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Apple and Google Face Salary-Fixing Lawsuit
beaverdownunder writes "Google, Apple, Adobe and Intel have been accused of maintaining an agreement not to poach each other's staff, thus restricting increases in salary and restricting career development. California District Judge Lucy Koh has found that the plaintiffs have adequately demonstrated antitrust injury. Sparked by a request from the late Steve Jobs, from 2005 to 2007 the defendants had a 'no cold-call' policy of staff recruitment amongst themselves. Jobs is also alleged to have threatened Palm with litigation for not entering into a 'no cold-call' agreement with Apple." Besides the companies named above, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm are also involved.
Seriously, it doesn't get much more clearly evil. I think they've effectively ruined their corporate image with this.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
So Apple would sue Palm for what exactly? How would that even work!?
The only thing I can think of is that Apple would use other angles such as patents to harass Palm until they comply.
How in the hell are cold calls ethical? It's like telemarketing but much more annoying and more likely to piss me off.
I'm a pharmacist and I get cold called, at work, at least 4 times every month. I want to shove the phone up their ass and twist it.
Seems they're claiming the lost sales of Aeron chairs to replace the ones that would have been smashed up in CEO's offices.
Seriously, it doesn't get much more clearly evil. I think they've effectively ruined their corporate image with this.
I assume you were just being a little overzealous this morning (assuming you are in the US), but that is so wrong that I doubt even you really believe it. Whether you want to compare this no-poaching agreement with FoxConn or with the even more evil period of slavery in our country, there are probably numerous example every day of companies being more "evil" than this.
That said, I hope they are penalized harshly for this, and not just in the court of public opinion. Because as someone else already said, I really doubt that almost anyone cares about some 6-digit salary tech employees not getting even higher pay.
For example, Nvidia and ATI could have agreed - in secret - that neither company shall surpass the other's current flagship 3D card by a speed improvement greater than 5%. They could also have agreed that the most speed gain to be put on the 3D card market, in any one year, shall be no greater than 15% higher than the previous year. What about realtime hardware raytracing for games? Both companies may already have prototype 3D hardware capable of this. But they may have agreed amongst themselves - again in secret - that nobody will put a realtime raytracing based 3D card on the market before 2018. ------- Given what little we, the public, know about "secret agreements" between these supposedly "competing" companies, there may very well be a graphics card or CPU prototype in some lab somewhere that runs 2 - 5 times faster than the fastest hardware currently on the market. But, by honoring a "secret agreement" between competitors, nobody would release that hyperfast graphics card or CPU into the market before the year 2020. That would buy these companies "8 years" worth of steady profiteering from releasing incrementally improved hardware (i.e. each time you buy a new CPU or gfx card, you only get a 15 - 25% speed improvement, rather than a 200 - 500% improvement). Does this sound like a Conspiracy Theory? Of course it does. But could it actually be true? Yes, I believe that there is a chance that precisely this kind of "lets all take it slow with hardware speed improvements" agreement between competitors could be real.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
He's probably the only one on staff not celebrating 4-20.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
For Romney, Santorum, and Paul, the government is attacking the FREEDOM of Google and Apple.
"Corporations are people too!" That's what they say.
That's the kind of freedom they're talking about.
Unless all employees are in the class and assumed to increase their salaries 10% during the time frame; the resulting lawsuit/settlement has little to no chance of being more expensive then if all the companies had been competing for talent as it will be extremely difficult to prove financial damages. I am very disappointed in the DOJ settling this one with little more then a "don't do it again" as they may have been the only way to stop this cold going forward.
They're nerd rustling. Hence the (now trademarked) "Yahoo!"
I have received emails from Google Staffing people asking if I'm "interested in discussion opportunities at Google". So have pretty much every other person I've asked who has ever participated in a remotely intelligent discussion on a programming mailing list, and I'm sure that many other Slashdotters have as well. These are not the spam and virus links that circulated a while ago, but actual mails from actual people at Google Staffing (or someone who is very good at faking it). But, they have no idea about who I am, what I do or anything else other than my email address and my name - apparently their job is to trawl the net for anyone who displays a modicum of programming interest and skill. What happens if someone responds and says that they are working for Intel at the moment, but are interesting in switching?
