Mr. Justice Burton

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In these cases an employer insisted that its collective-bargaining contract with certain of its employees include: (1) a “ballot” clause calling for a pre-strike secret vote of those employees (union and nonunion) as to the employer’s last offer, and (2) a “recognition” clause which excluded, as a party to the contract, the International Union which had been certified by the National Labor Relations Board as the employees’ exclusive bargaining *344agent, and substituted for it the agent’s uncertified local affiliate. The Board held that the employer’s insistence upon either of such clauses amounted to a refusal to bargain, in violation of § 8 (a) (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended.1 The issue turns on whether either of these clauses comes within the scope of mandatory collective bargaining as defined in § 8 (d) of the Act.2 For the reasons hereafter stated, we agree with the Board that neither clause comes within that definition. Therefore, we sustain the Board’s order directing the employer to cease insisting upon either clause as a condition precedent to accepting any collective-bargaining contract.

Late in 1952, the International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, CIO (here called International) was certified by the Board to the Wooster (Ohio) Division of the Borg-Warner Corporation (here called the company) as the elected representative of an appropriate unit of the company’s employees. Shortly thereafter, International chartered Local No. 1239, UAW-CIO (here called the Local). Together the unions presented the company with a comprehensive collective-bargaining agreement. In the “recognition” clause, the unions described themselves as both the “International Union, *345United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America and its Local Union No. 1239, U. A. W.-C. 1.0.”

The company submitted a counterproposal which recognized as the sole representative of the employees “Local Union 1239, affiliated with the International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW-CIO).” The unions’ negotiators objected because such a clause disregarded the Board’s certification of International as the employees’ representative. The negotiators declared that the employees would accept no agreement which excluded International as a party.

The company’s counterproposal also contained the “ballot” clause, quoted in full in the margin.3 In sum*346mary, this clause provided that, as to all nonarbitrable issues (which eventually included modification, amendment or termination of the contract), there would be a 30-day negotiation period after which, before the union could strike, there would have to be a secret ballot taken among all employees in the unit (union and nonunion) on the company’s last offer. In the event a majority of the employees rejected the company’s last offer, the company would have an opportunity, within 72 hours, of making a new proposal and having a vote on it prior to any strike. The unions’ negotiators announced they would not accept this clause “under any conditions.”

From the time that the company first proposed these clauses, the employees’ representatives thus made it clear *347that each was wholly unacceptable. The company’s representatives made it equally clear that no agreement would be entered into by it unless the agreement contained both clauses. In view of this impasse, there was little further discussion of the clauses, although the parties continued to bargain as to other matters. The company submitted a “package” proposal covering economic issues but made the offer contingent upon the satisfactory settlement of “all other issues . . . .” The “package” included both of the controversial clauses. On March 15, 1953, the unions rejected that proposal and the membership voted to strike on March 20 unless a settlement were reached by then. None was reached and the unions struck. Negotiations, nevertheless, continued. On April 21, the unions asked the company whether the latter would withdraw its demand for the “ballot” and “recognition” clauses if the unions accepted all other pending requirements of the company. The company declined and again insisted upon acceptance of its “package,” including both clauses. Finally, on May 5, the Local, upon the recommendation of International, gave in and entered into an agreement containing both controversial clauses.

In the meantime, International had filed charges with the Board claiming that the company, by the above conduct, was guilty of an unfair labor practice within the meaning of § 8 (a) (5) of the Act. The trial examiner found no bad faith on either side. However, he found that the company had made it a condition precedent to its acceptance of any agreement that the agreement include both the “ballot” and the “recognition” clauses. For that reason, he recommended that the company be found guilty of a per se unfair labor practice in violation of §8 (a)(5). He reasoned that, because each of the controversial clauses was outside of the scope of mandatory bargaining as defined in § 8 (d) of the Act, the com*348pany’s insistence upon them, against the permissible opposition of the unions, amounted to a refusal to bargain as to the mandatory subjects of collective bargaining. The Board, with two members dissenting, adopted the recommendations of the examiner. 113 N. L. R. B. 1288, 1298. In response to the Board’s petition to enforce its order, the Court of Appeals set aside that portion of the order relating to the “ballot” clause, but upheld the Board’s order as to the “recognition” clause. 236 F. 2d 898.

Because of the importance of the issues and because of alleged conflicts among the Courts of Appeals,4 we granted the Board’s petition for certiorari in No. 53, relating to the “ballot” clause, and the company’s cross-petition in No. 78, relating to the “recognition” clause. 353 U. S. 907.

We turn first to the relevant provisions of the statute. Section 8 (a) (5) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer “to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees . . . .” 5 Section 8 (d) defines collective bargaining as follows:

“(d) For the purposes of this section, to bargain collectively is the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder, and the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party, but such obligation does not compel *349either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession 61 Stat. 142, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d).

Read together, these provisions establish the obligation of the employer and the representative of its employees to bargain with each other in good faith with respect to “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment . . . The duty is limited to those subjects, and within that area neither party is legally obligated to yield. Labor Board v. American Insurance Co., 343 U. S. 395. As to other matters, however, each party is free to bargain or not to bargain, and to agree or not to agree.

The company’s good faith has met the requirements of the statute as to the subjects of mandatory bargaining. But that good faith does not license the employer to refuse to enter into agreements on the ground that they do not include some proposal which is not a mandatory subject of bargaining. We agree with the Board that such conduct is, in substance, a refusal to bargain about the subjects that are within the scope of mandatory bargaining. This does not mean that bargaining is to be confined to the statutory subjects. Each of the two controversial clauses is lawful in itself.6 Each would be enforceable if agreed to by the unions. But it does not follow that, because the company may propose these clauses, it can lawfully insist upon them as a condition to any agreement.

Since it is lawful to insist upon matters within the scope of mandatory bargaining and unlawful to insist upon matters without, the issue here is whether either the “ballot” or the “recognition” clause is a subject within the phrase “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment” which defines mandatory bargaining. The “ballot” clause is not within that definition. It re*350lates only to the procedure to be followed by the employees among themselves before their representative may call a strike or refuse a final offer. It settles no term or condition of employment — it merely calls for an advisory vote of the employees. It is not a partial “no-strike” clause. A “no-strike” clause prohibits the employees from striking during the life of the contract. It regulates the relations between the employer and the employees. See Labor Board v. American Insurance Co., supra, at 408, n. 22. The “ballot” clause, on the other hand, deals only with relations between the employees and their unions. It substantially modifies the collective-bargaining system provided for in the statute by weakening the independence of the “representative” chosen by the employees. It enables the employer, in effect, to deal with its employees rather than with their statutory representative. Cf. Medo Photo Corp. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 678.

The “recognition” clause likewise does not come within the definition of mandatory bargaining. The statute requires the company to bargain with the certified representative of its employees. It is an evasion of that duty to insist that the certified agent not be a party to the collective-bargaining contract. The Act does not prohibit the voluntary addition of a party, but that does not authorize the employer to exclude the certified representative from the contract.

Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals in No. 53 is reversed and the cause remanded for disposition consistent with this opinion. In No. 78, the judgment is affirmed.

No. 53 — Reversed and remanded.

No. 78 — Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter

joins this opinion insofar as it holds that insistence by the company on the “recognition” clause, in conflict with the provisions of the Act *351requiring an employer to bargain with the representative of his employees, constituted an unfair labor practice. He agrees with the views of Mr. Justice Harlan regarding the “ballot” clause. The subject matter of that clause is not so clearly outside the reasonable range of industrial bargaining as to establish a refusal to bargain in good faith, and is not prohibited simply because not deemed to be within the rather vague scope of the obligatory provisions of § 8 (d).

Mr. Justice Harlan,

whom

Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Whittaker join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I agree that the company’s insistence on the “recognition” clause constituted an unfair labor practice, but reach that conclusion by a different route from that taken by the Court. However, in light of the finding below that the company bargained in “good faith,” I dissent from the view that its insistence on the “ballot” clause can support the charge of an unfair labor practice.

Over twenty years ago this Court said in its first decision under the Wagner Act: “The theory of the Act is that free opportunity for negotiation with accredited representatives of employees is likely to promote industrial peace and may bring about the adjustments and agreements which the Act in itself does not attempt to compel.” Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 45. (Italics added.) Today’s decision proceeds on assumptions which I deem incompatible with this basic philosophy of the original labor Act, which has retained its vitality under the amendments effected by the Taft-Hartley Act. See Labor Board v. American National Insurance Co., 343 U. S. 395, 401-404. I fear that the decision may open the door to an intrusion by the Board into the substantive aspects of the bargaining process which goes beyond anything contemplated by the *352National Labor Relations Act or suggested in this Court’s prior decisions under it.

The Court considers both the "ballot” and “recognition” clauses to be outside the scope of the mandatory bargaining provisions of § 8 (d) of the Act, which in connection with §§ 8 (a)(5) and 8(b)(3) imposes an obligation on an employer and a union to “. . . confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. . . .” From this conclusion it is said to follow that although the company was free to “propose” these clauses and “bargain” over them, it could not “insist” on their inclusion in the collective bargaining contract as the price of agreement, and that such insistence was a per se unfair labor practice because it was tantamount to a refusal to bargain on “mandatory” subjects. At the same time the Court accepts the Trial Examiner’s unchallenged finding that the company had bargained in “good faith,” both with reference to these clauses and all other subjects, and holds that the clauses are lawful in themselves and “. . . would be enforceable if agreed to by the unions.”

Preliminarily, I must state that I am unable to grasp a concept of “bargaining” which enables one to “propose” a particular point, but not to “insist” on it as a condition to agreement. The right to bargain becomes illusory if one is not free to press a proposal in good faith to the point of insistence. Surely adoption of so inherently vague and fluid a standard is apt to inhibit the entire bargaining process because of a party’s fear that strenuous argument might shade into forbidden insistence and thereby produce a charge of an unfair labor practice. This watered-down notion of “bargaining” which the Court imports into the Act with reference to matters not within the scope of § 8 (d) appears as foreign to the labor field as it would be to the commercial world. To me all of this adds up to saying that the Act limits effective *353“bargaining” to subjects within the three fields referred to in § 8 (d), that is “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment,” even though the Court expressly disclaims so holding.

I shall discuss my difficulties with the Court’s opinion in terms of the “ballot” clause. The “recognition” clause is subject in my view to different considerations.

I.

At the start, I question the Court’s conclusion that the “ballot” clause does not come within the “other terms and conditions of employment” provision of §8(d). The phrase is inherently vague and prior to this decision has been accorded by the Board and courts an expansive rather than a grudging interpretation. Many matters which might have been thought to be the sole concern of management are now dealt with as compulsory bargaining topics. E. g., Labor Board v. J. H. Allison & Co., 165 F. 2d 766 (merit increases). And since a “no-strike” clause is something about which an employer can con-cededly bargain to the point of insistence, see Shell Oil Co., 77 N. L. R. B. 1306, I find it difficult to understand even under the Court’s analysis of this problem why the “ballot” clause should not be considered within the area of bargaining described in § 8 (d). It affects the employer-employee relationship in much the same way, in that it may determine the timing of strikes or even whether a strike will occur by requiring a vote to ascertain the employees’ sentiment prior to the union’s decision.

