Sherman Antitrust Act: Difference between revisions

While the Act was aimed at regulating businesses, its prohibition of contracts restricting commerce was applied to the activities of labor unions until the 1930s.<ref name="Clark 1948">{{cite journal |last1=Clark |first1=O. L. |date=January 1948 |title=Application of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to Unions since the Apex Case |journal=SmuSMU Law Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=94–103 |url=https://scholar.smu.edu/smulr/vol2/iss1/6}}</ref> This is because unions were characterized as cartels as well (cartels of laborers).<ref>See {{ussc|name=Loewe v. Lawlor|link=|volume=208|page=274|pin=|year=1908}}.</ref> In 1914 the [[Clayton Antitrust Act|Clayton Act]] created exceptions for certain union activities, but the Supreme Court ruled in ''[[Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering]]'' that the actions allowed by the Act were already legal. Congress included provisions in the [[Norris–La Guardia Act]] in 1932 to more explicitly exempt organized labor from antitrust enforcement, and the Supreme Court upheld these exemptions in ''United States v. Hutcheson'' [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/312/219/ 312 U.S. 219].<ref name="Clark 1948"></ref>