stewart did in Schempp, the circumstances in which there would be a conflict between the two Clauses would be few and far between. Although I heartily agree with the Court’s tacit abandonment of much of our rhetoric about the Establishment Clause, I regret that the Court cannot see its way clear to restore what was surely intended to have been a greater degree of flexibility to the Federal and State Governments in legislating consistently with the Free Exercise Clause. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Indiana Supreme Court.

       Indiana Code §22-4-15-1 (Supp. 1978) provides:
      “With respect to benefit periods including extended benefit periods established subsequent to July 6, 1974, and before July 3, 1977, an individual who has voluntarily left his emplojunent without good cause in connection with the work or who was discharged from his employment for just cause shall be ineligible for waiting period or benefit rights for the week in which the disqualifying separation occurred and until he has subsequently earned remuneration in employment equal to or exceeding the weekly benefit amount of his claim in each of ten (10) weeks. The weeks of a disqualification period remaining at the expiration of an individual’s benefit period will be carried forward to an extended benefit period or to the benefit period of a subsequent claim only if the first week of such extended benefit period or subsequent benefit period falls within ten (10) consecutive weeks from the beginning of the disqualification period imposed on the prior claim.”

       Ind. Code §22-4-1-1 et seq. (1976 and Supp. 1978).

       It is reasonable to assume that some of the sheet steel processed in the roll foundry may have found its way into tanks or other weapons; the record, however, contains no evidence or finding on this point.

       The referee indicated, App. to Pet. for Cert. 2a:
      “The evidence reveals that approximate [sic] two to three weeks prior to claimant’s date of leaving, the ‘Roll Foundry’ was closed permanently and claimant was transferred to the terret [sic] line. [He], at this time, real [sic] realized that all of the other functions at The Blaw-Knox company were engaged in producing arms for the Armament Industry. Claimant’s religious beliefs specifically exempts [sic] claimants from producing or aiding in the manufacture of items used in the advancement of war.”

         Id., at 2a-3a (emphasis added by petitioner).

       The Review Board, like the referee, found that Thomas had left his job for religious reasons, id., at 5a:
      “The evidence of record indicates that claimant . . . left his employment voluntarily because his religious beliefs . . . would not allow him to continue to work producing arms . . . .”

       See, e. g., Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 495 (1961); United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78 (1944).

       See n. 4, and text at n. 5, supra.

       See n. 6, supra.

       271 Ind., at —, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1133.

        Id., at —, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1131.

       A similar interest — the integrity of the insurance fund — was advanced and rejected in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 407 (1963).

       Even if I were to agree that Sherbert was correctly decided, I still would dissent on the grounds that today’s decision unjustifiably extends Sherbert. The Indiana Employment Security Act, Ind. Code § 22-4-15-1 (Supp. 1978), provides that an “individual who has voluntarily left his employment without good cause in connection with his employment” is disqualified from receiving benefits. In this case, the Supreme Court of Indiana “found the basis and the precise nature of Thomas’ belief unclear” and concluded that the belief was more “personal philosophical choice” than religious belief. Ante, at 713. The Court’s failure to make clear whether it accepts or rejects this finding by the Indiana Supreme Court, the highest court of the State, suggests that a person who leaves his job for purely “personal philosophical choices” will be constitutionally entitled to unemployment benefits. If that is true, the implications of today’s decision are enormous. Persons will then be able to quit their jobs, assert they did so for personal reasons, and collect unemployment insurance. We could surely expect the State’s limited funds allotted for unemployment insurance to be quickly depleted.
      In addition, the Court’s opinion in Sherbert, 374 U. S., at 401, n. 4, seems to suggest by negative implication that where a State makes every “personal reason” for leaving a job a basis for disqualification from unemployment benefits, the State need not grant an exemption to persons such as Sherbert who do quit for “personal reasons.” In this case, the Indiana Supreme Court has construed the State’s unemployment statute to mate every personal subjective reason for leaving a job a basis for disqualification. E. g., Geckler v. Review Bd. of the Indiana Employment Security Div., 244 Ind. 473, 193 N. E. 2d 357 (1963). This case is thus distinguishable from Sherbert. Because Thomas left his job for a personal reason, the State of Indiana should not be prohibited from disqualifying him from receiving benefits.

       To the extent Sherbert was correctly decided, it might be argued that cases such as McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203 (1948); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962); Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203 (1963); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971); and Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756 (1973), were wrongly decided. The “aid” rendered to religion in these latter cases may not be significantly different, in kind or degree, than the “aid” afforded Mrs. Sherbert or Thomas. For example, if the State in Sherbert could not deny compensation to one refusing work for religious reasons, it might be argued that a State may not deny reimbursement to students who choose for religious reasons to attend parochial schools. The argument would be that although a State need not allocate any funds to education, once it has done so, it may not require any person to sacrifice his religious beliefs in order to obtain an equal education. See Lemon, supra, at 665 (opinion of White, J.); Nyquist, supra, at 798-805 (opinion of Burger, C. J.). There can be little doubt that to the extent secular education provides answers to important moral questions without reference to religion or teaches that there are no answers, a person in one sense sacrifices his religious belief by attending secular schools. And even if such “aid” were not constitutionally compelled by the Free Exercise Clause, Justice Harlan may well have been right in Sherbert when he found sufficient flexibility in the Establishment Clause to permit the States to voluntarily choose to grant such benefits to individuals.


author: Justice Brennan Chief Justice Burger,

text:
    BARRENTINE et al. v. ARKANSAS-BEST FREIGHT SYSTEM, INC., et al.
    No. 79-2006.
    Argued January 13, 1981
    Decided April 6, 1981

      Brennan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, and Stevens, JJ., joined. Burger, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, J., joined, post, p. 746.