Nonetheless I shall accept the Court’s holding that this clause is not a condition of employment, for even though the union would accordingly not be obliged under § 8 (d) to bargain over it, in my view it does not follow that the company was prohibited from insisting on its inclusion in the collective bargaining agreement. In other words, *354I think the clause was a permissible, even if not an obligatory, subject of good faith bargaining.

The legislative history behind the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts persuasively indicates that the Board was never intended to have power to prevent good faith bargaining as to any subject not violative of the provisions or policies of those Acts. As a leading proponent for the Wagner Act explained:

“When the employees have chosen their organization, when they have selected their representatives, all the bill proposes to do is to escort them to the door of their employer and say, ‘Here they are, the legal representatives of your employees.' What happens behind those doors is not inquired into, and the bill does not seek to inquire into it.” 79 Cong. Rec. 7660.

The Wagner Act did not contain the “good faith” qualification now written into the bargaining requirements of § 8 (d), although this lack was remedied by early judicial interpretation which implied from former § 8 (5), 49 Stat. 453, the requirement that an employer bargain in good faith. E. g., Labor Board v. Griswold Mjg. Co., 106 F. 2d 713. But apart from this essential check on the bargaining process, the Board possessed no statutory authority to regulate the substantive scope of the bargaining process insofar as lawful demands of the parties were concerned. Nevertheless, the Board engaged occasionally in the practice of determining that certain contract terms urged by unions were conditions of employment and thereby imposing on employers an affirmative duty to bargain as to such terms rather than insist upon their unilateral determination, e. g., Singer Mfg. Co., 24 N. L. R. B. 444, or conversely of determining that certain clauses were not conditions of employment and thereby prohibiting an employer from bargaining over *355them. E. g., Jasper Blackburn Products Corp., 21 N. L. R. B. 1240.

These early intrusions of the Board into the substantive aspects of the bargaining process became a matter of concern to Congress, and in the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the Wagner Act, Congress took steps to curtail them by writing into § 8 (d) the particular fields as to which it considered bargaining should be required. The bill originally passed by the House of Representatives contained a definition of the term “collective bargaining” which restricted the area of compulsory negotiation to specified .subjects, such as wages, hours, discharge or seniority provisions, safety conditions, and vacations. § 2 (11), H. R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. The House Report on this bill, submitted by its sponsor, noted that the suggested provision would require unions and employers to bargain collectively as to specified topics and would limit that area “. . . to matters of interest to the employer and to the individual man at work.” H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 7. In explaining the need for specifying the topics over which bargaining was mandatory, and thereby establishing “objective standards” for the Board to follow, the Report continues:

“. . . [T]he present Board has gone very far, in the guise of determining whether or not employers had bargained in good faith, in setting itself up as the judge of what concessions an employer must make and of the proposals and counterproposals that he may or may not make. . . . [Discussion of Board cases.]

“These cases show that unless Congress writes into the law guides for the Board to follow, the Board may attempt to carry this process still further and seek to control more and more the terms of collective-bargaining agreements.” Id., at 19-20.

*356The Senate amendment to the House bill recast these provisions to read in substantially the form of present § 8 (d). That is, the Senate provisions contained no elaboration of compulsory bargaining topics, but used the general phrase: “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” In commenting on these changes, the managers of the House Conference appended a statement to the House Conference Report which observed:

“. . . [T] he Senate amendment, while it did not prescribe a purely objective test of what constituted collective bargaining, as did the House bill, had to a very substantial extent the same effect as the House bill in this regard, since it rejected, as a factor in determining good faith, the test of making a concession and thus prevented the Board from determining the merits of the positions of the parties.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 34.

The foregoing history evinces a clear congressional purpose to assure the parties to a proposed collective bargaining agreement the greatest degree of freedom in their negotiations, and to require the Board to remain as aloof as possible from regulation of the bargaining process in its substantive aspects.

The decision of this Court in 1952 in Labor Board v. American National Insurance Co., supra, was fully in accord with this legislative background in holding that the Board lacked power to order an employer to cease bargaining over a particular clause because such bargaining under the Board’s view, entirely apart from a showing of bad faith, constituted per se an unfair labor practice. There an employer insisted during negotiations upon the union’s acceptance of a “management functions” clause which would vest exclusively in management during the period of the collective bargaining agreement the right to select, hire, and promote employees, to discharge for *357cause and maintain discipline, and to determine work schedules. The arguments advanced by the Board in that case in support of its conclusion that the employer had committed an unfair labor practice through its insistence on this clause were strikingly similar to those before us here. It was said that such a clause was “in derogation of” statutory rights to bargain. given to the employees, and that insistence upon it was tantamount to refusal to bargain as to all statutory subjects covered by it.

But this Court, in reversing the Board, emphasized that flexibility was an essential characteristic of the process of collective bargaining, and that whether the topics contained in the disputed clause should be allocated exclusively to management or decided jointly by management and union “. . . is an issue for determination across the bargaining table, not by the Board.” 343 U. S., at 409. It is true that the disputed clause related to matters which concededly were “terms and conditions of employment,” but the broad rationale of the Court’s opinion undercuts an attempt to distinguish the case on any such ground. “Congress provided expressly that the Board should not pass upon the desirability of the substantive terms of labor agreements. . . . The duty to bargain collectively is to be enforced by application of the good faith bargaining standards of Section 8 (d) to the facts of each case . . . .” 343 U. S., at 408-409.

I therefore cannot escape the view that today’s decision is deeply inconsistent with legislative intention and this Court’s precedents. The Act sought to compel management and labor to meet and bargain in good faith as to certain topics. This is the affirmative requirement of § 8 (d) which the Board is specifically empowered to enforce, but I see no warrant for inferring from it any power in the Board to prohibit bargaining in good faith as to lawful matters not included in § 8 (d). The Court rea*358sons that such conduct on the part of the employer, when carried to the point of insistence, is in substance equivalent to a refusal to bargain as to the statutory subjects, but I cannot understand how this can be said over the Trial Examiner’s unequivocal finding that the employer did in fact bargain in “good faith,” not only over the disputed clauses but also over the statutory subjects.

It must not be forgotten that the Act requires bargaining, not agreement, for the obligation to bargain “. . . does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession.” § 8 (d). Here the employer concededly bargained but simply refused to agree until the union would accept what the Court holds would have been a lawful contract provision. It may be that an employer or union, by adamant insistence in good faith upon a provision which is not a statutory subject under § 8 (d), does in fact require the other party to bargain over it. But this effect is traceable to the economic power of the employer or union in the circumstances of a given situation and should not affect our construction of the Act. If one thing is clear, it is that the Board was not viewed by Congress as an agency which should exercise its powers to aid a party to collective bargaining which was in an economically disadvantageous position.

The most cursory view of decisions of the Board and the circuit courts under the National Labor Relations Act reveals the unsettled and evolving character of collective bargaining agreements. Provisions which two decades ago might have been thought to be the exclusive concern of labor or management are today commonplace in such agreements.1 The bargaining process should be left fluid, *359free from intervention of the Board leading to premature crystallization of labor agreements into any one pattern of contract provisions, so that these agreements can be adapted through collective bargaining to the changing needs of our society and to the changing concepts of the responsibilities of labor and management. What the Court does today may impede this evolutionary process. Under the facts of this case, an employer is precluded from attempting to limit the likelihood of a strike. But by the same token it would seem to follow that unions which bargain in good faith would be precluded from insisting upon contract clauses which might not be deemed statutory subjects within § 8 (d).

As unqualifiedly stated in Labor Board v. American National Insurance Co., supra, p. 357, it is through the “good faith” requirement of § 8 (d) that the Board is to enforce the bargaining provisions of § 8. A determination that a party bargained as to statutory or nonstatutory subjects in good or bad faith must depend upon an evaluation of the total circumstances surrounding any given situation. I do not deny that there may be instances where unyielding insistence on a particular item may be a relevant consideration in the over-all picture in determining “good faith,” for the demands of a party might in the context of a particular industry be so extreme as to constitute some evidence of an unwillingness to bargain. But no such situation is presented in this instance by the “ballot” clause. “No-strike” clauses, and other provisions analogous to the “ballot” clause limiting the right to strike, are hardly novel to labor agreements.2 And in any event the *360uncontested finding of “good faith” by the Trial Examiner forecloses that issue here.

Of course an employer or union cannot insist upon a clause which would be illegal under the Act’s provisions, Labor Board v. National Maritime Union, 175 F. 2d 686, or conduct itself so as to contravene specific requirements of the Act. Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 678. But here the Court recognizes, as it must, that the clause is lawful under the Act,3 and I think it *361clear that the company’s insistence upon it violated no statutory duty to which it was subject. The fact that the employer here did bargain with the union over the inclusion of the “ballot” clause in the proposed agreement distinguishes this case from the situation involved in the Medo Photo Supply Corp. case, supra, where an employer, without the sanction of a labor agreement contemplating such action, negotiated directly with its employees in reference to wages. This Court upheld the finding of an unfair labor practice, observing that the Act “. . . makes it the duty of the employer to bargain collectively with the chosen representatives of his employees. The obligation being exclusive ... , it exacts ‘the negative duty to treat with no other.’ ” 321 U. S., at 683-684. (Italics added.) Bargaining directly with employees “. . . would be subversive of the mode of collective bargaining which the statute has ordained . . . .” 321 U. S., at 684. The important consideration is that the Act does not purport to define the terms of an agreement but simply secures the representative status of the union for purposes of bargaining. The controlling distinction from Medo Photo is that the employer here has not sought to bargain with anyone else over the terms of the agreement being negotiated.

*362rH b-f

The company’s insistence on the recognition clause, which had the effect of excluding the International Union as a party signatory to agreement and making Local 1239 the sole contracting party on the union side, presents a different problem. In my opinion the company’s action in this regard did constitute an unfair labor practice since it contravened specific requirements of the Act.

Section 8 (a) (5) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer not to bargain collectively “with the representatives of his employees.” Such representatives are those who have been chosen by a majority of the employees of the appropriate unit, and they constitute “. . . the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining . . . .” § 9 (a). The Board under § 9 (c) is authorized to direct a representation election and certify its results. The employer’s duty to bargain with the representatives includes not merely the obligation to confer in good faith, but also “. . . the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested . . .” by the employees’ representatives. §8 (d). I think it hardly debatable that this language must be read to require the company, if so requested, to sign any agreement reached with the same representative with which it is required to bargain. By conditioning agreement upon a change in signatory from the certified exclusive bargaining representative, the company here in effect violated this duty.

I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals in both cases and require the Board to modify its cease and desist order so as to allow the company to bargain over the “ballot” clause.

Mr. Chief Justice Warren

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case involves the obligation of an employer and the representative of his employees under §.§8(a)(5), 8 (d) and 9 (a) of the National Labor Relations Act to “confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” 1 The primary issue is whether the “contracting out” of work being *205performed by employees in the bargaining unit is a statutory subject of collective bargaining under those sections.

