Antitrust Deal Cops to Peek at Worker Abuses, Stirring Backlash

Regulators probing whether a merger could lead to harmful consolidation will soon look to an untested proxy: companies’ history of labor law violations.

The proposal is part of a revamp of the Hart-Scott-Rodino form, which merging companies file with the government to obtain antitrust approval of deals valued over $111 million. Under the changes, the companies would need to disclose their five-year history of citations from the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

They would also need to share their employees’ job categories and geographical information on ...