Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson has directed the FTC to form a Joint Labor Task Force that will work to prioritize rooting out and prosecuting deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive labor-market practices that harm American workers.
In a recent memorandum, Chairman Ferguson highlighted some notable examples of conduct that falls under the FTC’s jurisdiction, including the following:
- No-poach, non-solicitation, or no-hire agreements, where employers agree to refrain from hiring each other’s employees. Courts have found these agreements can be so pernicious as to be a per se violation of the competition laws.
- Wage-fixing agreements, where employers agree to fix the level of wages they offer to employees. These agreements represent a hardcore violation of the competition laws subject to the per se standard.
- Noncompete agreements, which employers can use to impose unnecessary, onerous, and often lengthy restrictions on former employees’ ability to take new jobs in the same industry after they leave their employment.
- Labor-contract termination penalties, through which an employer can impede its workers from switching to a competing employer by imposing unjustified fees when workers want to end their contracts.
- Labor market monopsonies, where a business uses anticompetitive methods to create or maintain significant buyer power in a market for labor. This can be a particular problem in rural areas, where employment opportunities are already limited.
- Collusion or unlawful coordination on DEI metrics, which may have the effect of diminishing labor competition by excluding certain workers from markets, or students from professional training schools, on the basis of race, sex, or sexual orientation.
- Harming gig economy workers, through unfair or deceptive trade practices.
- Deceptive job advertising, including job postings that lure potential employees with false promises regarding important issues like rates of pay or benefits.
- Deceptive business opportunities, which lure Americans into buying a business on the basis of false or misleading representations about the value and potential earnings of the business.
- Misleading franchise offerings, which can lead workers or potential employers to invest savings in ways that never ultimately bring benefits anticipated to the American worker.
- Harmful occupational licensing requirements, where employers or professional associations advance or promote needless occupational licensing restrictions that can serve as an unwarranted barrier to entry and reduce labor mobility.
- Job scams, including fraudulent job placement scams and online “task scams,” that lure job seekers to complete small online tasks but instead trick consumers into paying money that is never recovered.
According to the memorandum, the Task Force will be made up of members from the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Bureau of Economics, and Office of Policy Planning. The full Task Force will meet at least monthly to assess the status of all ongoing labor matters and will report on the status of those matters to the Chairman on a quarterly basis.