Petitioner, Fibreboard Paper Products Corporation (the Company), has a manufacturing plant in Emery-ville, California. Since 1937 the East Bay Union Machinists, Local 1304, United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO (the Union) has been the exclusive bargaining representative for a unit of the Company’s maintenance employees. In September 1958, the Union and the Company entered the latest of a series of collective bargaining agreements which was to expire on July 31, 1959. The agreement provided for automatic renewal for another year unless one of the contracting parties gave 60 days’ notice of a desire to modify or terminate the contract. On May 26, 1959, the Union gave timely notice, of its desire to modify the contract and sought to arrange a bargaining session with Company representatives. On June 2, the Company acknowledged receipt of the Union’s notice and stated: “We will contact you at a later date regarding a meeting for this purpose.” As required by the contract, the Union sent a list of proposed modifications on June 15. Efforts by the Union to schedule a bargaining session met with no success until July 27, *206four days before the expiration of the contract, when the Company notified the Union of its desire to meet.

The Company, concerned with the high cost of its maintenance operation, had undertaken a study of the possibility of effecting cost savings by engaging an independent contractor to do the maintenance work. At the July 27 meeting, the Company informed the Union that it had determined that substantial savings could be effected by contracting out the work upon expiration of its collective bargaining agreements with the various labor organizations representing its maintenance employees. The Company' delivered to the Union representatives a letter which stated in pertinent part:

“For some time we have been seriously considering the question of letting out our Emeryville maintenance work to an independent contractor, and have now reached a definite decision to do so effective August 1, 1959.

“In these circumstances, we are sure you will realize that negotiation of a new contract would be pointless. However, if you have any questions, we will be glad to discuss them with you.”

After some discussion of the Company’s right to enter a contract with a third party to do the work then being performed by employees in the bargaining unit, the meeting concluded with the understanding that the parties would meet again on July 30.

By July 30, the Company had selected Fluor Maintenance, Inc., to do the maintenance work. Fluor had assured the Company that maintenance costs could be curtailed by reducing the work force, decreasing fringe benefits and overtime payments, and by preplanning and scheduling the services to be performed. The contract provided that Fluor would:

“furnish all labor, supervision and office help required for the performance of maintenance work ... at *207the Emeryville plant of Owner as Owner shall from time to time assign to Contractor during the period, of this contract; and shall also furnish such tools, supplies and equipment in connection therewith as Owner shall order from Contractor, it being understood however that Owner shall ordinarily do its own purchasing of topis, supplies and equipment.”

The contract further provided that the Company would pay Fluor the costs of the operation plus a fixed fee of $2,250 per month.

At the July 30 meeting, the Company’s representative, in explaining the decision to contract out the maintenance work, remarked that during bargaining negotiations in previous years the Company had endeavored to. point out through the use of charts and statistical information “just how expensive and costly our maintenance work was and how it was creating quite a terrific burden upon the Emeryville plant.” He further stated that unions representing other Company employees “had joined hands with management in an effort to bring about an economical and efficient operation,” but “we had not been able to attain that in our discussions with this particular Local.” The Company also distributed a letter stating that “sincé we will have no employees in the bargaining unit covered by our present Agreement, negotiation of a new or renewed Agreement would appear to us to be pointless.” On July 31, the employment of the maintenance employees represented by the Union was terminated and Fluor employees took over. That evening the Union established a picket line at the Company’s plant.

The Union filed unfair labor practice charges against the Company, alleging violations of §§ 8 (a)(1), 8 (a) (3) and 8 (a)(5). After hearings were held upon a complaint issued by the National Labor Relations Board’s Regional Director, the Trial Examiner filed an Inter*208mediate Report recommending dismissal of the complaint. The Board accepted the recommendation and dismissed the complaint. 130 N. L. R. B. 1558.

Petitions for reconsideration, filed by .the General Counsel and the Union, were granted. Upon reconsideration, the Board adhered to the Trial Examiner’s finding that the Company’s motive in contracting out its maintenance work was economic rather than antiunion but found nonetheless that the Company’s- “failure to negotiate with . . . [the Union] concerning its decision to subcontract its maintenance work constituted a violation of Section 8 (a) (5) of the Act.” 2 This ruling was based upon the doctrine established in Town & Country Mfg. Co., 136 N. L. R. B. 1022, 1027, enforcement granted, 316 F. 2d 846 (C.- A. 5th Cir. 1963), that contracting out work, “albeit for economic reasons, is a matter within the statutory phrase 'other terms and conditions of employment’ and is a mandatory subject of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 8 (a) (5) of the Act.”

The Board ordered the Company to reinstitute the maintenance operation previously performed by the employees represented by the Union, to reinstate the employees to their former or substantially equivalent positions with back pay computed from the date of the Board’s supplemental decision, and to fulfill its statutory obligation to bargain.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the Board’s petition for enforcement. 116 U. S. App. D. C. 198, 322 F. 2d 411. Because of the importance of the issues and because of an alleged *209conflict among the courts of appeals,3 we granted certio-rari limited to a consideration of the following questions:

“1. Was Petitioner required by the National Labor Relations Act to bargain with a union representing some of its employees, about whether to let to an independent contractor for legitimate business reasons the performance of certain operations in which those employees had been engaged?

“3. Was the Board, in a case involving only a refusal to bargain, empowered to order the resumption of operations which had been discontinued for legitimate business reasons and reinstatement with back pay of the individuals formerly employed therein?”

We agree with the Court of Appeals that, on the facts of this case, the “contracting out” of the work previously performed by members of an existing bargaining unit is a subject about which the National Labor Relations Act requires employers and the representatives of their employees to bargain collectively. We also agree with the Court of Appeals that the Board did not exceed its remedial powers in directing the Company to resume its maintenance operations, reinstate the employees with back pay, and bargain with the Union.

I.

Section 8 (a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act provides that it shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer “to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees.” Collective bargaining is defined in § 8 (d) as

“the performance of the mutual ■ obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees *210to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.”

“Read together, these provisions establish the obligation of the employer and the representative of its employees to bargain with each other in good faith with respect to ‘wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment . . . The duty is limited to those subjects, and within that area neither party is legally obligated to yield. Labor Board v. American Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395. As to other matters, however, each party is free to bargain or not to bargain . . . .” Labor Board v. Wooster Div. of Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342, 349. Because of the limited grant of certiorari, we are concerned here only with whether the subject upon which the employer allegedly refused to bargain — contracting out of plant maintenance work previously performed by employees in the bargaining unit, which the employees were capable of continuing to perform — is covered by the phrase “terms and conditions of employment” within the meaning of § 8 (d).

The subject matter of the present dispute is well within the literal meaning of the phrase “terms and conditions of employment.” See Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 362 U. S. 330. A stipulation with respect to the contracting out of work performed by members of the bargaining unit might appropriately be called a “condition of employment.” The words even more plainly cover termination of employment which, as the facts of this case indicate, necessarily results from the contracting out of work performed by members of the established bargaining unit.

The inclusion of “contracting out” within the statutory scope of collective bargaining also seems well designed to effectuate the purposes of the National Labor Relations *211Act. One of the primary purposes of the Act is to promote the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes by subjecting labor-management controversies to the media- ■ tory influence of pegoti^tion.4 The Act was framed with an awareness that refusals to confer and negotiate had been one of the most prolific causes of industrial strife. Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 42-43. To hold, as the Board has done, that contracting out is a mandatory subject of collective bargaining would promote the fundamental purpose of the Act by bringing a problem of vital concern to labor and management within the framework established by Congress as most conducive to industrial peace. .

The conclusion that “contracting out” is a statutory subject of collective bargaining is further reinforced by industrial practices in this country. While not determinative, it is appropriate to look to industrial bargaining practices in.appraising the propriety of including a particular subject within the scope of mandatory bargaining.5 Labor Board v. American Nat. Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395, 408. Industrial experience is not only reflective of the interests of labor and management in the subject matter but is also indicative of the amenability of such subjects to the collective bargaining process. Experience illustrates that contracting out in one form or another has been brought, widely and successfully, within the collective bargaining framework.6 Provisions relating to contracting out exist in numerous collective bargaining *212agreements,7 and “[contracting out work is the basis of many grievances; and that type of claim is grist in the mills of the arbitrators.” United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 363 U. S. 574, 584.

The situation here is not unlike that presented in Local 24, Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283, where we held that conditions imposed upon contracting out work to prevent possible curtailment of jobs and the undermining of conditions of employment for members of the bargaining unit constituted a statutory subject of collective bargaining. The issue in that case was whether state antitrust laws could be applied to a provision of a collective bargaining agreement which fixed the minimum rental to be paid by the employer motor carrier who leased vehicles to be driven by their owners rather than the carrier’s employees. We held that the agreement was upon a subject matter as to which federal law directed the parties to bargain and hence that state antitrust laws could not be applied to prevent the effectuation of the agreement. We pointed out that the agreement was a

“direct frontal attack upon a problem thought to threaten the maintenance of the basic wage structure established by the collective bargaining contract. The inadequacy of a rental which means that the owner makes up his excess costs from his driver’s wages not only clearly bears a close relation to labor’s efforts to improve working conditions but is in fact of vital concern to the carrier’s employed drivers; an inadequate rental might mean the progressive cur*213tailment of jobs through withdrawal of more and more carrier-owned vehicles from service.” Id., at 294.

Thus, we concluded that such a matter is a subject of mandatory bargaining under § 8 (d). Id., at 294-295. Thé only difference between that case\and the one at hand is that the work of the employeés in the bargaining unit was let out piecemeal in Oliver, whereas here the work of the entire unit has been contracted out. In reaching the conclusion that the subject matter in Oliver was a mandatory subjéct of collective bargaining, we cited with approval Timken Roller Bearing Co., 70 N. L. R. B. 500, 518, enforcement denied on other grounds, 161 F. 2d 949, (C. A. 6th Cir. 1947), where the Board in a situation factually similar to the present ease held that §§ 8 (a) (5) and 9 (a) required the employer to bargain about contracting out work then being performed by members of the bargaining unit.

The facts of the present case illustrate the propriety of submitting the dispute to collective negotiation. The Company’s decision to contract out the maintenance work did not alter the Company’s basic operation. The maintenance work still had to be performed in the plant. No capital investment was contemplated; the Company merely replaced existing employees with those of an independent contractor to do the same work under similar conditions of employment. Therefore, to require the employer to bargain about the matter would not significantly abridge his freedom to manage the business.

The Company was concerned with the high cost of its maintenance operation. It was induced to contract out the work by 'assurances from independent contractors that economies could be derived by reducing the work force, decreasing fringe benefits, and eliminating overtime payments. These have long been regarded as matters. *214peculiarly suitable for resolution within the collective bargaining framework, and industrial experience demonstrates that collective negotiation has been highly successful in achieving peaceful accommodation of the conflicting interests. Yet, it is contended that when an employer can effect cost savings in these respects by contracting the work out, there is no need to attempt to achieve similar economies through negotiation with existing employees of to provide them with an opportunity to negotiate a mutually acceptable alterñative. The short answer is that, although it is not possible to say whether a satisfactory solution could be reached, national labor policy is founded upon the congressional determination that the chances are good enough to warrant subjecting such issues to the process of collective negotiation.

