delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented in this case is whether the discharge of a union’s appointed business agents by the union president, following his election over the candidate supported by the business agents, violated the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 519, 29 U. S. C. *433§ 401 et seq. The Court of Appeals held that the Act did not protect the business agents from discharge. We granted certiorari to resolve Circuit conflicts,1 454 U. S. 813 (1981), and we affirm.

I

In December 1977, respondent Harold Leu defeated Omar Brown in an election for the presidency of Local 20 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, a labor organization representing workers in a 14-county area of northwestern Ohio.2 During the vigorously contested campaign, petitioners, then business agents of Local 20, openly supported the incumbent president, Brown. Upon assuming office in January 1978, Leu discharged petitioners and the Local’s other business agents, all of whom had been appointed by Brown *434following his election in 1975.3 Leu explained that he felt the agents were loyal to Brown, not to him, and therefore would be unable to follow and implement his policies and programs.

Local 20’s bylaws — which were adopted by, and may be amended by, a vote of the union membership — provide that the president shall have authority to appoint, direct, and discharge the Union’s business agents. Bylaws of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers Union Local No. 20, Art. IX, § 3 D, Joint Exhibit 1, p. 15 (1975). The duties of the business agents include participation in the negotiating of collective-bargaining agreements, organizing of union members, and processing of grievances. In addition, the business agents, along with the president, other elected officers, and shop stewards, sit as members of the Stewards Council, the legislative assembly of the Union. Petitioners had come up through the union ranks, and as business agents they were also members of Local 20. Discharge from their positions as business agents did not render petitioners ineligible to continue their union membership.

Petitioners filed suit in the United States District Court, alleging that they had been terminated from their appointed positions in violation of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 411(a)(1), 411(a)(2), 412, and 529. The District Court granted summary judgment for respondents Leu and Local 20, holding that the Act does not protect a union employee from discharge by the president of the union if the employee’s rights as a union member are not affected. Navarro v. Leu, 469 F. Supp. 832 (1979). The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, concluding “that a union president should be able to work with those who will cooperate with his program and carry out his directives, and that these business agents, who *435served at the pleasure of the union president, and actively supported the president’s opponent could be removed from their employment as union business agents.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A3.

II

The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 was the product of congressional concern with widespread abuses of power by union leadership. The relevant provisions of the Act had a history tracing back more than two decades in the evolution of the statutes relating to labor unions. Tensions between union leaders and the rank-and-file members and allegations of union wrongdoing led to extended congressional inquiry. As originally introduced, the legislation focused on disclosure requirements and the regulation of union trusteeships and elections. However, various amendments were adopted, all aimed at enlarged protection for members of unions paralleling certain rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution; not surprisingly, these amendments — ultimately enacted as Title I of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 411-415—were introduced under the title of “Bill of Rights of Members of Labor Organizations.”4 The amendments placed emphasis on the rights of union members to freedom of expression without fear of sanctions by the union, which in many instances could mean loss of union membership and in *436turn loss of livelihood. Such protection was necessary to further the Act’s primary objective of ensuring that unions would be democratically governed and responsive to the will of their memberships. See 105 Cong. Rec. 6471-6472, 6476, 15530 (1959), 2 Leg. Hist. 1098-1099, 1103, 1566.

Sections 101(a)(1) and (2) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 411(a) (1) and (2), on which petitioners rely, guarantee equal voting rights, and rights of speech and assembly, to “[e]very member of-a labor organization” (emphasis added).5 In addition, § 609 of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 529, renders it unlawful for a union or its representatives “to fine, suspend, expel, or otherwise discipline any of its members for exercising any right to which he is entitled under the provisions of this Act.” (Emphasis added.)6 It is readily apparent, both from the *437language of these provisions and from the legislative history of Title I, that it was rank-and-file union members — not union officers or employees, as such — whom Congress sought to protect.7

Petitioners held a dual status as both employees and members of the Union. As members of Local 20, petitioners undoubtedly had a protected right to campaign for Brown and support his candidacy. At issue here is whether they were thereby immunized from discharge at the pleasure of the president from their positions as appointed union employees.

HH hH I — I

Petitioners contend that discharge from a position as a union employee constitutes “discipline” within the meaning of § 609; and that termination of union employment is therefore unlawful when predicated upon an employee’s exercise of rights guaranteed to members under the Act. However, we conclude that the term “discipline,” as used in §609, refers only to retaliatory actions that affect a union member’s rights or status as a member of the union. Section 609 speaks in terms of disciplining “members”; and the three disciplinary sanctions specifically enumerated — fine, suspension, and expulsion — are all punitive actions taken against union mem*438bers as members.8 In contrast, discharge from union employment does not impinge upon the incidents of union membership, and affects union members only to the extent that they happen also to be union employees. See Sheridan v. Carpenters Local No. 626, 306 F. 2d 152, 156 (CA3 1962). We discern nothing in § 609, or its legislative history, to support petitioners’ claim that Congress intended to establish a system of job security or tenure for appointed union employees.

