The FTC took two actions on February 26, 2025 to emphasize its continued focus on labor markets and to rededicate its efforts to a policy priority in common with those of the previous Administration. First, the FTC approved a Final Order requiring a building service contractor to stop enforcing a no-hire agreement with its customers. Second, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson directed the FTC to form a Joint Labor Task Force dedicated to “protecting … American consumers in their roles as workers.”
Over the objections of Commissioners Ferguson and Holyoak, the FTC promulgated a rule banning most noncompetition agreements in April 2024. Although challenges to the Final Rule are still pending in the courts, given the opposition of now-Chair Ferguson and Commissioner Holyoak (and presumably Commissioner-designate Mark Meador, once confirmed) to its issuance, the noncompete rule is likely dead in the water. Chair Ferguson’s directive nevertheless continued to call out and focus on unlawful noncompete agreements, along with no-poach, non-solicitation, no-hire, and wage-fixing agreements, as potentially illegal methods of limiting competition in labor markets. The directive commands the Directors of the FTC’s three bureaus (Competition, Consumer Protection, and Economics) and the Office of Policy Planning to meet monthly and take steps to, among other things, “harmonize the Bureaus’ methods and procedures for uncovering and investigating deceptive, unfair, or anticompetitive labor market conduct across the Bureaus.”
The Complaint in the Matter of Planned Building Services, Inc. (“PBS”) alleged that PBS (a conglomeration of building services contractors) and its customers (building owners and property management companies) are direct competitors for the services of janitorial, maintenance, concierge, and related workers, and that PBS employed standard contracts requiring its customers not to directly or indirectly hire workers employed by PBS. The FTC’s Final Consent Order prohibits the entry or enforcement of the no-hire agreements. Notably, Chair Ferguson and Commissioner Holyoak voted in favor of both the Complaint and the Final Order despite having dissented from the issuance of a Complaint in a similar case a month earlier. Chair Ferguson explained the difference between the two cases; unlike the complaint against PBS, “[t]he complaint [against Guardian Service Industries] did not allege a single fact suggesting that the anticompetitive effects of the no-hire provisions at issue outweighed the procompetitive justifications.”
The establishment of the Task Force and the continued pace of labor antitrust enforcement actions underscore the current Administration’s intent to allocate significant resources to labor issues, similar to the Biden FTC. Unlike Chair Lina Khan, however, Chair Ferguson has made it clear that the FTC will achieve this goal not by broad rulemaking, but through individual enforcement actions. The newly established Task Force is one step the FTC is taking to identify and prioritize these enforcement efforts.