The appropriateness of the collective bargaining process for resolving such issues was apparently recognized by the Company. In explaining its decision to contract out the maintenance work, the Company pointed out that in the same plant other unions “had joined hands with management in an effort to bring about an economical and efficient operation,” but “we had not been able to attain that in our discussions with this particular Local.” Accordingly, based bn past bargaining experience with . this union, the Company unilaterally contracted out the work. While “the Act does not encourage a party to engage in fruitless marathon discussions at the expense of frank statement and support of his position,” Labor Board v. American Nat. Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395, 404, it at least demands that the issue be submitted to the media-tory influence of collective negotiations. As the Court of Appeals pointed out, “[i]t is not necessary that it be likely or probable that the unión will yield or supply a feasible solution but rather that the union be afforded an opportunity to meet management’s legitimate complaints that its maintenance was unduly costly.”

*215We are thus not expanding the scope of mandatory bargaining to hold, as we do now, that the type of “contracting out” involved in this case — the replacement of employees in the existing bargaining unit with those of an independent contractor to do the same work under similar conditions of employment — is a statutory subject of collective bargaining under § 8 (d). Our decision need not and does not encompass other forms of “contracting out” or “subcontracting” which arise daily in our complex economy.8

IL

The only question remaining is whether, upon a finding that the Company had refused to bargain about a matter which is a statutory subject of collective bargaining, the Board was empowered to order the resumption of .maintenance operations and reinstatement with back pay. We believe that it was so empowered.

Section 10 (c) provides that the Board, upon a finding that an unfair labor practice has been committed, *216That section “charges the Board with the task of devising remedies to effectuate the policies of the Act.” Labor Board v. Seven-Up Bottling Co., 344 U. S. 344, 346. The Board’s power is a broad discretionary one, subject to limited judicial review! Ibid. “[T]he relation of remedy to policy is peculiarly a matter for administrative competence . . . .” Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177, 194. “In fashioning remedies to undo the effects of violations of the Act, the Board must draw on enlightenment gained from experience.” Labor Board v. Seven-Up Bottling Co., 344 U. S. 344, 346. The Board’s order will not be disturbed “unless it can be shown that the order is a patent attempt to achieve ends other than those which can fairly be said to effectuate the policies of the Act.” Virginia Elec. & Power Co. v. Labor Board, 319 U. S. 533, 540. Such a showing has not been made in this case.

*215“shall issue ... an order requiring such person to cease and desist from such unfair labor practice, and to take such affirmative action including reinstatement of employees with or without back pay, as will effectuate the policies of this Act . ...” 9

*216There has been no showing that the Board’s order restoring the status quo ante to insure meaningful bargaining is not well designed to promote the policies of the Act. Nor is there evidence which would justify disturbing the Board’s conclusion that the order would not impose an undue or unfair burden on thé Company.10

*217It is argued, nonetheless, that the award exceeds the Board's powers under §10 (c) in that it infringes the provision that “ [n] o order of the Board shall require the reinstatement of any individual as an employee who has been suspended or discharged, or the payment to him of any baek pay, if such individual was suspended or discharged for cause. . . .” The legislative history of that provision indicates that it was designed to preclude the Board from reinstating an individual who had been discharged because of misconduct.11 There is no indication, however, that it was designed to curtail the Board’s power in fashioning remedies when the loss of employment stems directly from an unfair labor practice as in the case at hand.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Goldberg took no part in the consideration or.decision of this case.

Mr. Justice Stewart,

with whom Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Harlan join,

concurring.

Viewed broadly, the question before us stirs large issues. The Court purports to limit its decision to “the *218facts of this case.” But the Court’s opinion radiates implications of such disturbing breadth that I am persuaded to file this separate statement of my own views.

Section. 8 (a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to “refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees.” Collective bargaining is defined in § 8 (d) as:

“the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.”

The question posed is whether the particular decision sought to be made unilaterally by. the employer in this case is a subject of mandatory collective bargaining within the statutory phrase “terms and conditions of employment.” That is all the Court decides.1 The Court most assuredly does not decide that every managerial decision which necessarily terminates an individual’s employment is subject to the duty to bargain. Nor does the Court decide that subcontracting decisions are as a general matter subject to that duty. The Court holds no more than that this employer’s decision to subcontract this work, involving “the replacement of employees in the existing bargaining unit with those of an independent contractor to do the same work under similar conditions of employment,” is subject to the duty to bargain collectively. Within the narrow limitations implicit in the specific facts of this case, I agree with the Court’s decision.

Fibreboard had performed its maintenance work at its Emeryville manufacturing plant through its own em*219ployees, who were represented by a local of the United Steelworkers. Estimating that some $225,000 could be saved annually by dispensing with internal maintenance, the company contracted out this work, informing the union that there would be no point in negotiating a new contract since the employees in the bargaining unit had been replaced by employees of the independent contractor, Fluor. Maintenance work continued to be performed within the plant, with the work ultimately supervised by the company’s officials and “functioning as an integral part” of the company. Fluor was paid the cost of operations plus $2,250 monthly. The savings in costs anticipated from the arrangement derived largely from the elimination of fringe benefits, adjustments in work scheduling, enforcement of stricter work quotas, and close supervision of the new personnel. Under the cost-plus arrangement, Fibreboard remained responsible for whatever maintenance costs were actually incurred. On these facts, I would agree that the employer had a duty to bargain collectively concerning the replacement of his internal maintenance staff by employees of the independent contractor.

The basic question is whether the employer failed to “confer in good faith with respect to . . . terms and conditions of employment” in unilaterally deciding to subcontract this work. This question goes to the scope of, the employer’s dúty in the absence of a collective bargaining agreement.2 It is true, as the Court’s opinion *220points out, that industrial experience may be useful in determining the proper scope of the duty to bargain. See Labor Board v. American Nat. Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395, 408. But data showing that many labor, contracts refer to subcontracting or that subcontracting grievances are frequently referred to arbitrators under collective bargaining agreeménts, while not wholly irrelevant, do not have much real bearing, for such data may indicate no more than that the parties have often considered it mutually advantageous to bargain over these issues on a permissive basis. In any event, the ultimate question is the scope of the duty to bargain defined by the statutory language.

It is important to note that the words of the statute are words of limitation. The National Labor Relations Act does not say that the employer and employees are bound to confer upon any subject which interests either of them; the specification of wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment defines a limited category of issues subject to compulsory bargaining. The limiting purpose of the statute’s language is made clear by the legislative history of the present Act. As originally passed, the Wagner'Act contained no definition of the duty to bargain collectively.3 In the 1947 revision of the Act, the House bill contained a detailed but limited list of subjects of the duty to bargain, excluding all others.4 In conference the present language was substi-. tuted for the House’s detailed specification. While the language thus incorporated in the "1947 legislation as *221enacted is not so stringent as that contained in the House bill, it nonetheless adopts the same basic approach in seeking to define a limited class of bargainable issues.5

The phrase “conditions of employment” is no doubt susceptible of diverse interpretations. At the extreme, the phrase could be construed to apply to any subject which is insisted upon as a prerequisite for continued employment. Such an interpretation, which would in effect place the compulsion of the Board behind any and all bargaining demands, would be contrary to the intent of Congress, as reflected in this legislative history. Yet there are passages in the Court’s opinion today which suggest just such an expansive interpretation, for the Court’s opinion seems to imply that any issue which may reasonably divide an employer and his employees must be the subject of compulsory collective bargaining.6

Only a narrower concept of “conditions of employment” will serve the statutory purpose of delineating a limited category of issues which are subject to the duty to bargain collectively. Seeking to effect this purpose, at least seven circuits have interpreted.the statutory language to exclude various kinds of management decisions from the *222scope of the duty to bargain.7 In common parlance, the conditions of a person’s employment are most obviously the various physical dimensions of his working environment. What one’s hours are to be, what amount of work is expected during those hours, what periods of relief are available, what safety practices are observed, would all seem conditions of one’s employment. There are other less tangible but no less important characteristics of a person’s employment which might also be deemed “conditions” — most prominently the characteristic involved in this case, the security of one’s employment. On one view of the matter, it can be argued that the question whether there is to be a job is not a condition of employment; the question is not orie of imposing conditions on employment, but the more fundamental question whether there is to be employment at all. However, it is clear that the Board and the courts have on numerous occasions recognized that union demands for provisions limiting an employer’s power to discharge employees are man-datorily bargainable. Thus, freedom from discriminatory discharge,8 seniority rights,9 the imposition of a compulsory retirement age,10 have been recognized as subjects upon which an employer must bargain, although all of these concern the very existence of the employment itself.

*223While employment security has thus properly been recognized in various circumstances as a condition of employment, it surely does not follow that every decision which may affect job security is a subject of compulsory collective bargaining. Many decisions made by management affect the job security of employees. Decisions concerning the volume and kind of advertising expenditures, product design, the manner of financing, and sales, all may bear upon the security of the workers’ jobs. Yet it is hardly conceivable that such decisions so involve “conditions of employment” that they must be negotiated with the employees’ bargaining representative.

In many of these areas the impact of a particular management decision upon job security may be extremely indirect and uncertain, and this alone may be sufficient reason to conclude that such decisions are not “with respect to . . . conditions of employment.” Yet there are other areas where decisions by management may quite clearly imperil job security, or indeed terminate employment entirely. An enterprise may decide to invest in labor-saving machinery. Another may resolve to liquidate its assets and go out of business. Nothing the Court holds today should be understood as imposing a duty to bargain collectively regarding siich managerial decisions, which lie at the core of entrepreneurial control. Decisions concerning the commitment of investment capital and the basic scope of the enterprise are not in themselves primarily about conditions of employment, though the effect of the decision may be necessarily to terminate employment. If, as I think clear, the purpose of § 8 (d) is to describe a limited area subject to the duty of. collective bargaining, those management decisions which are fundamental to the basic direction of a corporate enterprise or which impinge only indirectly upon employment security should be excluded from that area.

*224Applying these concepts to the case at hand, I do not believe that an employer’s subcontracting practices are, as a general matter, in themselves conditions of employment. Upon any definition of the statutory terms short of the most expansive, such practices are not conditions— tangible or intangible — of any person’s employment.11 The question remains whether this particular kind of subcontracting decision comes within the employer’s duty to- bargain. On the facts of this case, I join the Court’s judgment, because all that is involved is the substitution of one group of workers for another to perform the same task in the same plant under the ultimate control of the same employer. The question whether the employer may discharge one group of workers and substitute another for them is closely analogous to many other situations within the traditional framework of collective bargaining. Compulsory retirement, layoffs according to seniority, assignment of work among potentially eligible groups within the plant — all involve similar questions of discharge and work assignment, and all have been recognized as subjects of compulsory collective bargaining.12

Analytically, this case is not far from that which would be presented if the employer had merely discharged all its employees and replaced them with other workers willing to work on the same job in the same plant without the various fringe benefits so costly to the company. While such a situation might well be considered a §8 (a)(3) violation upon a finding that the employer discriminated against the discharged employees because of *225their union affiliation, it would be equally possible to regard the employer’s action as a unilateral act frustrating negotiation on the underlying questions of work scheduling and remuneration, and so an evasion of its duty to bargain on these questions, which are concededly subject to compulsory collective bargaining.13 Similarly, had the employer in this.case chosen to bargain with the union about the proposed subcontract, negotiations would have inevitably turned to the underlying questions of cost, which prompted the subcontracting. Insofar as the employer frustrated collective bargaining with respect to these concededly bargaining issues by its unilateral act of subcontracting this work, it can properly be found to have violated its statutory duty under § 8 (a) (5).

