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The Legal Case for Reform

SHARON BLOCK | BENJAMIN ELGA

Our economy suffers from an imbalance of power in our labor market, an imbalance that has significant consequences for the well-being of our citizens and our democracy. Diagnosing the causes of this market imbalance is within the purview of both economists and lawyers. We are in a crisis: the labor share of corporate income and the economy overall has declined to an untenable degree.

In this introductory chapter we describe how the American legal system is failing workers in the two foundational legal regimes that should be protecting them—antitrust law and labor law—and suggest ways that those laws could be returned to their original, protective purposes.

There is growing concern that both legal regimes are taking siloed approaches that leave workers unprotected, in market conditions that are not naturally competitive. In the first part of this chapter, we discuss antitrust and labor laws and how they do the opposite of what is needed: they add weight to the corporate side of the scale and diminish the heft of the worker side. In the second part of this chapter we offer recommendations for legal and policy reforms to reverse this inverted dynamic. A new worker-centric focus must be kindled in both doctrinal regimes, and we must learn from the consequences of our failed policies and mistaken assumptions.