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DOJ Investigates Google, Apple, and Others For 'No Poaching' Agreement
CSHARP123 writes "The Department of Justice launched an investigation into the 'No Poaching' agreement between Apple and Google in 2010, but details of the case were only made public for the first time yesterday. TechCrunch was the first to sift through the documents, and has uncovered some ostensibly incriminating evidence against not only Google and Apple, but Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe, Intel, and Intuit, as well. According to the filings from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, these companies did indeed enter 'no poach' agreements with each other, and agreed to refrain from soliciting employees. The documents also indicate they collectively sought to limit their employees' power to negotiate for higher salaries."
we need that money to fuel the lawyers for all our patent violation lawsuits against each other.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Union actions are public knowledge. Whatever benefits the union gains are slightly counterbalanced by businesses' responses and negative reactions from the public and politicians. Corporate agreements are not public. Someone looking to be hired by one of these companies cannot use it to their advantage in the decision-making process, and they avoid any public reaction.
If they want to make these "corporate unions" public they're welcome to have them, but the clandestine nature of the agreements makes it obvious that they already know that there'd be hell to pay.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
In general, employers, especially ones where unions are present, are a relatively small number of groups that wield a lot of organized power.
Conversely, unions, ostensibly*, represent the employees and potential employees, a group which usually has more total power than the employers, but lacks the organization to wield it effectively, often wielding it only to the extant that the weakest and most desperate individuals in the group are willing to wield it. Why? because the employers will take those first, as they are cheaper, and this makes those that were trying to get fair compensation, instead of just any compensation become the weaker and desperate*. Unions can balance the ability to wield power so that the employers are move likely to provide fair compensation. Large employers typically don't need this assistance.
* There are quite a few unions I've seen that seem to only absorb chunks their member's paychecks without actually providing any benefit in bargaining with the employer, effectively acting as a lamprey on capitalism. These days I'm not sure if this is the exception or the rule... At one time, it was the exception.
** there are exceptions to this rule, however, as this is the most profitable way to run a business (get the cheapest labor that will give you the desired quality), this tends to be the trend, and companies not following it will be less profitable, and therefore grow less than companies that do.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
More likely no one trusts them to be a member of a cartel and not stab them in the back.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
news for you, that's what cartels do, they put government in their pocket! it's called corruption. all cartels involve government
No soliciting is one thing. And I don't really have a problem with that either.
But try working in an area where employers have a 'do not hire' policy. You quit one job and everyone else tells you they won't hire ex-employees of certain companies for a period of time. You might as well step out of the bushes and surrender when you hear the slave hunters' dogs approach.
Have gnu, will travel.
Hang on. Isn't this essentially trying to operate a tech-labour market cartel?
It's not a prisoner's dilemma as the parties are in regular contact and in the prisoner's dilemma a large part of it is that there is no communication between the parties. A cartel is always going to be better for the individuals than going alone, that's why they form cartels and why antitrust regulations seek to prevent it. OPEC itself has had no problems existing for decades.
Only acceptable when done by employers, not employees. Got it.
Get a load of that coincidence. it 'coincides' just 2 days after sopa protests, and involves almost all major technology companies that have major stakes on internet. Just like how the megaupload bust 'coincided' a day after sopa protests, yesterday.
Your assumptions of government competence are staggering.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I know, people who think having the government regulate where it benefits the little guy rather than the big are totally inconsistent idiots.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Your argument supposes (wrongly) that other companies would not prefer to pay lower wages as well. Without regulation new companies will simply join the collusion against employees, and the overall average wage will remain depreciated indefinitely, they have no incentive to offer more money if they can simply join the scheme and pay less like everyone else. The net effect is to drive down the pay/productivity of employees, and thereby drive up profits.
This agreement appears to be a followup to the now defunct rules that were 'non compete' clauses (that were, but afaik not legal in California anymore*). Those had the same net effect - you couldn't change employers quickly and if you tried you'd be potentially out several months or years salary in doing so. Since non competes have been around as long as I've been in the IT business (which is getting on to 15 years now) this has, in various forms, been going on for a very long time, and the market doesn't seem to have corrected itself. Actually, it's exactly what I said, in that time new companies emerged, (say, google) and were folded into the grand scheme by the existing players (intel, adobe, Apple and so on). The details of the scheme changed, but it's the same scheme. Sure, they still drive up prices for employees competing for talent to some degree - but not as much as they would have without the protection for employers either from non compete contracts or from collusion.
A free market is free to have a massive coordinated effort by those with money to operate from an unfair position against those who don't have money. Preventing the unfair coordination is the point of (some) regulation.
*I don't live in the US, or California, and never have (or will). My recollection on the details of these rules is hazy as it won't ever directly effect me.
Just like with unions, problems aren't a reason to reject the notion entirely. Regulate them, instead.
I'd like to see enforced regulation of no-poach agreements. Sure, you can prevent others from hiring people who quit your workplace - but you'll need to keep paying them after they leave, regardless of why they left. If your company's talent and secrets are worth enough that you'll screw up someone's career, they should be worth throwing a bit of money after.
Yes, it'll annoy the free-market crowd here, but I'm generally in favor of more regulation everywhere - as long as it's determined by competent regulators who understand the field they're working with.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
How do you define poaching. After all, regardless of who initiates the conversation it is always the corporation that extends the offer so you could say any hiring is poaching.
This kind of thing could make you unhirable to the best market for your skills. If you work for a vendor supporting their product that vendor will typically require a non-compete from you and a non-poaching agreement from all their partners... basically everyone who wants the skills you have. There will be a time limit on this, maybe 5 yrs but this is tech. 5yr old expertise is the same as not having any.