      David C. Vladeck argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Alan B. Morrison and Arthur L. Fox II.

      S. Walton Maurras argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.

       Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Solicitor General McCree, Deputy Solicitor General Geller, Barbara E. Etkind, Donald S. Shire, Lois G. Williams, and Mary-Helen Mautner for the United States; and by J. Albert Woll and Laurence Gold for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

   Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The issue in this case is whether an employee may bring an action in federal district court, alleging a violation of the minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq., after having unsuccessfully submitted a wage claim based on the same underlying facts to a joint grievance committee pursuant to the provisions of his union’s collective-bargaining agreement.

I

Petitioner truckdrivers are employed at the Little Rock terminal of respondent Arkansas-Best Freight Systems, Inc., an interstate motor carrier of freight. In accordance with federal regulations and Arkansas-Best’s employment practices, petitioners are required to conduct a safety inspection of their trucks before commencing any trip, and to transport any truck failing such inspection to Arkansas-Best’s on-premises repair facility. See 49 CFR §§ 392.7, 392.8 (1980). Petitioners are not compensated by their employer for the time spent complying with these requirements.

Pursuant to the collective-bargaining agreement between Arkansas-Best and petitioners’ union, respondent Local 878 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers, petitioner Barrentine and another driver filed a series of grievances against Arkansas-Best. They alleged that Art. 50 of the collective-bargaining agreement, which requires Arkansas-Best to compensate its drivers “for all time spent in [its] service/’ entitled them to compensation for the pretrip inspection and transportation time. Petitioners’ union presented these grievances to a joint grievance committee for final and binding decision pursuant to Art. 44 of the collective-bargaining agreement. The joint committee, composed of three representatives of the union and three representatives of the employer, rejected the grievances without explanation. App. 22.

In March 1977, petitioners filed this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. In the first count of their complaint, petitioners alleged that the pretrip safety inspection and transportation time was compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq., and that they were accordingly entitled to the statutory remedy of actual and liquidated damages, costs, and reasonable attorney’s fees. In the second count, petitioners alleged that the union and its president had breached the union’s duty of fair representation, apparently by entering into a “side deal” with Arkansas-Best regarding compensation of the pretrip inspection and transportation time. With respect to this claim, petitioners sought to have the decision of the joint grievance committee set aside and to have proper compensation awarded under the collective-bargaining agreement.

The District Court addressed only the fair representation claim. While it conceded that “the evidence seems . . . rather to predominate in favor of the finding that there was a side agreement” as petitioners alleged, it found that the existence of such an agreement did not in itself give rise to a breach of the union’s duty of fair representation, because the labor laws permit “parties by their own actions . . . [to] fill in the gaps that always arise with a written instrument when you apply that instrument to a multiplicity of situations and practices.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 8a, 9a. This ruling was affirmed by a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 615 F. 2d 1194, 1202 (1980), and is not challenged here.

With one judge dissenting, the Court of Appeals also held that the District Court was correct in not addressing the merits of petitioners’ FLSA claim. Emphasizing that national labor policy encourages arbitration of labor disputes, the court stated that “wage disputes arising under the FLSA . . . may be the subject of binding arbitration where the collective bargaining agreement so provides ... at least in situations in which employees knowingly and voluntarily submit their grievances to arbitration under the terms of the agreement.” Id., at 1199. Finding that petitioners had voluntarily submitted their grievances to arbitration, the court concluded that they were barred from asserting their statutory wage claim in the subsequently filed federal-court action. Id., at 1199-1200. We granted certiorari, 449 U. S. 819 (1980), and reverse.

II

Two aspects of national labor policy are in tension in this case. The first, reflected in statutes governing relationships between employers and unions, encourages the negotiation of terms and conditions of employment through the collective-bargaining process. The second, reflected in statutes governing relationships between employers and their individual employees, guarantees covered employees specific substantive rights. A tension arises between these policies when the parties to a collective-bargaining agreement make an employee’s entitlement to substantive statutory rights subject to contractual dispute-resolution procedures.

The national policy favoring collective bargaining and industrial self-government was first expressed in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (the Wagner Act). It received further expression and definition in the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 29 U. S. C. § 141 et seq. (the Taft-Hartley Act). Predicated on the assumption that individual workers have little, if any, bargaining power, and that “by pooling their economic strength and acting through a labor organization freely chosen by the majority, the employees of an appropriate unit have the most effective means of bargaining for improvements in wages, hours, and working conditions,” NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U. S. 175, 180 (1967), these statutes reflect Congress’ determination that to improve the economic well-being of workers, and thus to promote industrial peace, the interests of some employees in a bargaining unit may have to be subordinated to the collective interests of a majority of their co-workers. See Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 182 (1967); 29 U. S. C. § 159 (a). The rights established through this system of majority rule are thus

“protected not for their own sake but as an instrument of the national labor policy of minimizing industrial strife ‘by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.’ 29 U. S. C. § 151.” Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Org., 420 U. S. 50, 62 (1975).

To further this policy, Congress has declared that

“[fjinal adjustment by a method agreed upon by the parties is declared to be the desirable method for settlement of grievance disputes arising over the application or interpretation of an existing collective-bargaining agreement.” 29 U. S. C. § 173 (d).

