wow-inequalities/02-data/intermediate/wos_sample/0dffe48d73d551d6c4431706f02aab5e-hafiz-hiba/info.yaml

abstract: 'Growing inequality, the decline in labor''s share of national income, and

  increasing evidence of labor-market concentration and employer buyer

  power are all subjects of national attention, eliciting wide-ranging

  proposals for legal reform. Many proposals hinge on labor-market fixes

  and empowering workers within and beyond existing work law or through

  tax-and-transfer schemes. But a recent surge of interest focuses on

  applying antitrust law in labor markets, or ``labor antitrust.{''''} These

  proposals call for more aggressive enforcement by the Department of

  Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as well as stronger

  legal remedies for employer collusion and unlawful monopsony that

  suppresses workers'' wages.

  The turn to labor antitrust is driven in part by congressional gridlock

  and the collapse of labor law as a dominant source of labor market

  regulation, inviting regulation through other means. Labor antitrust

  promises an effective attack because agency discretion and judicial

  enforcement can police labor markets without substantial amendments to

  existing law, bypassing the current impasse in Congress. Further, unlike

  labor and employment law, labor antitrust is uniquely positioned to

  challenge industry-wide wage suppression: suing multiple employers is

  increasingly challenging in work law as a statutory, doctrinal, and

  procedural matter.

  But current labor-antitrust proposals, while fruitful, are fundamentally

  limited in two ways. First, echoing a broader antitrust policy crisis,

  they inherit and reinvigorate debates about the current consumer welfare

  goal of antitrust. The proposals ignore that, as a theoretical and

  practical matter, employers'' anticompetitive conduct in labor markets

  does not necessarily harm consumers. As a result, workers''

  labor-antitrust challenges will face an uphill battle under current law:

  when consumers are not harmed, labor antitrust can neither effectively

  police employer buyer power nor fill gaps in labor market regulation

  left by a retreating labor law. Second, the proposals ignore real

  synergies between antitrust enforcement and labor regulation that could

  preempt the rise of employer buyer power and contain its exercise.

  This Essay analyzes the limitations of current labor-antitrust proposals

  and argues for ``regulatory sharing{''''} between antitrust and labor law

  to combat the adverse effects of employer buyer power. It makes three

  key contributions. First, it frames the new labor antitrust as

  disrupting a grand regulatory bargain, reinforced by the Chicago School,

  that separated labor and antitrust regulation to resolve a perceived

  paradox in serving two masters: workers and consumers. The dominance of

  the consumer welfare standard resolved that paradox. Second, it explains

  how scholarly attempts to invigorate labor antitrust fail to overcome

  this paradox and ignore theoretical and doctrinal roadblocks to

  maximizing both worker and consumer welfare, leaving worker-plaintiffs

  vulnerable to failure. Third, it proposes a novel restructuring of labor

  market regulation that integrates antitrust and labor law enforcement to

  achieve coherent and effective regulation of employer buyer power. It

  refocuses labor-antitrust claims on consumer welfare ends. In doing so,

  it also relegates worker welfare considerations to a labor law

  supplemented and fortified by the creation of substantive presumptions

  and defenses triggered by labor-antitrust findings as well as labor

  agency involvement in merger review.'
affiliation: 'Hafiz, H (Corresponding Author), Boston Coll, Law Sch, Law, Newton Ctr,
  MA 02459 USA.

  Hafiz, Hiba, Boston Coll, Law Sch, Law, Newton Ctr, MA 02459 USA.'
author: Hafiz, Hiba
author_list:
- family: Hafiz
  given: Hiba
da: '2023-09-28'
files: []
issn: 0041-9494
journal: UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW REVIEW
keywords-plus: LAW
language: English
month: MAR
number: '2'
number-of-cited-references: '82'
pages: 381-411
papis_id: 7f18de6d11270df3b96d9f843f9cc3e7
ref: Hafiz2020laborantitrusts
times-cited: '15'
title: Labor Antitrust's Paradox
type: article
unique-id: WOS:000517669900005
usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
usage-count-since-2013: '4'
volume: '87'
web-of-science-categories: Law
year: '2020'