National Labor Relations Board v. Actors’ Equity Association

Actors’ Equity Association (Equity) (defendant) was an employee’s association that entered into collective-bargaining agreements on behalf of stage actors with various theater organizations throughout the United States and Canada. Equity imposed a separate dues schedule on its members depending on their citizenship or residency: members who were citizens or permanent residents of the United States or Canada paid 3 percent of their stage income as dues, but dues were capped at $400 per year; nonresident aliens, on the other hand, paid 5 percent of their stage income as dues, with no cap. Yul Brynner was a Swiss citizen and resident of France who was admitted into the United States to perform in a play. If Brynner had been a citizen or permanent resident of the United States or Canada, his dues to Equity for the first year of the play’s run would have been $400; under the separate schedule for nonresident aliens, however, his dues to Equity were $45,000. Brynner filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) (plaintiff), alleging that Equity violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) through the use of its discriminatory dues schedule. The administrative-law judge, and later the NLRB, agreed that the separate dues schedule unlawfully discriminated against aliens because it violated the union’s duty to charge uniform dues or to demonstrate a reasonable justification for the nonuniformity. Equity appealed.