Thus, courts ordinarily defer to collectively bargained dispute-resolution procedures when the parties' dispute arises out of the collective-bargaining process. See, e. g., Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554, 562-563 (1976); Gateway Coal Co. v. Mine Workers, 414 U. S. 368, 377-380 (1974); Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U. S. 650, 652-653 (1965); Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U. S. 593, 596 (1960); Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S. 574, 577-578, 582-583 (1960); Steelworkers v. American Manufacturing Co., 363 U. S. 564, 566, 568 (1960); Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448, 458-459 (1957).

Respondents contend that the aspect of national labor policy encouraging collective bargaining and industrial self-government requires affirmance of the Court of Appeals. They note that the collective-bargaining agreement between Arkansas-Best and petitioners' union requires that “any controversy'' between the parties to the agreement be resolved through the binding contractual grievance procedures. See n. 5, supra. They further note that Local 878 processed petitioners’ grievances in accordance with those procedures, and that the District Court made an unchallenged finding that the union did not breach its duty of fair representation in doing so. Accordingly, they conclude that petitioners should be barred from bringing the statutory component of their wage claim in federal court.

We reject this argument. Not all disputes between an employee and his employer are suited for binding resolution in accordance with the procedures established by collective bargaining. While courts should defer to an arbitral decision where the employee’s claim is based on rights arising out of the collective-bargaining agreement, different considerations apply where the employee’s claim is based on rights arising out of a statute designed to provide minimum substantive guarantees to individual workers.

These considerations were the basis for our decision in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36 (1974). In that case, petitioner, a black employee, had been discharged by respondent employer, allegedly for producing too many defective parts. Claiming that his discharge was racially motivated, petitioner asked his union to pursue the grievance and arbitration procedure set forth in the collective-bargaining agreement. The union did so, relying on the nondiscrimination clause in the collective-bargaining agreement, but the arbitrator found that petitioner had been discharged for just cause. Petitioner then brought an action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in Federal District Court based on the same facts that were before the arbitrator. The District Court granted summary judgment for the employer, holding that petitioner was bound by the prior adverse arbi-tral decision. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

This Court reversed, concluding that an employee’s statutory right to a trial de novo under Title VII is not foreclosed by the prior submission of his discrimination claim to final arbitration under a collective-bargaining agreement. The Court found that in enacting Title VII, Congress had granted individual employees a nonwaivable, public law right to equal employment opportunities that was separate and distinct from the rights created through the “majoritarian processes” of collective bargaining. Id., at 51. Moreover, because Congress had granted aggrieved employees access to the courts, and because contractual grievance and arbitration procedures provided an inadequate forum for enforcement of Title VII rights, the Court concluded that Title VII claims should be resolved by the courts de novo.

Respondents would distinguish Gardner-Denver on the ground that because petitioners’ FLSA claim is based on a dispute over wages and hours, subjects at the heart of the collective-bargaining process, their claim is particularly well suited to resolution through collectively bargained grievance and arbitration procedures. But this contention misper-ceives the nature of petitioners’ FLSA claim.

The principal congressional purpose in enacting the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was to protect all covered workers from substandard wages and oppressive working hours, “labor conditions [that are] detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers.” 29 U. S. C. § 202 (a). In contrast to the Labor Management Relations Act, which was designed to minimize industrial strife and to improve working conditions by encouraging employees to promote their interests collectively, the FLSA was designed to give specific minimum protections to individual workers and to ensure that each employee covered by the Act would receive “ '[a] fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ ” and would be protected from “the evil of 'overwork’ as well as 'underpay.’ ” Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, 316 U. S. 572, 578 (1942), quoting 81 Cong. Rec. 4983 (1937) (message of President Roosevelt).

The statutory enforcement scheme grants individual employees broad access to the courts. Section 16 (b) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b), which contains the principal enforcement provisions, permits an aggrieved employee to bring his statutory wage and hour claim “in any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction.” No exhaustion requirement or other procedural barriers are set up, and no other forum for enforcement of statutory rights is referred to or created by the statute.

This Court’s decisions interpreting the FLSA have frequently emphasized the nonwaivable nature of an individual employee’s right to a minimum wage and to overtime pay under the Act. Thus, we have held that FLSA rights cannot be abridged by contract or otherwise waived because this would “nullify the purposes” of the statute and thwart the legislative policies it was designed to effectuate. Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 707 (1945); see D. A. Schulte, Inc. v. Gangi, 328 U. S. 108, 114-116 (1946); Walling v. Helmerich & Payne, Inc., 323 U. S. 37, 42 (1944); Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, supra, at 577; see 29 CFR § 785.8 (1974). Moreover, we have held that congressionally granted FLSA rights take precedence over conflicting provisions in a collectively bargained compensation arrangement. See, e. g., Martino v. Michigan Window Cleaning Co., 327 U. S. 173, 177-178 (1946); Walling v. Harnischfeger Corp., 325 U. S. 427, 430-432 (1945); Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. Mine Workers, 325 U. S. 161, 166-167, 170 (1945). As we stated in Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U. S. 590, 602-603 (1944) (footnote omitted):

“The Fair Labor Standards Act was not designed to codify or perpetuate [industry] customs and contracts. . . . Congress intended, instead, to achieve a uniform national policy of guaranteeing compensation for all work or employment engaged in by employees covered by the Act. Any custom or contract falling short of that basic policy, like an agreement to pay less than the minimum wage requirements, cannot be utilized to deprive employees of their statutory rights.”

