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Judge Denies Dismissal of No-Poach Conspiracy Case
theodp writes "Testifying before Congress in 2007, Google's HR chief stated: 'We make great efforts to uncover the most talented employees we can find.' But according to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, Google actually went to some lengths to avoid uncovering some of tech's most talented employees, striking up agreements with Apple, Intel, and other corporations to avoid recruiting each other's employees. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh ruled that Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Disney, Pixar, Intuit and Lucasfilm must face a lawsuit claiming they violated antitrust laws by entering into no-poaching agreements with each other. 'I don't want to see any obstruction on discovery,' Koh told lawyers during a hearing. According to the head attorney representing the plaintiffs, the total damages could exceed $150 million if just 10,000 entry-level engineers were affected."
Even if current employees don't see a dime of the damages, the ruling should affect all current and future employees who should now be better assured that they will get a competitive salary. If employers fail to compensate their employees fairly, there is now the ability to switch employers freely, like the law requires.
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
this isn't about monopoly power; it's about workplace discrimination. If I apply for a job, it's illegal for the employer to deny me the job capriciously, including the fact that they have a side agreement with their competitors not to hire me.
So you're saying that if you worked for Pixar you would be perfectly happy that Lucasfilm can't come and make you a better offer.
Yeah, you might end up having to work on another Star Wars prequel.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yup. People sucked down this motto and believed it. The fast is that the nature of business is often contrary to the general public interest. This is why we citizens band together in the form of governments to counterbalance some of the negative side of business. No, this isn't a diatribe against capitalism. It is simple a recognition that capitalism has its weaknesses that must be addressed and reckoned with.
Put two saints in charge of a business and you will find that they begin behaving in ways that the wouldn't if they weren't in a powerful position. it doesn't make them evil. It is simply a response to the environment and the forces around them. Our gov't should place restraints in place to minimize anti-society behavior.
When Google puts in the "no poaching" agreement, it is acting in its own best interest, but not in the best interest of society as a whole. Citizens should be free to work in the best environment for them. This isn't a profit driven value. It is a freedom based value. Google is acting against that and should be slapped in the language that corporations understand -- the bottom line. The slap must be hard enough to change behavior, or else it will be deemed a cost of doing business.
And if you still think that we just need the right people in charge of companies, people with the right ethics and then everything will be perfect, you are absolutely deluded. Granted, we DO need strong ethics in those who hold power. But be damned sure that even those people will act against the interest of the rest of us.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It's not actually legal for unions to do it; the "closed shop", where new hires can only come from the labor union's membership pool, is illegal in the U.S. since 1947.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm sorry, but 10x average salary. Hmm, I'm an engineer. Average salary is somewhere around 45K a year. I don't know any that make 450K a year. I would say 2x isn't uncommon, and some of the highly compensated might make 3x average, but 10x, no.
But then comes the muddying of the water. First, we do a job that very few can do. The drop out rate in school is >70% of the people who attempt to earn the degrees. Further than that, I don't have a number, but a fairly large percentage enter the work world, and discover they can't handle it. This leaves a very small number of people who can actually produce as an engineer. Toss in that EVERYTHING needs to be engineered. Whether due to nature of the product or due to regulation, this is just a fact of life. This creates high demand and low supply, which leads to our seemingly high pay.
But wait, now for such a needed profession, then it turns out, we're actually not highly paid, even relative to what we do. For some odd reason, especially in tech, the companies are always locals with high cost of living. This means, comparing the salary of an engineer to a farmer in the mid-west isn't really fair. Compare an engineers salary to the average in the bay area, that'd be more fair. And then of course, the average american works on average of 38-39 hours a week. The typical engineer looks at 40 hours longingly. We're all salaried employees, which means we don't get overtime, and 50 per week is fairly normal. My last job, I would regularly crack 65 and even had a couple months where I was averaging 80 hours a week. People who've never worked 80 hours really can't grasp it. I never thought 80 would be much until I did it. that's 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. You literally get up, get dressed, drive to work, work, drive home, eat dinner, get ready for bed, and sleep. That's it. For double, or MAYBE triple the national average salary. And then you throw in companies that try to hinder people trying to improve their lot a little.
You'll undoubtedly say "well, if you don't like it, then leave", but that mentality ignores some very important factors. Engineers are an odd assortment. First, we typically genuinely love what we do. We don't mind working 50 hours a week, because we love it, but that doesn't mean we don't get exhausted. Also, our work ethic is typically top notch, and we have a huge amount of pride in what we do. We take ownership in what we create and it hurts us to abandon it. We also put up with an amazing amount of BS. A lot of companies understand this, and use it to their advantage to basically turn us into slaves. Yes, not in the literal sense, but by taking advantage of our idiosyncrasies, they effectively do.