Congress used essentially the same language elsewhere in the Act with the specific intent not to protect a member’s status as a union employee or officer. Section 101(a)(5), 29 U. S. C. § 411(a)(5), states that “[n]o member of any labor organization may be fined, suspended, expelled, or otherwise disciplined” without enumerated procedural protections. The Conference Report accompanying S. 1555 as finally enacted, H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1147, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 31 (1959), 1 Leg. Hist. 935, explains that this “prohibition on suspension without observing certain safeguards applies only to suspension of membership in the union; it does not refer to suspension of a member’s status as an officer of the union” (emphasis added). This too is a persuasive indication that the virtually identical language in § 609 was likewise meant to refer only to punitive actions diminishing membership rights, and not to termination of a member’s status as an appointed union employee.9

*439We hold, therefore, that removal from appointive union employment is not within the scope of those union sanctions explicitly prohibited by § 609.

>

Our analysis is complicated, however, by the fact that § 102, 29 U. S. C. § 412, provides independent authority for a suit against a union based on an alleged violation of Title I of the Act. Section 102 states that

“[a]ny person whose rights secured by the provisions of this title have been infringed by any violation of this title may bring a civil action in a district court of the United States for such relief (including injunctions) as may be appropriate.”

Although the intended relationship between §§ 102 and 609 is not entirely clear, it seems evident that a litigant may maintain an action under § 102 — to redress an “infringement” of “rights secured” under Title I — without necessarily stating a violation of § 609.10

*440The question still remains, however, whether petitioners’ “rights secured” under Title I were “infringed” by the termination of their union employment. Petitioners, as union members, had a right under §§ 101(a)(1) and (2) to campaign for Brown and to vote in the union election, but they were not prevented from exercising those rights. Rather, petitioners allege only an indirect interference with their membership rights, maintaining that they were forced to “choos[e] between their rights of free expression . . . and their jobs.” See Retail Clerks Union Local 648 v. Retail Clerks International Assn., 299 F. Supp. 1012, 1021 (DC 1969).

We need not decide whether the retaliatory discharge of a union member from union office — even though not “discipline” prohibited under § 609 — might ever give rise to a cause *441of action under § 102. For whatever limits Title I places on a union’s authority to utilize dismissal from union office as “part of a purposeful and deliberate attempt... to suppress dissent within the union,” cf. Schonfeld v. Penza, 477 F. 2d 899, 904 (CA2 1973), it does not restrict the freedom of an elected union leader to choose a staff whose views are compatible with his own.11 Indeed, neither the language nor the legislative history of the Act suggests that it was intended even to address the issue of union patronage.12 To the contrary, the Act’s overriding objective was to ensure that unions would be democratically governed, and responsive to the will of the union membership as expressed in open, periodic elections. See Wirtz v. Hotel Employees, 391 U. S. 492, 497 (1968). Far from being inconsistent with this purpose, the ability of an elected union president to select his own administrators is an integral part of ensuring a union administration’s responsiveness to the mandate of the union election.

Here, the presidential election was a vigorous exercise of the democratic processes Congress sought to protect. Petitioners — appointed by the defeated candidate — campaigned openly against respondent Leu, who was elected by a substantial margin. The Union’s bylaws, adopted, and subject to amendment, by a vote of the union membership, grant the president plenary authority to appoint, suspend, discharge, and direct the Union’s business agents, who have sig*442nificant responsibility for the day-to-day conduct of union affairs. Nothing in the Act evinces a congressional intent to alter the traditional pattern which would permit a union president under these circumstances to appoint agents of his choice to carry out his policies.

No doubt this poses a dilemma for some union employees; if they refuse to campaign for the incumbent they risk his displeasure, and by supporting him risk the displeasure of his successor. However, in enacting Title I of the Act, Congress simply was not concerned with perpetuating appointed union employees in office at the expense of an elected president’s freedom to choose his own staff. Rather, its concerns were with promoting union democracy, and protecting the rights of union members from arbitrary action by the union or its officers.

We. therefore conclude that petitioners have failed to establish a violation of the Act. Accordingly, the decision of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

with whom Justice Brennan joins, concurring.

I am not prepared to hold that a newly elected president of a local union may discipline, without violating the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 519, 29 U. S. C. § 401 et seq., and as a matter of retaliation, all union member-employees who opposed his candidacy. As the Court notes, a union member possesses, under the Act, rights to freedom of expression and of speech and assembly, ante, at 436-437, and a right to support the candidate of his choice.

I must assume that what the Court holds today is that the newly elected president may discharge the union’s appointed business agents and other appointed union member-employees who will be instrumental in evolving the president’s ad*443ministrative policies. See Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347 (1976); Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507 (1980). Indeed, the Court uses the terms “staff,” ante, at 441, and “his own administrators,” ibid. In addition, this particular union’s bylaws expressly give the president plenary authority over the business agents. With that much, I have no difficulty.

On the understanding, but only on the understanding, that the Court by its opinion is not reaching out further to decide the same issue with respect to nonpolicymaking employees, that is, rank-and-file member-employees (a matter which, for me, presents another case for another day), I join the Court’s opinion.