There are two reasons why an employee’s right to a minimum wage and overtime pay under the FLSA might be lost if submission of his wage claim to arbitration precluded him from later bringing an FLSA suit in 'federal court. First, even if the employee’s claim were meritorious, his union might, without breaching its duty of fair representation, reasonably and in good faith decide not to support the claim vigorously in arbitration. Wage and hour disputes that are subject to arbitration under a collective-bargaining agreement are invariably processed by unions rather than by individual employees. Since a union’s objective is to maximize overall compensation of its members, not to ensure that each employee receives the best compensation deal available, cf. Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 58, n. 19, a union balancing individual and collective interests might validly permit some employees’ statutorily granted wage and hour benefits to be sacrificed if an alternative expenditure of resources would result in increased benefits for workers in the bargaining unit as a whole.

Second, even when the union has fairly and fully presented the employee’s wage claim, the employee’s statutory rights might still not be adequately protected. Because the “specialized competence of arbitrators pertains primarily to the law of the shop, not the law of the land,” id., at 57; see Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S., at 581-582, many arbitrators may not be conversant with the public law considerations underlying the FLSA. FLSA claims typically involve complex mixed questions of fact and law — e. g., what constitutes the “regular rate,” the “workweek,” or “principal” rather than “preliminary or postlimi-nary” activities. These statutory questions must be resolved in light of volumes of legislative history and over four decades of legal interpretation and administrative rulings. Although an arbitrator may be competent to resolve many preliminary factual questions, such as whether the employee “punched in” when he said he did, he may lack the competence to decide the ultimate legal issue whether an employee’s right to a minimum wage or to overtime pay under the statute has been violated.

Moreover, even though a particular arbitrator may be competent to interpret and apply statutory law, he may not have the contractual authority to do so. An arbitrator’s power is both derived from, and limited by, the collective-bargaining agreement. Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 53. He “has no general authority to invoke public laws that conflict with the bargain between the parties.” Ibid. His task is limited to construing the meaning of the collective-bargaining agreement so as to effectuate the collective intent of the parties. Accordingly,

“[i]f an arbitral decision is based 'solely upon the arbitrator’s view of the requirements of enacted legislation,’ rather than on an interpretation of the collective-bargaining agreement, the arbitrator has 'exceeded the scope of the submission,’ and the award will not be enforced.” Ibid., quoting Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U. S., at 597.

Because the arbitrator is required to effectuate the intent of the parties, rather than to enforce the statute, he may issue a ruling that is inimical to the public policies underlying the FLSA, thus depriving an employee of protected statutory rights.

Finally, not only are arbitral procedures less protective of individual statutory rights than are judicial procedures, see Gardner-Denver, supra, at 57-58, but arbitrators very often are powerless to grant the aggrieved employees as broad a range of relief. Under the FLSA, courts can award actual and liquidated damages, reasonable attorney’s fees, and costs. 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b). An arbitrator, by contrast, can award only that compensation authorized by the wage provision of the collective-bargaining agreement. He “is confined to interpretation and application of the collective bargaining agreement” and his “award is legitimate only so long as it draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement.” Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., supra, at 597. It is most unlikely that he will be authorized to award liquidated damages, costs, or attorney’s fees.

Ill

In sum, the FLSA rights petitioners seek to assert in this action are independent of the collective-bargaining process. They devolve on petitioners as individual workers, not as members of a collective organization. They are not waivable. Because Congress intended to give individual employees the right to bring their minimum-wage claims under the FLSA in court, and because these eongressionally granted FLSA rights are best protected in a judicial rather than in an arbitral forum, we hold that petitioners’ claim is not barred by the prior submission of their grievances to the contractual dispute-resolution procedures. As we stated in Gardner-Denver:

“In submitting his grievance to arbitration, an employee seeks to vindicate his contractual right under a collective-bargaining agreement. By contrast, in filing a lawsuit under [the statute], an employee asserts independent statutory rights accorded by Congress. The distinctly separate nature of these contractual and statutory rights is not vitiated merely because both were violated as a result of the same factual occurrence. And certainly no inconsistency results from permitting both rights to be enforced in their respectively appropriate forums.” 415 U. S., at 49-50.

Reversed.

Chief Justice Burger,

with whom Justice Rehnquist joins, dissenting.

The Court today moves — rather blithely, so it seems to me, and unnecessarily — in a direction counter to the needs and interests of workers and employers and contrary to the interests of the judicial system. It does so on the theory that this result advances congressional policy, but careful analysis reveals that Congress, if anything, has mandated the contrary. With funds appropriated by Congress, the Executive Branch, through the Department of Justice, and the Judicial Branch have undertaken studies and pilot programs to remove just such routine and relatively modest-sized claims as this from the courts. Today, the Court moves in precisely the opposite direction, ignoring the objectives of Congress, the agreement of the parties, and the common sense of the situation. It moves toward making federal courts small claims courts contrary to the constitutional concept of these courts as having special and limited jurisdiction.

I

I agree, of course, that the congressionally created right of individual workers to a minimum wage under § 6 of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U. S. C. § 206, may not be waived through a collective-bargaining agreement between an employer and the workers’ union or through a direct agreement between an individual worker and the employer. Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 707 (1945). I also agree that the Act creates a private cause of action to vindicate the right to a minimum wage. Fair Labor Standards Act § 16, 29 U. S. C. § 216. But it is a different — indeed, a totally different — proposition to say that employees and employers may not agree to a means of enforcing the employees’ routine wage claims outside the costly, cumbersome judicial process of the federal courts and, specifically, that employees, acting through their union in an arm’s-length negotiation with the employer, may not bind themselves — as the petitioners did here — to submit to final and binding arbitration “any controversy that might arise,” App. 24, rather than resolve it through litigation in the federal courts. The existence of a right and the provision of a judicial forum do not necessarily make either nonwaivable; if that were so, all the holdings of this Court and countless decisions of federal and state courts that parties are bound by contracts to arbitrate are placed in doubt. “[T]he question of whether the statutory right may be waived depends upon the intention of Congress as manifested in the particular statute.” Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O’Neil, supra, at 705.