He's probably the only one on staff not celebrating 4-20.
Are you kidding? If the editors got totally baked, it could only improve their efforts.
I, for one, would welcome our totally zoned out Slashdot Overlords^HEditors.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The seven companies were also investigated in this connection by the U.S. Department of Justice, and they settled in 2010 while admitting no wrongdoing, but agreed not to ban cold calling and not to enter into any agreements that prevent competition for employees.
Is anyone else sick of seeing this type of solution? Bank robbers aren't allowed to go free if they don't admit wrong doing but promise not to rob anymore banks in the future. There is no disincentive if the companies (and the people making these agreements) aren't punished for their behaviour.
My grandpa had to move clear across the country back in the 50s because of "no poaching" deals in the aircraft industry on the east coast. The only way to advance was for someone above you in your company to retire/die/quit/get fired then they'd fill the gap. And no worries for the company about having to provide competitive wages. If they caught someone sniffing around another company, the person was fired and blacklisted. If someone from another company came sniffing around, they'd call the other company and the person would be fired and blacklisted. It's pretty close to creating a slave labor force. Sure, the shackles are padded but it's very demoralizing to know that trying to advance your career could end it.
So, if the government is given more power, that'll solve the problem, right?
These conracts couldnt ever really work if people were allowed talk salary...There is nothing for me that is more awkward than when I have to answer that question from a prospective employer about salary, I don't know if I am really too high for the market or if he is BSing me to pay me less...
I just wish people were a little less shy about talking salary...am i worth 70 80 or 110k per year? I honestly don't know, so I just take a guess, its like throwing darts, I cant really put much stock in sites like CBSalaries and Glassdoor because I dont know where they get their data, how do I know it isnt just the companies putting in low ball salaries?
I see the "sue first ask questions later" crowd has been out in full force - first the stupid ebook nonsense now this.
or do we need to wait until the shitty, fact-challenged movie comes out?
...that makes me very happy to have gone self-employed, and stayed that way. The amount of crap employees put up with astounds me.
...of what a truly despicable person Steve Jobs was.
It's not clear.
I read the body of the message first, and as soon as I saw the huge leap between the first paragraph & the second I knew it was you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
First Principles
1) Trade secrets can not be un-learned...Money can buy access to the process if not the actual 'secret'
thereby;
2) Technological ' know-how' is invaluable...No talent is more valuable than 10% of a product
hence;
Talent is the conceptual component to trade secret, know-how its hand-maiden which provides a capacity
and;
Great organizations capture that capacity in process which nurtures, sustains and supports creation of new markets, new products
so;
Talent can blackmail the process, sabotage it or destroy it criminally. Organizations are criminal if in its stewardship of its trade secrets it interferes with talent's right to bargain, negotiate and free access to a competitive labor market IMHO
Which is exactly where Google, Apple, et. al. protect their jewels keeping process well managed...no infraction
the real salary fixing is being perpetrated by the gov't (at the behest of ALL the tech companies' lobbying arms) via their H1B visa policies.
These compaies claim they can't find enough qulaified people, but hte truth is they're just not willing to pay a wage that is consistent with the high cost of living areas where they are located.
A giant "anti-trust" lawsuit regarding only a "no cold-call" policy? This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
All that means is that when someone is happily working at the job they actually applied for, they wouldn't be teased by some other company offering them more money.
It says NOTHING about if an employee was fired, and once again applied for a job at a competitor, whether they would take him/her or not (which would most likely be a resounding yes).
Nor does it imply anything in the situation where an employee was working at their job, but (knowing they themselves are hot shit) applied to another company flouting their skills, and trying to negotiate a higher pay.
Honestly, the fact that it "fixed salaries" only means that tech companies were such dicks about poaching in the first place, with absolutely no regard to the culture of the workplace that they not only suck an employee out of due to greed (think about those left behind), as well as the company's own culture (hiring a competitor who is there out of greed). They probably realized it was bad practice for a lot of reasons other than just the indirect effect of money.
