While federal antitrust enforcement agencies typically focus on ensuring competitive markets and keeping prices on services and goods fair for consumers, the Biden administration is turning its attention to the impact of mergers and acquisitions on labor.
Tim Wu, special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy, says industry consolidation has increased the power of corporate employers, making it harder for employees to bargain for higher wages and better working conditions.
President Joe Biden wants regulators to give more attention to the impact of mergers on labor, said Wu.
Wu was speaking at The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice recent workshop "Making Competition Work: Promoting Competition in Labor Markets" that sought to answer how the two antitrust enforcement agencies could better gauge and assess the impact of businesses' anticompetitive actions such as unlawful mergers on employees.
"We are in the midst of what really does seem to be an important, historic moment for this country's economy and for the ongoing story of American antitrust," Wu said. "We live in a time where the President and we in the White House feel an acute popular demand that more be done to control market power, more be done to make the economy feel fair."
Wu is President Biden’s top antitrust advisor who helped author Biden's executive order "Promoting Competition in the American Economy." Wu said during the workshop that "the labor side of antitrust...
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