Unfortunately, neither the parties nor the United States as amicus curiae can point to a clear answer to this question in the legislative history of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is hornbook law, however, that there is a strong congressional policy favoring grievance procedures and arbitration as a method of resolving labor disputes. See Labor Management Relations Act, §§ 201 (b), 203 (d), 29 U. S. C. §§ 171 (b), 173(d); Norris-LaGuardia Act, §8, 29 U. S. C. §108. This Court has acknowledged that policy in the past. See, e. g., Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S. 574, 578, and n. 4 (1960); Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U. S. 593, 596 (1960); Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448, 458-459 (1957). The Court today pays lipservice to that congressional policy, ante, at 734-736, but then — paradoxically—ignores it.

The reasons for favoring arbitration are as wise as they are obvious: litigation is costly and time consuming, and, more to the point in this case, judges are less adapted to the nuances of the disputes that typically arise in shops and factories than shop stewards, business agents, managerial supervisors, and the traditional ad hoc panels of factfinders. See, e. g., Steel workers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., supra, at 581-582. By bringing together persons actually involved in the workplace, often assisted by a neutral arbitrator experienced in such matters, disputes are resolved more swiftly and cheaply. This mechanism promotes industrial harmony and avoids strikes and conflicts; it provides a swift, fair, and inexpensive remedy.

The policy of favoring extrajudicial methods of resolving disputes is reflected in other areas as well. With federal courts flooded by litigation increasing in volume, in length, and in a variety of novel forms, the National Institute of Justice, under the leadership of Attorney General Griffin Bell, in 1979 launched a multimillion-dollar program of field studies to test whether mediation at a neighborhood level could resolve small disputes out of courts in a fashion satisfactory to the parties. Neighborhood Justice Centers Field Test: Final Evaluation Report 7-8 (1980). The results of this study — and other similar studies financed by private sources — confirmed what many had long suspected: small disputes may be resolved more swiftly and to the satisfaction of the parties without employing the cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive processes of litigation. The National Institute of Justice recommended further study and implementation of similar procedures. Neighborhood Justice Centers Field Test, supra, at 108-109. Congress itself has recognized this problem and authorized such studies. Dispute Resolution Act, 94 Stat. 17.

II

By rejecting binding arbitration for resolution of this relatively simple wage claim arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Court thereby rejects as well a policy Congress has followed for at least half a century throughout the field of labor relations and now being applied in other areas as well. To reach that strange result, the Court relies on our holding in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36 (1974). But that case in no sense compels today’s holding. The congressionally created right under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq., was aimed at guaranteeing a workplace free from discrimination, racial and otherwise. That fundamental right is not and should not be subject to waiver by a collective-bargaining agreement negotiated by a union. But there obviously is a vast difference between resolving allegations of discrimination under the Civil Rights Act and settling a relatively typical and simple wage dispute such as we have here when the parties have expressly agreed to resolve such grievances by arbitration.

The long history of union discrimination against minorities and women, now happily receding, led Congress to forbid discrimination by unions as well as employers. See 42 U. S. C. § 2003e-2(c). Against a background of union discrimination, Congress was aware that, in the context of claims under the Civil Rights Act, unions sometimes had been the adversary of workers. Plainly, it would not comport with the congressional objectives behind a statute seeking to enforce civil rights protected by Title VII to allow the very forces that had practiced discrimination to contract away the right to enforce civil rights in the courts. For federal courts to defer to arbitral decisions reached by the same combination of forces that had long perpetuated invidious discrimination would have made the foxes guardians of the chickens. But this case is not a discrimination case.

Even beyond the historical fact of union discrimination, we observed in Oardner-Denver that arbitrators are not likely to have the needed experience to deal with the special issues arising under the Civil Rights Act, a statute “whose broad language frequently can be given meaning only by reference to public law concepts.” 415 U. S., at 57. Leaving resolution of discrimination claims to persons unfamiliar with the congressional policies behind that statute could have undermined enforcement of fundamental rights Congress intended to protect. But the “tension” seen by the Court in Gardner-Denver, ante, at 734, is simply not present here.

A dispute over wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act arises in an entirely different historical and legal context. In that setting, the union and the employee are the traditional allies, united in enforcing wage claims of employees individually as well as collectively. The Court distorts the possibility that union leadership might fail to protect members’ interests in a wage dispute. Ante, at 742. If this rare exception arose, protection of the employee is abundantly. available by way of the cause of action for breach of the union’s duty of fair representation. See Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171 (1967).

Despite the Court’s contrary view, ante, at 743-744, whether the time spent in the driver’s inspection of a vehicle before taking to the road, as required by federal law, and in transportation of the vehicle to a repair facility when necessary constituted “compensable time” under “Federal Wage Laws,” App. 21 (petitioner Barrentine’s grievance), is a factual question well suited for disposition by grievance processes and arbitration. The following factors are relevant:

(a) the vehicle inspection was mandated, not by the employer, but by a federal regulation, 49 CFR § 392.7 (1980);
(b) the regulation places the responsibility to inspect the vehicle on the driver directly;
(c) the inspection is intended primarily for the benefit of the public;
(d) the petitioners’ claim is one for wages; and
(e) the bargaining over wages, which produced a rate well above the statutory minimum wage, presumably took into account the time spent by drivers in complying with federal requirements.