This kind of subcontracting falls short of such larger entrepreneurial questions as what shall be produced, how capital shall be invested in fixed assets, or what the basic scope of the enterprise shall be. In my view, the Court’s decision in this case has nothing to do with whether any aspects of those larger issues could under any circumstances be considered subjects of compulsory collective bargaining under the, present law.

I am fully aware that in this era of automation and onrushing technological change, no problems in the domestic economy are of greater concern than those involving job security and employment stability. Because of the potentially cruel impact upon the lives and fortunes of the working men and women of the Nation, these problems have understandably engaged the solicitous attention of government, of responsible private business, and particularly of organized labor. It is possible that in meeting these problems Congress may eventually decide to give organized labor or government a far heavier hand *226in controlling what until now have been considered the prerogatives of private business management. That path would mark a sharp departure from the traditional principles of a free enterprise economy. Whether we should follow it is, within constitutional limitations, for Congress to choose. But it is a path which Congress certainly did not choose when it enacted the Taft-Hartley Act.

Justice Blackmun

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Must an employer, under its duty to bargain in good faith “with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment,” §§ 8 (d) and 8 (a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act (Act), as amended, 49 Stat. 452, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158 (d) and 158 (a)(5), negotiate with the certified representative of its employees over its decision to close a part of its business? In this case, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) imposed such a duty on petitioner with re*668spect to its decision to terminate a contract with a customer, and the United States Court of Appeals, although differing over the appropriate rationale, enforced its order.

I

Petitioner, First National Maintenance Corporation (FNM), is a New York corporation éngaged in the business of providing housekeeping, cleaning, maintenance, and related services for commercial customers in the New York City area. It supplies each of its customers, at the customer’s premises, contracted-for labor force and supervision in return for reimbursement of its labor costs (gross salaries, FICA and FUTA taxes, and insurance) and payment of a set fee. It contracts for and hires personnel separately for each customer, and it does not transfer employees between locations.1

During the spring of 1977, petitioner was performing maintenance work for the Greenpark Care Center, a nursing home in Brooklyn. Its written agreement dated April 28, 1976, with Greenpark specified that Greenpark “shall furnish all tools, equiptment [sic], materials, and supplies,” and would pay petitioner weekly “the sum of five hundred dollars plus the gross weekly payroll and fringe benefits.” App. in No. 79-4167 (CA2), pp. 43, 44. Its weekly fee, however, had been reduced to $250 effective November 1, 1976. Id., at 46. The contract prohibited Greenpark from hiring any of petitioner’s employees during the term of the contract and for 90 days thereafter. Id., at 44. Petitioner employed approximately 35 workers in its Greenpark operation.

Petitioner’s business relationship with Greenpark, seem*669ingly, was not very remunerative or smooth. In March 1977, Greenpark gave petitioner the 30 days’ written notice of cancellation specified by the contract, because of “lack of efficiency.” Id., at 52. This cancellation did not become effective, for FNM’s work continued after the expiration of that 30-day period. Petitioner, however, became aware that it was losing money at Greenpark. On June 30, by telephone, it asked that its weekly fee be restored at the $500 figure and, on July 6, it informed Greenpark in writing that it would discontinue its operations there on August 1 unless the increase were granted.2 Id., at 47. By telegram on July 25, petitioner gave final notice of termination. Id., at 48.

While FNM was experiencing these difficulties, District 1199, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, AFL-CIO (union), was conducting an organization campaign among petitioner’s Greenpark employees. On March 31, 1977, at a Board-conducted election, a majority of the employees selected the union as their bargaining agent.3 On July 12, the union’s vice president, Edward Wecker, wrote petitioner, notifying it of the certification and of the union’s right to bargain, and stating: “We look forward to meeting with you or your representative for that purpose. Please advise when it will be convenient.” Id., at 49. Petitioner neither responded nor sought to consult with the union.

On July 28, petitioner notified its Greenpark employees that they would be discharged three days later. Wecker immediately telephoned petitioner’s secretary-treasurer, Leonard Marsh, to request a delay for the purpose of bargaining. Marsh refused the offer to bargain and told Wecker that the termination of the Greenpark operation was purely a matter *670of money, and final, and that the 30 days’ notice provision of the Greenpark contract made staying on beyond August 1 prohibitively expensive. Id., at 79-81, 83, 85-86, 94. Wecker discussed the matter with Greenpark’s management that same day, but was unable to obtain a waiver of the notice provision. Id., at 91-93, 98-99. Greenpark also was unwilling itself to hire the FNM employees because of the contract’s 90-day limitation on hiring. Id., at 100-101, 106-107. With nothing but perfunctory further discussion, petitioner on July 31 discontinued its Greenpark operation and discharged the employees. Id., at 110-116.

The union filed an unfair labor practice charge against petitioner, alleging violations of the Act’s §§8 (a)(1) and (5). After a hearing held upon the Regional Director’s complaint, the Administrative Law Judge made findings in the union’s favor. Relying on Ozark Trailers, Inc., 161 N. L. R. B. 561 (1966), he ruled that petitioner had failed to satisfy its duty to bargain concerning both the decision to terminate the Greenpark contract and the effect of that change upon the unit employees.4 The judge reasoned:

“That the discharge of a man is a change in his conditions of employment hardly needs comment. In these obvious facts, the law is clear. When an employer’s work complement is represented by a union and he wishes to alter the hiring arrangements, be his reason lack of money or a mere desire to become richer, the law is no less clear that he must first talk to the union about it. .. . If Wecker had been given an opportunity to talk, something might have been worked out to transfer these people to other parts of [petitioner’s] business. . . . Entirely apart from whether open discussion between the parties — with the Union speaking on behalf of the em*671ployees as was its right — might have persuaded [petitioner] to find a way of continuing this part of its operations, there was always the possibility that Marsh might have persuaded Greenpark to use these same employees to continue doing its maintenance work, either as direct employees or as later hires by a replacement contractor.” 242 N. L. R. B. 462, 465 (1979).5

The Administrative Law Judge recommended an order requiring petitioner to bargain in good faith with the union about its decision to terminate its Greenpark service operation and its consequent discharge of the employees, as well as the effects of the termination. He recommended, also, that petitioner be ordered to pay the discharged employees backpay from the date of discharge until the parties bargained to agreement, or the bargaining reached an impasse, or the union failed timely to request bargaining, or the union failed to bargain in good faith.

The National Labor Relations Board adopted the Administrative Law Judge’s findings without further analysis, and additionally required petitioner, if it agreed to resume its Greenpark operations, to offer the terminated employees reinstatement to their former jobs or substantial equivalents; conversely, if agreement was not reached, petitioner was *672ordered to offer the employees equivalent positions, to be made available by discharge of subsequently hired employees, if necessary, at its other operations. Id., at 463.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, with one judge dissenting in part, enforced the Board’s order, although it adopted an analysis different from that espoused by the Board. 627 F. 2d 596 (1980).6 The Court of Appeals reasoned that no per se rule could be formulated to govern an employer’s decision to close part of its business. Rather, the court said, § 8 (d) creates a presumption in favor of mandatory bargaining over such a decision, a presumption that is re-buttable “by showing that the purposes of the statute would not be furthered by imposition of a duty to bargain,” for example, by demonstrating that “bargaining over the decision would be futile,” or that the decision was due to “emergency financial circumstances,” or that the “custom of the industry, shown by the absence of such an obligation from typical collective bargaining agreements, is not to bargain over such decisions.” Id., at.601-602.

The Court of Appeals’ decision in this case appears to be at odds with decisions of other Courts of Appeals,7 some of which *673decline to require bargaining over any management decision involving “a major commitment of capital investment” or a “basic operational change” in the scope or direction of an enterprise,8 and some of which indicate that bargaining is not mandated unless a violation of § 8 (a) (3) (a partial closing motivated by antiunion animus) is involved.9 The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has imposed a duty to bargain over partial closing decisions. See NLRB v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., 361 F. 2d 512, cert. denied, 385 U. S. 935 (1966). The Board itself has not been fully consistent in its rulings applicable to this type of management decision.10

*674Because of the importance of the issue and the continuing disagreement between and among the Board and the Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari.- 449 U. S. 1076 (1981).

II

A fundamental aim of the National Labor Relations Act is the establishment and maintenance of industrial peace to preserve the flow of interstate commerce. NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 (1937). Central to achievement of this purpose is the promotion of collective bargaining as a method of defusing and channeling conflict between labor and management.11 § 1 of the Act, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §151. Congress ensured that collective bargaining would go forward by creating the Board and giving it the power to condemn as unfair labor practices certain conduct by unions and employers that it deemed deleterious to the process, including the refusal “to bargain collectively.” §§ 3 and 8, 29 U. S. C. §§ 153 and 158.

Although parties are free to bargain about any legal subject, Congress has limited the mandate or duty to bargain to matters of “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” 12 A unilateral change as to a subject within *675this category violates the statutory duty to bargain and is subject to the Board’s remedial order. NLRB v. Katz, 369 U. S. 736 (1962). Conversely, both employer and union may bargain to impasse over these matters and use the economic weapons at their disposal to attempt to secure their respective aims. NLRB v. American National Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395 (1952).13 Congress deliberately left the words “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment” without further definition, for it did not intend to deprive the Board of the power further to define those terms in light of specific industrial practices.14

*676Nonetheless, in establishing what issues must be submitted to the process of bargaining, Congress had no expectation that the elected union representative would become an equal partner in the running of the business enterprise in which the union’s members are employed. Despite the deliberate open-endedness of the statutory language, there is an undeniable limit to the subjects about which bargaining must take place:

“Section 8 (a) of the Act, of course, does not immutably fix a list of subjects for mandatory bargaining. . . . But it does establish a limitation against which proposed topics must be measured. In general terms, the limitation includes only issues that settle an aspect of the relationship between the employer and the employees.” Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S. 157, 178 (1971).

See also Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 441 U. S. 488 (1979); Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203 (1964); Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283 (1959).

Some management decisions, such as choice of advertising *677and promotion, product type and design, and financing arrangements, have only an indirect and attenuated impact on the employment relationship. See Fibreboard, 379 U. S., at 223 (Stewart, J., concurring). Other management decisions, such as the order of succession of layoffs and recalls, production quotas, and work rules, are almost exclusively “an aspect of the relationship” between employer and employee. Chemical Workers, 404 U. S., at 178. The present case concerns a third type of management decision, one that had a direct impact on employment, since jobs were inexorably eliminated by the termination, but had as its focus only the economic profitability of the contract with Greenpark, a concern under these facts wholly apart from the employment relationship. This decision, involving a change in the scope and direction of the enterprise, is akin to the decision whether to be in business at all, “not in [itself] primarily about conditions of employment, though the effect of the decision may be necessarily to terminate employment.” Fibreboard, 379 U. S., at 223 (Stewart, J., concurring). Cf. Textile Workers v. Darlington Co., 380 U. S. 263, 268 (1965) (“an employer has the absolute right to terminate his entire business for any reason he pleases”). At the same time, this decision touches on a matter of central and pressing concern to the union and its member employees: the possibility of continued employment and the retention of the employees’ very jobs. See Brockway Motor Trucks v. NLRB, 582 F. 2d 720, 735-736 (CA3 1978); Ozark Trailers, Inc., 161 N. L. R. B. 561, 566-568 (1966).

