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

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2023-09-28 14:46:10 +00:00
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
2023-10-01 08:15:07 +00:00
type: article
2023-09-28 14:46:10 +00:00
unique-id: WOS:000517669900005
usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
usage-count-since-2013: '4'
volume: '87'
web-of-science-categories: Law
year: '2020'