9 - The Case for Repealing the Firm Exemption to Antitrust

Summary

Arguments against the labor exemption to antitrust law are nothing new. While it is unlikely that the labor exemption will be literally repealed, the political orientation that the argument for repeal represents has, in effect, already won. The argument is important not because the obstacles that antitrust law places in the way of labor organizing are the most significant challenges facing American labor today (though they are important). Rather, it is important because it is perhaps the purest text for the underlying worldview that has driven the more general legal hostility toward the economic coordination rights of working people over the last few decades, which several other chapters in this volume set out in greater detail.