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1. Yesterday was a big day in labor antitrust, featuring a major victory (certification of the class action brought by fighters against the UFC) and a more complicated development (the first criminal indictment in a wage-fixing case) 
2. Starting with the good news: Judge Richard Boulware announced he would certify the bulk of the fighters’ class action against the UFC, which monopolized pro mixed martial arts through acquisitions, exclusive dealing, and restrictive labor contracts https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/sports/ufc-lawsuit.html#click=https://t.co/lTUCL5PXuT
3. Congrats to @HalSinger, @CramerEcramer, and colleagues for the big win in their righteous lawsuit!
4. Because of the UFC’s monopsony and their non-union status, the fighters are robbed of fair incomes and forced to sacrifice their health and safety. See this damning story by @josheidelson about the exploitative UFC enterprise https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-05-08/as-ufc-pushes-may-mma-event-fighters-say-deals-are-getting-worse
5. If the fighters are successful in their suit, they could recover billions in damages for the UFC’s monopsonistic wage suppression
6. In the more complicated story, DOJ obtained its first criminal indictment in a wage-fixing case. It accuses Neeraj Jindal, owner of a therapy staffing agency in Dallas, for colluding with a rival agency against their workers (and obstruction of justice) https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-owner-health-care-staffing-company-indicted-wage-fixing
7. In 2019, the FTC entered into a “go forth and sin no more” settlement with Jindal and rival agency owner Sheri Yarbray, obtaining neither monetary remedies nor an admission of liability https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/10/ftc-approves-final-order-prohibiting-conduct-therapist-staffing
8. In a comment letter filed in 2018, @econ_marshall, @hshierholz, and I called on the FTC to recover money from the respondents, and require them to admit liability and the alleged facts and to provide notice to affected workers https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2018/08/00003-147707.pdf
9. In our comment, we noted that the alleged wage-fixing is per se illegal under long-standing precedent and the type of offense subject to criminal prosecution by the DOJ
10. The government should take wage-fixing seriously, seeking to deter the practice across the economy and to compensate injured workers (including those who worked for Jindal and Yarbray). Criminal prosecutions are an appropriate tool to stop wage theft through collusion.
11. That said, I have serious reservations about making a small player like Jindal the first-ever target of a criminal prosecution for employer collusion
12. In health care and other markets, monopolists or oligopolists at one level (say insurance) dominate other firms and can pressure these weaker parties to control costs by, in turn, squeezing workers, as Heidi, Marshall, and I wrote in our comment
13. The contrast with an earlier employer collusion case is also striking.
14. After it uncovered that Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, and other tech CEOs colluded against their workers and likely robbed them of billions in wages, DOJ opted against criminal charges and declined to even name and shame them as the conspirators in a 2010 civil settlement
15. The Jindal and tech titan cases illustrate the two-tier justice system in the United States (tolerance of crimes by elites, harsh punishments for everyone else) and show white-collar offenses are no exception
