There is undoubtedly strength in numbers. From time to time, labor unions have proven their ability to wring concessions for their employee members from recalcitrant employers. And clearly, the collective bargaining activities of valid unions with respect to the wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment are sanctioned and encouraged by our labor laws. Unions, however, are intended to strengthen the bargaining position of bona fide employees, not of independent entrepreneurs. A physicians' union may be an antitrust minefield.
Understanding why requires some history.
That's not what happened. A labor union, in some sense, does precisely what the antitrust laws forbid. In the early 20th Century, Congress decided to strengthen the antitrust law to attack the restraints on commerce that it was originally intended to address, and to protect the labor movement from misapplication of the law. With the basic statutory framework in place, it was up to the courts to draw a line of demarcation between our national labor policy, which sanctions the limitation of competition in wages, hours and working conditions among unionized employees, and our national antitrust policy, which promotes competition in the production and marketing of goods and services. Line-drawing is never easy in law.