Over recent years, the
scope of the Albany exemption has been progressively narrowed down. Much
attention has already been devoted to the question of the possibility of the
exemption covering collective labour agreements involving self-employed
workers. However, a different challenge to the exemption has remained
relatively obscure: namely, the second prong of the Albany doctrine, which
requires improvement of working conditions. Currently, there are different
approaches in Europe: some emphasize competition concerns, while
others-solidarity. The article engages the question: what level of scrutiny
should we apply to the antitrust exemption? Should we limit it to certain
subjects or conditions? The article argues that we can only answer these
questions by considering the real stakes of more intensive antitrust scrutiny
and that we can only understand the real stakes by employing a thicker
definition of collective bargaining. It shows that a choice of more intensive
scrutiny and limitation of the scope of collective bargaining can lead to
further weakening of social dialogue and a chilling of union activity. This
comes at a time when unions are in decline in Europe, whereas employer
organizations are strong. The article cautions that a choice to tighten the
Albany conditions can trigger serious consequences from the perspectives of
equality, distributive justice, and democracy. Those are the real stakes
against which harm to competition should be considered.