This elementary wage dispute falls well within the scope of traditional arbitration as it exists under countless collective-bargaining agreements, which the Court now channels into the federal courts. For years the labor movement has developed panels of persons acceptable to both sides who are familiar with “the law of the shop . . . [and] the demands and norms of industrial relations.” Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., supra, at 57. The Court’s generalizations about the powers of arbitrators, ante, at 744-745, are irrelevant; arbitrators have whatever power the parties confer upon them. Here, that power extends to “any controversy that might arise.” App. 24 (emphasis added). Surely a wage claim is covered.

Allowing one party to such an elementary industrial dispute unilaterally to resort to the federal courts when an established, simplified, less costly procedure is available — and desired, as here, by the employer and the employee’s union— can only increase costs and consume judicial time unnecessarily. It makes neither good sense nor sound law to read the broad language of Oardner-Denver — written in a civil rights discrimination case — to govern a routine wage dispute over a matter traditionally entrusted by the parties’ arm’s-length bargaining to binding arbitration.

Ill

The Court seems unaware that people’s patience with the judicial process is wearing thin. Its holding runs counter to every study and every exhortation of the Judiciary, the Executive, and the Congress urging the establishment of reasonable mechanisms to keep matters of this kind out of the courts. See The Pound Conference: Perspectives on Justice in the Future passim (West Pub. Co. 1979); American Bar Assn., Report on the National Conference on Minor Disputes Resolution passim (1978). The Federal Government, as I noted earlier, has spent millions of dollars in pilot programs experimenting in extrajudicial procedures for simpler mechanisms to resolve disputes. Approving an extrajudicial resolution procedure “is not a question of first-class or second-class . . . means. It is a matter of tailoring the means to the problem that is involved.” Resolution of Minor Disputes, Joint Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice, House Committee on the Judiciary, and Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Finance, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., 28 (1979) (testimony of Assistant Attorney General Meador). This Court ought not be oblivious to desperately needed changes to keep the federal courts from being inundated with disputes of a kind that can be handled more swiftly and more cheaply by other methods.

       Upon arriving at the terminal to begin a trip, an Arkansas-Best driver must “punch in” on a timeclock and perform certain preliminary office work. He is compensated for this time at an hourly rate. After completing this work, the driver must “punch out,” locate his vehicle, and conduct the required pretrip safety inspection. If the vehicle passes inspection, the driver proceeds on his trip and is paid at the driving time rate. No claim is made for the pretrip inspection time in these circumstances. If the vehicle does not pass inspection, the driver must take the truck to Arkansas-Best’s repair facility and “punch in” on a second timeclock. The approximately 15-30 minutes that elapse between the first “punch out” and the second “punch in” are not compensated and are the subject of petitioners’ claim.

         The second driver, J. N. Scates, is no longer a party to this litigation.

       Article 50 states in part:
      “All employees covered by this Agreement shall be paid for all time spent in the' service of the Employer. Rates of pay provided for by this Agreement shall be mínimums. Time shall be computed from the time that the employee is ordered to report for work and registers in and until the time he is effectively released from duty. Such payment for employee’s time when not driving shall be the hourly rate.” App. 27.

       Respondents contend that the grievances presented a claim under the FLSA in addition to the claim under the collective-bargaining agreement. See id., at 21. Although neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals addressed this contention, Judge Heaney, dissenting from the opinion of the Court of Appeals, concluded that petitioners had “no intent to submit the FLSA claim to arbitration and it was not submitted to arbitration.” 615 F. 2d 1194, 1203 (CA8 1980). Because we hold that petitioners would not be precluded from bringing their action in federal court in either case, we need not resolve this factual dispute.

       Article 44 states in part:
      “The Unions and the employers agree that there shall be no strikes, lockouts, tieups, or legal proceedings without first using all possible means of settlement as provided for in this Agreement and in the National Agreement, if applicable, of any controversy which might arise. Disputes shall first be taken up between the Employer and the Local Union involved. Failing adjustment by these parties, the following procedure shall then apply:
      “(a) Where a State or Multiple State Committee, by a majority vote, settles a dispute no appeal may be taken to the Southern Conference Area Grievance Committee. Such decision will be final and binding on both parties.” App. 24-25.

       Plaintiffs included Barrentine, Scates, three drivers whose claims were later dismissed for failure to answer interrogatories, and four other drivers. Although these last four drivers never formally submitted grievances to the joint committee, the District Court refused to dismiss their complaints for failure to exhaust internal grievance and arbitration procedures, concluding that resort to those procedures would have been futile in light of the joint committee’s denial of Barrentine’s grievance. The District Court thus “treat [ed] the case as though each of the named plaintiffs had actually filed grievances which were considered and denied.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 6a. The District Court’s treatment of those claims was not challenged on appeal. 615 F. 2d, at 1197, n. 3. Because our holding does not depend on whether petitioners formally filed grievances, we need not address the correctness of the District Court’s approach to the exhaustion issue.