Petitioner contends it had no duty to bargain about its decision to terminate its operations at Greenpark. This contention requires that we determine whether the decision itself should be considered part of petitioner’s retained freedom to manage its affairs unrelated to employment.15 The aim of *678labeling a matter a mandatory subject of bargaining, rather than simply permitting, but not requiring, bargaining, is to “promote the fundamental purpose of the Act by bringing a problem of vital concern to labor and management within the framework established by Congress as most conducive to industrial peace,” Fibreboard, 379 U. S., at 211. The concept of mandatory bargaining is premised on the belief that collective discussions backed by the parties’ economic weapons will result in decisions that are better for both management and labor and for society as a whole.16 Ford Motor Co., 441 U. S., at 500-501; Borg-Warner, 356 U. S., at 350 (condemning employer’s proposal of “ballot” clause as weakening the collective-bargaining process). This will be true, however, only if the subject proposed for discussion is amenable to resolution through the bargaining process. Management must be free from the constraints of the bargaining process17 *679to the extent essential for the running of a profitable business. It also must have some degree of certainty beforehand as to when it may proceed to reach decisions without fear of later evaluations labeling its conduct an unfair labor practice. Congress did not explicitly state what issues of mutual concern to union and management it intended to exclude from mandatory bargaining.18 Nonetheless, in view of an employer’s need for unencumbered decisionmaking, bargaining over management decisions that have a substantial impact on the continued availability of employment should be required only if the benefit, for labor-management relations and the collective-bargaining process, outweighs the burden placed on the conduct of the business.

The Court in Fibreboard implicitly engaged in this analysis with regard to a decision to subcontract for maintenance work previously done by unit employees. Holding the employer’s decision a subject of mandatory bargaining, the Court relied not only on the “literal meaning” of the statutory words, but also reasoned:

“The Company’s decision to contract out the maintenance work did not alter the Company’s basic operation. The maintenance work still had to be performed in the plant. *680No capital investment was contemplated; the Company merely replaced existing employees with those of an independent contractor to do the same work under similar conditions of employment. Therefore, to require the employer to bargain about the matter would not significantly abridge his freedom to manage the business.” 379 U. S., at 213.

The Court also emphasized that a desire to reduce labor costs, which it considered a matter “peculiarly suitable for resolution within the collective bargaining framework,” id., at 214, was at the base of the employer’s decision to subcontract:

“It was induced to contract out the work by assurances from independent contractors that economies could be derived by reducing the work force, decreasing fringe benefits, and eliminating overtime payments. These have long been regarded as matters peculiarly suitable for resolution within the collective bargaining framework, and industrial experience demonstrates that collective negotiation has been highly successful in achieving peaceful accommodation of the conflicting interests.” Id., at 213-214.

The prevalence of bargaining over “contracting out” as a matter of industrial practice generally was taken as further proof of the “amenability of such subjects to the collective bargaining process.” Id., at 211.

With this approach in mind, we turn to the specific issue at hand: an economically motivated decision to shut down part of a business.

Ill

A

Both union and management regard control of the decision to shut down an operation with the utmost seriousness. As has been noted, however, the Act is not intended to serve either party’s individual interest, but to foster in a nedtral *681manner a system in which the conflict between these interests may be resolved. It seems particularly important, therefore, to consider whether requiring bargaining over this sort of decision will advance the neutral purposes of the Act.

A union’s interest in participating in the decision to close a particular facility or part of an employer’s operations springs from its legitimate concern over job security. The Court has observed: “The words of [§ 8 (d)] . . . plainly cover termination of employment which . . . necessarily results” from closing an operation. Fibreboard, 379 U. S., at 210. The union’s practical purpose in participating, however, will be largely uniform: it will seek to delay or halt the closing. No doubt it will be impelled, in seeking these ends, to offer concessions, information, and alternatives that might be helpful to management or forestall or prevent the termination of jobs.19 It is unlikely, however, that requiring bargaining over the decision itself, as well as its effects, will augment this flow of information and suggestions. There is no dispute that the union must be given a significant opportunity to bargain about these matters of job security as part of the “effects” bargaining mandated by §8 (a)(5). See, e. g., NLRB v. Royal Plating & Polishing Co., 350 F. 2d 191, 196 (CA3 1965); NLRB v. Adams Dairy, Inc., 350 F. 2d 108 (CA8 1965), cert. denied, 382 U. S. 1011 (1966). And, under §8 (a)(5), bar*682gaining over the effects of a decision must be conducted in a meaningful manner and at a meaningful time, and the Board may impose sanctions to insure its adequacy. A union, by pursuing such bargaining rights, may achieve valuable concessions from an employer engaged in a partial closing. It also may secure in contract negotiations provisions implementing rights to notice, information, and fair bargaining. See BNA, Basic Patterns in Union Contracts 62-64 (9th ed., 1979).

Moreover, the union’s legitimate interest in fair dealing is protected by §8 (a) (3), which prohibits partial closings motivated by antiunion animus, when done to gain an unfair advantage. Textile Workers v. Darlington Co., 380 U. S. 263 (1965). Under §8 (a) (3) the Board may inquire into the motivations behind a partial closing. An employer may not simply shut down part of its business and mask its desire to weaken and circumvent the union by labeling its decision “purely economic.”

Thus, although the union has a natural concern that a partial closing decision not be hastily or unnecessarily entered into, it has some control over the effects of the decision and indirectly'may ensure that the decision itself is deliberately considered. It also has direct protection against a partial closing decision that is motivated by an intent to harm a union.

Management’s interest in whether it should discuss a decision of this kind is much more complex and varies with the particular circumstances. If labor costs are an important factor in a failing operation and the decision to close, management will have an incentive to confer voluntarily with the union to seek concessions that may make continuing the business profitable. Cf. U. S. News & World Report, Feb. 9, 1981, p. 74; BNA, Labor Relations Yearbook-1979, p. 5 (UAW agreement with Chrysler Corp. to make concessions on wages and fringe benefits). At other times, management may have great need for speed, flexibility, and secrecy in *683meeting business opportunities and exigencies.20 It may face significant tax or securities consequences that hinge on confidentiality, the timing of a plant closing, or a reorganization of the corporate structure. The publicity incident to the normal process of bargaining may injure the possibility of a successful transition or increase the economic damage to the business. The employer also may have no feasible alternative to the closing, and even good-faith bargaining over it may both be futile and cause the employer additional loss.21

There is an important difference, also, between permitted bargaining and mandated bargaining. Labeling this type of decision mandatory could afford a union a powerful tool for achieving delay, a power that might be used to thwart management’s intentions in a manner unrelated to any feasible solution the union might propose. See Comment, “Partial Terminations” — A Choice Between Bargaining Equality and Economic Efficiency, 14 UCLA L. Rev. 1089, 1103-1105 (1967). In addition, many of the cases before the Board have involved, as this one did, not simply a refusal to bargain over the decision, but a refusal to bargain at all, often coupled with other unfair labor practices. See, e. g., Electrical Products Div. of Midland-Ross Corp. v. NLRB, 617 F. 2d 977 (CA3 1980), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 871 (1981); NLRB v. Amoco Chemicals Corp., 529 F. 2d 427 (CA5 1976); Royal Typewriter Co. v. NLRB, 533 F. 2d 1030 (CA8 1976); NLRB *684v. American Mfg. Co., 351 F. 2d 74 (CA5 1965) (subcontracting); Smyth Mfg. Co., 247 N. L. R. B. 1139 (1980). In these cases, the employer’s action gave the Board reason to order remedial relief apart from access to the decisionmaking process. It is not clear that a union would be equally dissatisfied if an employer performed all its bargaining obligations apart from the additional remedy sought here.

While evidence of current labor practice is only an indication of what is feasible through collective bargaining, and not a binding guide, see Chemical Workers, 404 U. S., at 176, that evidence supports the apparent imbalance weighing against mandatory bargaining. We note that provisions giving unions a right to participate in the decisionmaking process concerning alteration of the scope of an enterprise appear to be relatively rare. Provisions concerning notice and “effects” bargaining are more prevalent. See II BNA, Collective Bargaining Negotiations and Contracts § 65:201-233 (1981); U. S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bull. 2065, Characteristics of Major Collective Bargaining Agreements, Jan. 1, 1978, pp. 96, 100, 101, 102-103 (1980) (charting provisions giving interplant transfer and relocation allowances; advance notice of layoffs, shutdowns, and technological changes; and wage-employment guarantees; no separate tables on decision-bargaining, presumably due to rarity). See also IT. S. Dept, of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bull. No. 1425-10, Major Collective Bargaining Agreements, Plant Movement, Transfer, and Relocation Allowances (July 1969).

Further, the presumption analysis adopted by the Court of Appeals seems ill-suited to advance harmonious relations between employer and employee. An employer would have difficulty determining beforehand whether it was faced with a situation requiring bargaining or one that involved economic necessity sufficiently compelling to obviate the duty to bargain. If it should decide to risk not bargaining, it might be faced ultimately with harsh remedies forcing it to pay large amounts of backpay to employees who likely would have been *685discharged regardless of bargaining, or even to consider reopening a -failing operation. See, e. g., Electrical Products Div. of Midland-Ross Corp., 239 N. L. R. B. 323 (1978), enf’d, 617 F. 2d 977 (CA3 1980), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 871 (1981). Cf. Lever Brothers Co. v. International Chemical Workers Union, 554 F. 2d 115 (CA4 1976) (enjoining plant closure and transfer to permit negotiations). Also, labor costs may not be a crucial circumstance in a particular economically based partial termination. See, e. g., NLRB v. International Harvester Co., 618 F. 2d 85 (CA9 1980) (change in marketing structure); NLRB v. Thompson Transport Co., 406 F. 2d 698 (CA10 1969) (loss of major customer). And in those cases, the Board’s traditional remedies may well be futile. See ABC Trans-National Transport, Inc. v. NLRB, 642 F. 2d 675 (CA3 1981) (although employer violated its “duty” to bargain about freight terminal closing, court refused to enforce order to bargain). If the employer intended to try to fulfill a court’s direction to bargain, it would have difficulty determining exactly at what stage of its deliberations the duty to bargain would arise and what amount of bargaining would suffice before it could implement its decision. Compare Burns Ford, Inc., 182 N. L. R. B. 753 (1970) (one week’s notice of layoffs sufficient), and Hartmann Luggage Co., 145 N. L. R. B. 1572 (1964) (entering into executory subcontracting agreement before notifying union not a violation since contract not yet final), with Royal Plating & Polishing Co., 148 N. L. R. B. 545, 555 (1964), enf. denied, 350 F. 2d 191 (CA3 1965) (two weeks’ notice before final closing of plant inadequate). If an employer engaged in some discussion, but did not yield to the union’s demands, the Board might conclude that the employer had engaged in “surface bargaining,” a violation of its good faith. See NLRB v. Reed & Prince Mfg. Co., 205 F. 2d 131 (CA1), cert. denied, 346 U. S. 887 (1953). A union, too, would have difficulty determining the limits of its prerogatives, whether and when it could use its economic powers to try to alter an employer’s *686decision, or whether, in doing so, it would trigger sanctions from the Board. See, e. g., International Offset Corp., 210 N. L. R. B. 854 (1974) (union’s failure to realize that shutdown was imminent, in view of successive advertisements, sales of equipment, and layoffs, held a waiver of right to bargain); Shell Oil Co., 149 N. L. R. B. 305 (1964) (union waived its right to bargain by failing to request meetings when employer announced intent to transfer a few days before implementation).

