Scholars, antitrust agencies, and policy makers have historically paid little attention to anticompetitive practices in labor markets. This was largely due a misconception that antitrust law is meant to govern conventional markets in which goods and services trade, rather than govern labor markets. Antitrust law may also offer a poor remedy to redress employers who enter no‐poaching agreements or otherwise impair competition. The primary tension involves antitrust's purpose, which is to promote “consumer welfare.” To identify whether conduct eroded consumer welfare, courts tend to scrutinize whether prices increased. But here, lessening wages can enable firms to sell goods at cheaper prices, benefiting consumers. Another issue is that the typical restraint affects only a smattering of workers instead of lessening wages throughout the greater market. This article uses empirical analyses to show that antitrust should promote labor's welfare as it does consumer welfare, and it argues that enforcement must condemn labor cartels as per se illegal. The research demonstrates that labor cartels are more pernicious than restraints in product markets, as employers can lessen wages with less effort than in product markets. Antitrust should even proscribe no‐poaching agreements formed for a legitimate purpose (e.g., to protect trade secrets) because employers could have achieved the same goals using less coercive means; the noncompete agreement, at least, provides labor with a semblance of notice and bargaining power without drawing antitrust scrutiny. The prohibition of labor cartels would thus promote competition and consumer welfare, especially in minimum wage labor markets.

中文翻译：

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反竞争就业

历史上，学者，反托拉斯机构和政策制定者很少关注劳动力市场中的反竞争做法。这在很大程度上是由于一个误解，即反托拉斯法的目的是支配商品和服务交易的传统市场，而不是支配劳动力市场。反托拉斯法也可能为补救订立不偷猎协议或损害竞争的雇主提供较差的补救措施。主要的张力涉及反托拉斯的目的，即促进“消费者福利”。为了确定行为是否侵蚀了消费者的福利，法院倾向于审查价格是否上涨。但是在这里，降低工资可以使公司以较低的价格出售商品，从而使消费者受益。另一个问题是，典型的限制措施只影响一小部分工人，而没有降低整个大市场的工资。本文使用实证分析表明，反托拉斯应像促进消费者福利一样促进劳动者的福利，并认为执法必须谴责劳动卡特尔本身是非法的。研究表明，与产品市场的限制相比，劳工卡特尔的危害更大，因为与产品市场相比，雇主可以用更少的精力来减少工资。反托拉斯甚至应禁止出于合法目的（例如，保护商业秘密）而订立的禁止偷渡协议，因为雇主可以使用较少的强制性手段实现相同的目标；这项不竞争协议至少在不引起反托拉斯审查的情况下为劳工提供了类似的通知和讨价还价能力。