       Petitioners principally relied upon § 6 (a) of the FLSA, 52 Stat. 1062, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §206 (a), which provides:
      “Every employer shall pay to each of his employees who in any workweek is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, . . . wages at the following rates: . . .”
      Alternatively, they relied upon § 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 amendments to the FLSA, 61 Stat. 86, 29 U. S. C. §254, which provides:
      “(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, no employer shall be subject to any liability or punishment under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, ... on account of the failure of such employer to pay an employee minimum wages, ... for or on account of any of the following activities. . . .
      “(1) walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which such employee is employed to perform, and
      “ (2)' activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities, which occur . . . prior to the time on any particular workday at. which such employee commences . . . such principal activity or activities.
      “(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a) of this section which relieve an employer from liability and punishment with respect to an activity, the employer shall not be so relieved if such activity is com-pensable by either—
      “(1) an express provision of a written or nonwritten contract in effect, at the time of such activity, between such employee, his agent, or collective-bargaining representative and his employer; or
      “(2) a custom or practice in effect, at the time of such activity, at the establishment or other place where such employee is employed, covering such activity, not inconsistent with a written or nonwritten contract, in effect at the time of such activity, between such employee, his agent, or collective-bargaining representative and his employer.”
      See App. 3-7.

       Section 16 (b) of the Act, 52 Stat. 1069, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §216 (b), provides:
      “Any employer who violates the [minimum wage] provisions ... of this title shall be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages, . . . and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages. . . . The court in such action shall, in addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a reasonable attorney’s fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the action.”

       The District Court also noted that petitioners’ collective-bargaining agreement, if read literally, would require compensation for the time in question, since “[t]here is no question that the driver when [inspecting the vehicle) is on the employer’s business.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 4a. Nonetheless, because it found no breach of the duty of fair representation, the court was obliged to let the decision of the joint committee stand with respect to the contractual claim. The Court of Appeals agreed with this conclusion, and also noted that the literal terms of the collective-bargaining agreement appeared to cover the disputed time. 615 F. 2d, at 1198.

       As we stated in Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 184 (1967), when an employee’s claim “is based upon breach of the collective bargaining agreement, he is bound by terms of that agreement which govern the manner in which contractual rights may be enforced.” Only if the arbitration process has been tainted, e. g., by the union’s breach of its duty of fair representation, may the employee pursue his grievance in the courts. Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S., at 567; Vaca v. Sipes, supra, at 186.

       As an alternative ground in support of affirmance, respondents assert that petitioners’ claims should be barred because petitioners failed to comply with 29 U. S. C. §216 (b), which provides:
      “No employee shall be a party plaintiff to any [FLSA enforcement action] unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party and such consent is filed in the court in which such action is brought.”
      Even if this requirement were to apply to petitioners’ suit, a nonclass action, it was satisfied when petitioners individually signed at least two sets of interrogatories.

       Cf. U. S. Bulk Carriers, Inc. v. Arguelles, 400 U. S. 351, 357 (1971) (seaman may assert wage claim in federal court under the Seaman’s Wage Act, 46 U. S. C. § 596, even though he had not previously pursued arbitral remedies provided by contractual grievance procedures); McKinney v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co., 357 U. S. 265, 268-270 (1958) (employee returning from military service need, not pursue grievance and arbitration procedure prior to asserting seniority rights in federal court under Universal Military Training and Service Act).

       There are three components to petitioners’ FLSA claim. First, they contend that the pretrip inspection and transportation time is compensa-ble under § 6 of the FLSA, 29 U. S. C. § 206, because it constitutes “principal” rather than “preliminary” activity under § 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U. S. C. § 254. See Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U. S. 247 (1956). Second, they contend that even if it is preliminary activity, it is compensable under § 4 (tí) (1) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U. S. C. §254 (b)(1), because it constitutes “time spent in the service of the Employer” under Art. 50 of the collective-bargaining agreement. Third, they contend that even if it is preliminary activity, and even if it is not compensable under “an express provision of a written [collective bargaining agreement],” 29 U. S. C. §254 (b)(1), it is compensable under § 4 (b) (2) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U. S. C. § 254 (b) (2), because there is “a custom or practice in effect” between Arkansas-Best and drivers in other terminals whereby those drivers are compensated for their pretrip inspection and transportation time.
      The threshold question in this action, then, is whether petitioners were engaged in "activities which are preliminary to [their] principal activity,” 29 U. S. C. §254 (a)(2), when they conducted the pretrip safety inspections of their vehicles. Resolution of that question requires inquiry into whether the inspection and transportation procedures “are an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities for which [petitioners] are employed.” Steiner v. Mitchell, supra, at 256 (changing clothes and showering are “principal” activities of employees working with dangerously caustic and toxic materials); see Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U. S. 260, 263 (1956) (knife sharpening is “principal” activity of butchers in meatpacking plant); 29 CFR §§ 790.7, 790.8 (1980). For the reasons that follow, we conclude that this is a question of statutory construction that must be resolved by the courts.

       Congress enacted the FLSA under its commerce power, having found that the existence of such "detrimental” labor conditions would endanger national health and efficiency and consequently would interfere with the free movement of goods in interstate commerce. See United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 109-110 (1941); 29 U. S. C. §202 (a).

       In mandatory language, Congress provided in § 6 (a) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §206 (a), that “[e]very employer shall pay to each of his employees . . . wages at the following rates It provided in § 7 (a)(2) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §207 (a)(2), that “no employer shall employ any of his employees ... for a workweek longer than forty hours . . . unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.”

       To encourage employees to enforce their FLSA rights in court, and thus to further the public policies underlying the FLSA, see Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 709 (1945), Congress has permitted individual employees to sue for back wages and liquidated damages and to receive reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b). In addition, Congress has empowered the Secretary of Labor to bring judicial enforcement actions under the Act. 29 U. S. C. §§216 (c), 217.

       But see 29 U. S. C. §216 (c).

       “[N]othing to our knowledge in any act authorizes us to give decisive weight to contract declarations as to the regular rate because they are the result of collective bargaining.” Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Aaron, 334 U. S. 446, 463 (1948). “[E]mployees are not to be deprived of the benefits of the Act simply because they are well paid or because they are represented by strong bargaining agents.” Jewell Ridge Coal Corp., 325 U. S., at 167.