We conclude that the harm likely to be done to an employer’s need to operate freely in deciding whether to shut down part of its business purely for economic reasons outweighs thé incremental benefit that might be gained through the union’s participation in making the decision,22 and we hold that the decision itself is not part of § 8 (d)’s “terms and conditions,” see n. 12, supra, over which Congress has mandated bargaining.23

*687B

In order to illustrate the limits of our holding, we turn again to the specific facts of this case. First, we note that when petitioner decided to terminate its Greenpark contract, it had no .intention to replace the discharged employees or to move that operation elsewhere. Petitioner’s sole purpose was to reduce its economic loss, and the union made no claim of antiunion animus. In addition, petitioner’s dispute with Greenpark was solely over the size of the management fee Greenpark was willing to pay. The union had no control or authority over that fee. The most that the union could *688have offered would have been advice and concessions that Greenpark, the third party upon whom rested the success or failure of the contract, had no duty even to consider. These facts in particular distinguish this case from the subcontracting issue presented in Fibreboard. Further, the union was not selected as the bargaining representative or certified until well after petitioner’s economic difficulties at Greenpark had begun. We thus are not faced with an employer’s abrogation of ongoing negotiations or an existing bargaining agreement. Finally, while petitioner’s business enterprise did not involve the investment of large amounts of capital in single locations, we do not believe that the absence of “significant investment or withdrawal of capital,” General Motors Corp., GMC Truck & Coach Div., 191 N. L. R. B., at 952, is crucial. The decision to halt work at this specific location represented a significant change in petitioner’s operations, a change not unlike opening a new line of business or going out of business entirely.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Brennan,

with whom Justice Marshall joins,

dissenting.

Section 8 (d) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, requires employers and employee representatives “to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d). The question in this case is whether First National Maintenance Corporation’s decision to terminate its Greenpark Care Center operation and to discharge the workers employed in that operation was a decision with respect to “terms and conditions of employment” within the meaning of the Act, thus rendering its failure to negotiate with the union unlawful.

*689As this Court has noted, the words “terms and conditions of employment” plainly cover termination of employment resulting from a management decision to close an operation. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203, 210 (1964). As the Court today admits, the decision to close an operation “touches on a matter of central and pressing concern to the union and its member employees.” Ante, at 677. Moreover, as the Court today further concedes, Congress deliberately left the words “terms and conditions of employment” indefinite, so that the NLRB would be able to give content to those terms in light of changing industrial conditions. Ante, at 675, and n. 14. In the exercise of its congres-sionally delegated authority and accumulated expertise, the Board has determined that an employer’s decision to close part of its operations affects the “terms and conditions of employment” within the meaning of the Act, and is thus a mandatory subject for collective bargaining. Ozark Trailers, Inc., 161 N. L. R. B. 561 (1966). Nonetheless, the Court today declines to defer to the Board’s decision on this sensitive question of industrial relations, and on the basis of pure speculation reverses the judgment of the Board and of the Court of Appeals. I respectfully dissent.

The Court bases its decision on a balancing test. It states that “bargaining over management decisions that have a substantial impact on the continued availability of employment should be required only if the benefit, for labor-management relations and the collective-bargaining process, outweighs the burden placed on the conduct of the business.” Ante, at 679. I cannot agree with this test, because it takes into account only the interests of management; it fails to consider the legitimate employment interests of the workers and their union. Cf. Brockway Motor Trucks v. NLRB, 582 F. 2d 720, 734-740 (CA3 1978) (balancing of interests of workers in retaining their jobs against interests of employers in maintaining unhindered control over corporate direction). This one-sided approach hardly serves “to foster in a neutral man*690ner” a system for resolution of these serious, two-sided controversies. See ante, at 680-681.

Even if the Court’s statement of the test were accurate, I could not join in its application, which is based solely on speculation. Apparently, the Court concludes that the benefit to labor-management relations and the collective-bargaining process from negotiation over partial closings is minimal, but it provides no evidence to that effect. The Court acknowledges that the union might be able to offer concessions, information, and alternatives that might obviate or forestall the closing, but it then asserts that “[i]t is unlikely, however, that requiring bargaining over the decision . . . will augment this flow of information and suggestions.” Ante, at 681. Recent experience, however, suggests the contrary. Most conspicuous, perhaps, were the negotiations between Chrysler Corporation and the United Auto Workers, which led to significant adjustments in compensation and benefits, contributing to Chrysler’s ability to remain afloat. See Wall Street Journal, Oct. 26, 1979, p. 3, col. 1. Even where labor costs are not the direct cause of a company’s financial difficulties, employee concessions can often enable the company to continue in operation — if the employees have the opportunity to offer such concessions.*

The Court further presumes that management’s need for “speed, flexibility, and secrecy” in making partial closing decisions would be frustrated by a requirement to bargain. Ante, at 682-683. In some cases the Court might be correct. In others, however, the decision will be made openly and de*691liberately, and considerations of “speed, flexibility, and secrecy” will be inapposite. Indeed, in view of management’s admitted duty to bargain over the effects of a closing, see ante, at 677-678, n. 15, it is difficult to understand why additional bargaining over the closing itself would necessarily unduly delay or publicize the decision.

I am not in a position to judge whether mandatory bargaining over partial closings in all cases is consistent with our national labor policy, and neither is the Court. The primary responsibility to determine the scope of the statutory duty to bargain has been entrusted to the NLRB, which should not be reversed by the courts merely because they might prefer another view of the statute. Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 441 U. S. 488, 495-497 (1979); see NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 236 (1963). I therefore agree with the Court of Appeals that employers presumptively have a duty to bargain over a decision to close an operation, and that this presumption can be rebutted by a showing that bargaining would be futile, that the closing was due to emergency financial circumstances, or that, for some other reason, bargaining would not further the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act. 627 F. 2d 596, 601 (CA2 1980). I believe that this approach is amply supported by recent decisions of the Board. E. g., Brooks-Scanlon, Inc., 246 N. L. R. B. 476, 102 LRRM 1606 (1979); Raskin Packing Co., 246 N. L. R. B. 78, 102 LRRM 1489 (1979); M. & M. Transportation Co., 239 N. L. R. B. 73 (1978). With respect to the individual facts of this case, however, I would vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remand to the Board for further examination of the evidence. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 94-95 (1943).

Mr. Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The principal question1 in this case is whether prices for in-plant cafeteria and vending machine food and beverages are “terms and conditions of employment” subject to mandatory collective bargaining under §§ 8 (a)(5) and 8 (d) of the National Labor Relations Act. 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158 (a)(5) and 158 (d).2

*491I

Petitioner, Ford Motor Co., operates an automotive parts stamping plant in Chicago Heights, Ill., employing 3,600 hourly rated production employees. These employees are represented in collective bargaining with Ford by the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, and by its administrative component, Local 588, a respondent here.

For many years, Ford has undertaken to provide in-plant food services to its Chicago Heights employees.3 These services, which include both cafeterias and vending machines, are managed by an independent caterer, ARA Services, Inc. *492Under its contract with Ford, ARA furnishes the food, management, machines, and personnel in exchange for reimbursement of all direct costs and a 9% surcharge on net receipts.4 Ford has the right to review and approve the quality, quantity, and price of the food served.

Over the years, Ford and the Union have negotiated about food services. The National Labor Relations Board (Board) found:

“Since 1967, the local contract has included provisions dealing with vending and cafeteria services. The contracts have covered the staffing of service lines, adequate cafeteria supervision, restocking and repairing vending machines, and menu variety. The 1974 local agreement also states, 'the Company recognized its continuing responsibility for the satisfactory performance of the caterer and for the expeditious handling of complaints concerned with such performance.’ ” Ford Motor Co. (Chicago Stamping Plant), 230 N. L. R. B. 716 (1977), enf’d, 571 F. 2d 993 (CA7 1978).

Ford, however, has always refused to bargain about the prices of food and beverages served in its in-plant facilities.

On February 6, 1976, Ford notified the Union that cafeteria and vending machine prices would be increased shortly by unspecified amounts. The Union requested bargaining over both price and services and also asked for information relevant to Ford’s involvement in food services in order to assist bargaining. These requests were refused by Ford, which took the position that food prices and services are not terms or conditions of employment subject to mandatory bargaining.

*493The Union then filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Board, alleging a refusal to bargain contrary to § 8 (a) (5).5 The Board sustained the charge, ordering Ford to bargain on both food prices and services and to supply the Union with the relevant information requested. Ford Motor Co. (Chicago Stamping Plant), supra. In doing so, the Board reaffirmed its position, expressed in several prior cases, that prices of in-plant-supplied food and beverages are generally mandatory bargaining subjects, a position that had not been accepted by reviewing courts.6 The Board also noted that the circumstances of this case made it a particularly strong one for invoking the duty to bargain.7

*494The case came before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Ford’s petition for review and the Board’s cross-petition for enforcement. That court, while adhering to its prior decision in NLRB v. Ladish Co., 538 F. 2d 1267 (1976), which had refused enforcement of a Board order to bargain about in-plant food prices, enforced the Board’s order here because, “under the facts and circumstances of this case, in-plant cafeteria and vending machine food prices and services materially and significantly affect and have an impact upon terms and conditions of employment and therefore are mandatory subjects of bargaining.” 571 F. 2d, at 1000. The court was particularly influenced by the lack of reasonable eating alternatives for employees, declaring that “[t]he food one must pay for and eat as a captive customer within the employer’s plant can be viewed as a physical dimension of one’s working environment.” Ibid.

Because of the importance of the issue and the apparent conflict between the decision below and decisions of other Circuits, see n. 6, supra, we granted certiorari. 439 U. S. 891 (1978). We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit enforcing the Board’s order to bargain.

II

The Board has consistently held that in-plant food prices are among those terms and conditions of employment defined *495in § 8 (d) and about which the employer and union must bargain under §§8(a)(5) and 8(b)(3). See n. 6, supra. Because it is evident that Congress assigned to the Board the primary task of construing these provisions in the course of adjudicating charges of unfair refusals to bargain and because the “classification of bargaining subjects as ‘terms or conditions of employment’ is a matter concerning which the Board has special expertise,” Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676, 685-686 (1965), its judgment as to what is a mandatory bargaining subject is entitled to considerable deference.

Section 8 (a) (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, as originally enacted, declared it an unfair practice for the employer to refuse to bargain collectively. Act of July 5, 1935, 49 Stat. 453. Although the Act did not purport to define the subjects of collective bargaining, § 9 (a) made the union selected by a majority in a bargaining unit the exclusive representative of the employees for bargaining about “rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment.” Under these provisions, the Board was left with the task of identifying on a case-by-case basis those “other conditions of employment” over which management was required to bargain.

