I'm also curious about this - from what I remember from the relevant bits of history lessons, the early antitrust laws were enacted at least in part to quash th

I'm also curious about this - from what I remember from the relevant bits of history lessons, the early antitrust laws were enacted at least in part to quash the price-fixing of guilds. Unions have rights to conduct in collective bargaining, but I'm not aware of any similar allowances for guilds of independent contractors to set prices collectively where it would have anticompetitive effects - they're treated just the same as other traders / companies.