       It is true that the FLSA, as amended, includes a number of references to collective-bargaining agreements. See Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U. S., at 602, n. 18. Sections 7 (b) (1) and (2) of the FLSA, 29 U. S. C. §§207 (b) (1) and (2), state that an employer need not pay overtime under the Act for an employee’s performance of work in excess of the statutory maximum, if the employee is employed “in pursuance of an agreement [containing alternative maximum hours provisions] made as a result of collective bargaining by representatives of employees certified as bona fide by the National Labor Relations Board.” Section 3 (o) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U. S. C. §203 (o), excludes from the definition of “hours worked” under §§ 6 and 7 of the FLSA, “any time spent in changing clothes or washing at the beginning or end of each workday” if that time was noncompensa-ble “under a bona fide collective-bargaining agreement.” And § 4 (a) (2) of that Act, 29 U. S. C. §254 (a)(2), which excludes from compensable time "preliminary” or “postliminarv” working activities, requires compensation under the minimum wage provisions if a collective-bargaining agreement in effect between the employer and the employee's union makes that time compensable. See also 29 U. S. C. §§207 (e)(7), (f). Where plaintiff's claim depends upon application of one of these exceptions, we assume without deciding that a court should defer to a prior arbitral decision construing the relevant provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement. In this case, however, petitioners’ threshold claim does not depend upon application of any of those exceptions. The contention that petitioners were engaged in compensable “principal” activity when conducting the pretrip safety inspections is a claim that arises wholly independently of the collective-bargaining agreement. Accordingly, deference to the prior arbitral decision in this case would be inappropriate. See n. 13, supra.

       Cf. Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 349 (1964) (“we are not ready to find a breach of the collective bargaining agent’s duty of fair representation in taking a good faith position contrary to that of some individuals whom it represents nor in supporting the position of one group of employees against that of another”); Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330, 337-339 (1953).

       We have noted that “a substantial proportion of labor arbitrators are not lawyers,” Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 57, n. 18; see also Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co., 350 U. S. 198, 203 (1956), and this is particularly true with respect to most members of joint grievance committees, who are drawn from the ranks of management and union leadership.

       We do not hold that an arbitral decision has no evidentiary bearing on a subsequent FLSA action in court. As we decided in Gardner-Denver, such a decision may be admitted into evidence, but
      “[w]e adopt no standards as to the weight to be accorded an arbitral decision, since this must be determined in the court’s discretion with regard to the facts and circumstances of each case. Relevant factors include the existence of provisions in the collective bargaining agreement that conform substantially with [the statute], the degree of procedural fairness in the arbitral forum, adequacy of the record with respect to the issue of discrimination, and the special competence of particular arbitrators. Where an arbitral determination gives full consideration to an employee’s [statutory] rights, a court may properly accord it great weight. This is especially true where the issue is soleR one of fact, specifically addressed by the parties and decided by the arbitrator on the basis of an adequate record. . . .” 415 U. S., at 60, n. 21.
      Sec also n. 19, supra.

       Even where the crucial provision in the collective-bargaining agreement incorporates the statutory language, as in Gardner-Denver, “the arbitrator has authority to resolve only questions of contractual rights, and this authority remains regardless of whether certain contractual rights are similar to, or duplicative of, the substantive rights secured by [the statute].” 415 U. S., at 53-54.

       Civil filings in fiscal year 1960 were 59,284; in 1980 they were 168,789, an increase of 184.7%. Even with the increases in numbers of judges, the number of eases per judge has risen 35.1%, from 242 to 327. Annual Report of the Director, Administrative Office of U. S. Courts 3 (1980). During this same period, the number of appeals docketed in the Courts of Appeals rose from 3,899 to 23,200, 495.0%, and the caseload per panel increased from 172 to 527, or 206.4%. Id,., at 1.

       See Dispute Resolution, 88 Yale L. J. 905 (1979). In 1976 the Judicial Conference of the United States joined with the Conference of Chief Justices and the American Bar Association to sponsor a conference to search for ways of improving justice, with emphasis on alternative means of resolving disputes. See The Pound Conference: Perspectives on Justice in the Future (West Pub. Co. 1979).

       Of 3,947 “cases” — i. e., matters — voluntarily referred to these centers in the three study cities (Atlanta, Kansas City, and Los Angeles), 45% were resolved in some form, either through a hearing or simply by placing the parties in contact with each other. Neighborhood Justice Centers Field Test: Final Evaluation Report 26 (1980). Resolution came within a matter of days or weeks. Ibid. Interviews were conducted with one or both disputants in 63% of the mediated cases six months later. For both complainants and respondents, 88% were satisfied with the experience; 80% of complainants and 83% of respondents were satisfied with the agreement reached. In addition, over two-thirds felt that the adverse party had kept the bargain, and fewer than 30% felt that additional problems had arisen. Id., at 45-50.

       See, e. g., Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U. S. 193, 198, find n. 1 (1979), and sources cited therein; id., at 218 (Burger, C. J., dissenting).

       Indeed, count 2 of the petitioners’ complaint alleged that respondent Local 878 had breached its duty of fair representation. App. 7. The District Court expressly rejected that claim in its oral ruling, App. to Pet. for Cert. 12a, even though it found some evidence of a side agreement between Local 878 and the employer, id., at 8a-lla. The petitioners have not challenged the findings of fact, and the Court of Appeals held they were not clearly erroneous. 615 F. 2d 1194, 1202 (CA8 1980).