In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act amended the National Labor Relations Act to obligate unions as well as management to bargain; and § 8 (d) explicitly defined the duty of both sides to bargain as the obligation to “meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. .. .” 61 Stat. 142, now codified at 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d). The original House bill had contained a specific listing of the issues subject to mandatory bargaining, H. R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., § 2 (11) (1947); H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 22-23, 49 (1947), but this attempt to “strait-jacke[t]” and to “limit narrowly the subject matters appropriate for collective bargaining,” *496 id., at 71 (minority report);8 see also 93 Cong. Rec. 3446-3447 (1947) (remarks of Rep. Klein), was rejected in conference in favor of the more general language adopted by the Senate and now appearing in § 8 (d). S. 1126, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., § 8 (d) (1947); see 93 Cong. Rec. 6444 (1947) (summary report of Sen. Taft); cf. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 8, 34 (1947). It is thus evident that Congress made a conscious decision to continue its delegation to the Board of the primary responsibility of marking out the scope of the statutory language and of the statutory duty to bargain. This case, therefore, is one of those situations in which we should “recognize without hesitation the primary function and responsibility of the Board . . . ,” NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 499 (1960), which is that “of applying the general provisions of the Act to the complexities of industrial life ... and of ‘[appraising] carefully the interests of both sides of any labor-management controversy in the diverse circumstances of particular cases’ from its special understanding of ‘the actualities of industrial relations.’ ” NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 236 (1963), quoting NLRB v. Steelworkers, 357 U. S. 357, 362-363 (1958).9

*497Of course, the judgment of the Board is subject to judicial review; but if its construction of the statute is reasonably defensible, it should not be rejected merely because the courts might prefer another view of the statute. NLRB v. Iron Workers, 434 U. S. 335, 350 (1978). In the past we have refused enforcement of Board orders where they had “no reasonable basis in law,” either because the proper legal standard was not applied or because the Board applied the correct standard but failed to give the plain language of the standard its ordinary meaning. Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S. 157, 166 (1971). We have also parted company with the Board’s interpretation where it was “fundamentally inconsistent with the structure of the Act” and an attempt to usurp “major policy decisions properly made by Congress.” American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U. S. 300, 318 (1965). Similarly, in NLRB v. Insurance Agents, supra, at 499, we could not accept the Board’s application of the Act where we were convinced that the Board was moving “into a new area of regulation which Congress had not committed to it.”

The Board is vulnerable on none of these grounds in this case. Construing and applying the duty to bargain and the language of § 8 (d), “other terms and conditions of employment,” are tasks lying at the heart of the Board’s function. With all due respect to the Courts of Appeals that have held otherwise, we conclude that the Board’s consistent view that in-plant food prices and services are mandatory bargaining subjects is not an unreasonable or unprincipled construction of the statute and that it should be accepted and enforced.

*498It is not suggested by petitioner that an employee should work a full 8-hour shift without stopping to eat. It reasonably follows that the availability of food during working hours and the conditions under which it is to be consumed are matters of deep concern to workers, and one need not strain to consider them to be among those “conditions” of employment that should be subject to the mutual duty to bargain. By the same token, where the employer has chosen, apparently in his own interest, to make available a system of in-plant feeding facilities for his employees, the prices at which food is offered and other aspects of this service may reasonably be considered among those subjects about which management and union must bargain.10 The terms and conditions under which food is available on the job are plainly germane to the “working environment,” Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203, 222 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring). Furthermore, the company is not in the business of selling food to its employees, and the establishment of in-plant food prices is not among those “managerial decisions, which lie at the core of entrepreneurial control.” Id., at 223 (Stewart, J., concurring). The Board is in no sense attempting to permit the Union to usurp managerial decisionmaking; nor is it seeking to regulate an area from which Congress intended to exclude it.

Including within § 8 (d) the prices of in-plant-supplied food and beverages would also serve the ends of the National Labor Relations Act. “The object of this Act was not to allow governmental regulation of the terms and conditions of employment, but rather to insure that employers and their employees could work together to establish mutually satisfactory conditions. The basic theme of the Act was that through collective bargaining the passions, arguments, and struggles of prior years would be channeled into constructive, *499open discussions leading, it was hoped, to mutual agreement.” H. K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U. S. 99, 103 (1970). As illustrated by the facts of this case, substantial disputes can arise over the pricing of in-plant-supplied food and beverages. National labor policy contemplates that areas of common dispute between employers and employees be funneled into collective bargaining. The assumption is that this is preferable to allowing recurring disputes to fester outside the negotiation process until strikes or other forms of economic warfare occur.

The trend of industrial practice supports this conclusion. In response to increasing employee concern over the issue, many contracts are now being negotiated that contain provisions concerning in-plant food services.11 In this case, as *500already noted, local agreements between Ford and the Union have contained detailed provisions about nonprice aspects of in-plant food services for several years. Although not conclusive, current industrial practice is highly relevant in construing the phrase "terms and conditions of employment.” 12

III

Ford nevertheless argues against classifying food prices and services as mandatory bargaining subjects because they do not “vitally affect” the terms and conditions of employment within *501the meaning of the standard assertedly established by Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S., at 176, and because they are trivial matters over which neither party should be required to bargain.

There is no merit to either of these aguments. First, Ford has misconstrued Pittsburgh Plate Glass. That case made it clear that while § 8 (d) normally reaches “only issues that settle an aspect of the relationship between the employer and employees[,] matters involving individuals outside the employment relationship ... are not wholly excluded.” 404 U. S., at 178. In such instances, as in Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283 (1959), and Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203 (1964), the test is not whether the “third-party concern is antagonistic to or compatible with the interests of bargaining-unit employees, but whether it vitally affects the ‘terms and conditions’ of their employment.” 404 U. S., at 179. Here, however, the matter of in-plant food prices and services is an aspect of the relationship between Ford and its own employees. No third-party interest is directly implicated, and the standard of Pittsburgh Plate Glass has no application.

As for the argument that in-plant food prices and service are too trivial to qualify as mandatory subjects, the Board has a contrary view, and we have no basis for rejecting it. It is also clear that the bargaining-unit employees in this case considered the matter far from trivial since they pressed an unsuccessful boycott to secure a voice in setting food prices. They evidently felt, and common sense also tells us, that even minor increases in the cost of meals can amount to a substantial sum of money over time. In any event, we accept the Board’s view that in-plant food prices and service are conditions of employment and are subject to the duty to bargain.

Ford also argues that the Board’s position will result in unnecessary disruption because any small change in price or service will trigger the obligation to bargain. The problem, it *502is said, will be particularly acute in situations where several unions are involved,13 possibly requiring endless rounds of negotiations over issues as minor as the price of a cup of coffee or a soft drink.

These concerns have been thought exaggerated by the Board. Its position in this case, as in all past cases involving the same issue, is that it is sufficient compliance with the statutory mandate if management honors a specific union request for bargaining about changes that have been made or are to be made. Ford Motor Co. (Chicago Stamping Plant), 230 N. L. R. B., at 718; Westinghouse Electric Corp., 156 N. L. R. B. 1080, 1081, enf'd, 369 F. 2d 891 (CA4 1966), rev’d en banc, 387 F. 2d 542 (1967). The Board apparently assumes that, as a practical matter, requests to bargain will not be lightly made. Moreover, problems created by constantly shifting food prices can be anticipated and provided for in the collective-bargaining agreement. Furthermore, if it is true that disputes over food prices are likely to be frequent and intense, it follows that more, not less, collective bargaining is the remedy. This is the assumption of national labor policy, and it is soundly supported by both reason and experience.14

*503Finally, Ford asserts that to require it to engage in bargaining over in-plant food service prices would be futile because those prices are set by a third-party supplier, ARA. It is true that ARA sets vending machine and cafeteria prices, but under Ford’s contract with ARA, Ford retains the right to review and control food services and prices. In any event, an employer can always affect prices by initiating or altering a subsidy to the third-party supplier such as that provided by Ford in this case, and will typically have the right to change suppliers at some point in the future. To this extent the employer holds future, if not present, leverage over in-plant food services and prices.15

We affirm, therefore, the Court of Appeals’ judgment upholding the Board’s determination in this case that in-plant food services and prices are “terms and conditions of employment” subject to mandatory bargaining under §§ 8 (a) (5) and 8 (d) of the National Labor Relations Act.

So ordered.

Mr. Justice Powell,

concurring.

The Court today holds that prices for in-plant cafeteria and vending machine food and beverages are “terms and conditions of employment” subject to mandatory collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act. Although this view of the Act has been taken consistently by the National Labor Relations Board, none of the courts of appeals *504has agreed with the absolute approach of the Board. Rather, these courts in general have taken the position that whether bargaining with respect to in-plant food service was required depends upon the facts and circumstances of each case. Although the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit enforced the Board’s order in this case, it did so on a “facts and circumstances” basis.

I had thought that the case-by-case approach was more likely to be fair to both employer and union than is the mandatory bargaining rule adopted today. The conditions and circumstances under which in-plant food service is provided can and do vary widely among the thousands of enterprises subject to the Act. Yet, curiously enough, neither petitioner nor respondent union in this case supports the “facts and circumstances” approach of the Court of Appeals. On balance, I suppose there is merit in having a “bright line” with respect to this issue. This does put the parties to all collective bargaining on prior notice, with a reasonable expectation that the issue usually will be resolved in advance at the bargaining table. I am, therefore, persuaded to join the Court’s opinion.

Me. Justice Blackmun,

concurring in the result.

I am in accord with much — indeed with most — of what the Court pronounces in its opinion, and I join its judgment.

My concern is with the last two sentences of the penultimate paragraph of the Court’s opinion. Ante, at 503. The Court there says that “[i]n any event” an employer, by initiating or altering a subsidy to a third-party supplier, “can always affect prices” and “will typically have the right to change suppliers at some point in the future.” Thus, to this extent, “the employer holds future, if not present, leverage over in-plant food services and prices.” To me, this language seems to say that Ford’s control over prices under the facts of this case is really irrelevant to the “mandatory subject” inquiry, and seems to imply that an employer must bargain about prices even if he has no actual control over them at all. *505Any employer, of course, could achieve some measure of future control over prices, by initiating a subsidy or by changing suppliers. That future possibility, however, should not be enough.

If the employer has no control over prices, bargaining about them is futile. If the employer rents space in a corner of the plant to a restaurateur, and thereafter maintains a “hands off” attitude and has no input into the food operation, it is difficult for me to see how bargaining about food prices makes any sense. The employer has no more control over prices by virtue of its landlord status than it has over prices charged at the hamburger shop across the street. If the employer really has no control over prices, moreover, it is not obvious that the prices charged “settle an aspect of the relationship between the employer and employees,” Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S. 157, 178 (1971), a precondition for mandatory bargaining status. The pertinent relationship is then between the restaurateur and the employees. If the employer has no control over prices and services whatsoever, and if he nevertheless is required to bargain about them because in the future he might be able to exercise some control over them, the employer's “managerial decision making” may well be usurped, and we are close to the basic concern of the concurrence in Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203, 222 (1964).

I think it is unwise to go out of our way to hold — if the Court does so here — that an employer with no present actual influence or control over food prices should be forced to bargain about them because'of the mere possibility that he might have “future leverage.” That situation is not presented in this case, and I see no need for the Court to decide it. For now, I prefer only a general rule that food prices are manda-torily bargainable so long as the employer, as here, has some measure of actual influence over the prices charged.

I thus join the Court in the result it reaches in this case. I would reserve other situations for another day.