Finally, I can easily imagine a company with a lot of spare cash (Apple) using this method to hire ever good engineer out of every other company just for shits, having them not develop anything, and crush the competition in that manner.
"First to resort to Ad Hominem loses. Sorry." Then you lose for this. "It's not my fault you can't read."
NOT!!! This guy was clearly evil and draconian in his tactics with employees. Playing each group off the other and calling them names.
Part of the anti-google smear campaign?
It's been going on for a long time.
There was Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Just recently there was a bill before congress to eliminate overtime for IT employees. Nobody else, just IT employees.
The entire H-1B visa workers scam was manufactured to bash tech employees.
The reason that techies are so easy to stomp, is that techies are not organized. Accountants, lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, and so on, are organized, and they can protect themselves (to some extent) against conspiring employers. Techies will never learn.
Seriously? These huge corporation conspire to stomp their employees, and that's cool?
How is this not anti-competition? How is this not oligopoly abuse?
It is possible to vote in publicly traded corporations, but because one has to pay $ per vote, it can be costly to have any impact.
"This summer, coming to a theater near you, from the creators of 'Toy Story 3' and 'Turbotax'...."
This is pretty cosa nostra as tactics go. Of course, if the agreement is limited to just cold calling, then it's a non-issue. But if it goes as far as do-not-hire, then that's quite an injury.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The question is whether the agreement is to not cold call or to simply not hire each others' employees.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Companies may try to make you believe they have a (enforceable) rule against talking pay, but that's clearly protected under the National Labor Relations Act (most of NLRA is union and collective bargaining stuff, but this part is anyone).
Of course, nothing says that the company can't contrive a reason to fire you if you talk pay, but it *is* legal to do discuss pay and working conditions with other employees and others. What is a bit fuzzy is whether you can broadcast it i.e. the law allows conversation/discussion, but is silent on the standing on a street corner and shouting it to all and sundry.
But that's not an ad-hominem, that clearly applies here. Feel free to go back and prove otherwise ;)
Stomp? I think not.
I work for one of the companies in question, and have for the past five years or so. Do I care that another one of them isn't going to cold call me? Nope. Because:
A) go look at the salaries on glassdoor. They're not exactly stingy. For my company, the stats look reasonable vs. my experience there (across several levels), for salary. Tack on another 50% or so for bonuses and stock. I have never been dissatisfied with my salary. It feels like they're throwing money at me to buy my loyalty.
B) the company in question treats their employees damned well, in general.
C) even if I wanted to leave my current job, the others in the pool here aren't interesting. They all do vastly different things, and most of them would not be a good fit for my background. I suspect this is true in a lot of cases.
D) if I WANTED to go work for one of them, I can always give them a call. It's not like they're not hiring anyone from the competitor.
You can use the power of the internet to trivially verify that there definitely isn't a blanket ban.
Google search: "resume software developer apple google -forum -macrumors"
At least 3 hits for resumes with both Apple & Google, at least the first was back-to-back employment. It's harder to do with intel and adobe, since they have a propensity to show up in resumes in unrelated fashions. If I cared more, I could probably dig some up.
It was an agreement not to cold call. The distinction, however, is one of how unethical the agreement was, not whether it was ethical or not. Either way they're conspiring against their employees to keep wages down.
In such a negotiation, you never want to give your salary requirement first.
Possible answers are
"This is not the same position as my last job, so I don't think my last salary is really relevent"
"Let us discuss requirements and expectations first before discussing salary"
"I am very interested in the position, and I am sure you will pay in line with the market -- a fair and reasonable amount"
"I am sure you know what this position is worth to your company and that's important for me to know. I am sure that you will pay a fair and reasonable amount"
If you do answer, you may well low-ball YOURSELF. Leaving 10, 20, 30 thousand on the table is a bad idea. The company will simply say "Yes".
If you go too high, you may price yourself out of the job.
The company knows (100%) how much they WILL pay for the position. If they really want YOU in specific, they may think that you can get that salary elsewhere. And feel they have to offer you more.
