IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/polsoc/v51y2023i3p387-408.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labor Unions and the Problem of Monopoly: Collective Bargaining and Market Governance, 1890 to the Present

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Callaci

Abstract

The labor movement has long had an ambivalent relationship to antitrust policy in the United States. Trade unionists have considered concentrated markets to be more favorable environments for union power than decentralized markets: oligopoly demands fewer union resources for organizing and contract bargaining campaigns, and oligopolists can tame cutthroat competition and share product market rents with workers. This article takes a different view. Looking to the strategies employed by unions in decentralized industries, where unions rather than corporations took on the role of taming and regulating competition, it explains how unions have leveraged power over market governance into bargaining power over wages and working conditions. In the current age of vertical disintegration and fissured workplaces, union power over market governance is more important to shop-floor power than ever. Antitrust policy is one tool that can help restrain the power of corporations and make them more accountable to workers’ collective power.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Callaci, 2023. "Labor Unions and the Problem of Monopoly: Collective Bargaining and Market Governance, 1890 to the Present," Politics & Society, , vol. 51(3), pages 387-408, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:51:y:2023:i:3:p:387-408
    DOI: 10.1177/00323292231183818
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00323292231183818
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00323292231183818?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:51:y:2023:i:3:p:387-408. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.