Remember, it is NOT what you think you are worth to the company. You want the company to open with a figure.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
There is nothing unethical about not headhunting in the neighbor's employee directory.
Unethical would be not hiring someone because their last employer was one of the companies that the prospective employer doesn't "cold call" which is a very different proposition.
No cold calls is, in no way, a conspiracy to keep employee wages down. Because if some company goes to a competitor to hire for a position, guess who doesn't get a raise? Any current employee hoping for promotion to that position. Well, maybe if the poached company returns the favor and poaches from the poaching company in return to fill the newly vacant spot. And then they're "clearly" conspiring against all the unemployed people..
Normally I'd agree with you -- but it would be like 10 dudes getting golden enemas and it would do nothing for the vast majority of hard working, non-pedigree, working stiffs.
Johnny Ive would have been traded like a Babe Ruth baseball card about 5 times.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
I didn't know salary was broken.
Yes, it is a problem. Your solution requires resources that very well might not be available.
I honestly cannot fathom how fucking retarded people like you must be to say that companies can do whatever the fuck they want without any kind of consequences. You are sick.
And no, there is nothing with "fake currency" doing anything like this. The exact same fucking problem would exist if people were paid in gold coins. Stop bringing your retarded red herrings into discussions.
Also, this is completely and utterly the company's fault. The government has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Stop trying to shift blame away from the entities who deserve it. These companies are run by big boys; they can take responsibilities for their own fucking actions.
Other articles on this subject have revealed that it was not to hire each others employees at all.
Just because they're not completely low doesn't mean they haven't been artificially lowered. It's quite possible that, without this agreement, the salaries would be even higher.
Quit apologizing for behavior which very clearly has no purpose other than to fuck over employees.
From the company's perspective, they would hardly get anything done if their key staff members were switching sides all the time. From my point of view the "no cold-call" agreement makes sense. I would even go further saying that this should be a general law. If I own a small business, I would hate some big company throwing its money around at my employees, tempting them all the time. If they want to leave my company, in search for greener pa$tures, it should be THEIR initiative, not because someone planted the idea in their mind out of thin air. And I don't see how this freezes salaries and/or hinders employee development. If someone in my staff is unhappy with his job, THEY can call my competitors and ask for a job offer. They can then come to me with that offer and ask me to top it or otherwise make changes so that they stay. But having the other firms sniffing around all the time is just annoying.
you are not intelligent enough to understand even a third of what is being discussed, stay out.
You can't handle the truth.
As an employee of one of the aformentioned companies (and knowing quite a few folks in the other camp), I can tell you a few facts...
1st: if we *could* make a graphics card economically that was 2-5 times faster we would do it. Both companies fab chips in the same factory and pay about the same amount for wafer productions, and engineers/architects at both companies are unlikely to be 2-5x smarter than the other company, so the economics work out about the same.
2nd: Often we undershoot the performance that we aim for in certain areas so we would be rolling the dice if were were *planning* on lower performance (we'd probably undershoot by a mile). Fortunatly, end performance is a combination of a large number of things so even if we suck as some thing and kick-ass at another, the law of large numbers tends to push the performance near each other because of point #1.
3rd: Sometimes we leave a little bit of perf in reserve (ah HA!), to attempt to trump the other company when they reveal their perf level, we can send out a turbo driver update (never more than around 10% sometimes it's software optimization, sometimes it's some processing units that have been disabled for yield enhancement or both). If we don't have to do an update to match the competition, and our schedule for the mid-life kicker chip (a chip with the same architecture, but bug fixes for performance and manufactured in the next generation of process techology) slips out and we don't have anything good to sell, we roll the reserve into a pseudo-kicker product (sort product yield for say the top 20% faster than nominal parts, create a new product which is a combo of the 20% higher speed w/ another 10% reserve perf). Of course the pseudo-kicker happens more often than we like it to (schedules never seem to work out exactly the way we want it).
So that's the dirty little secret. Was there a chance of a conspiracy (maybe), but there certainly isn't one in this case. Sorry to dissapoint you, but we ship pretty much anything that isn't nailed down to try to beat the competition (just the way it's supposed to be).
That's not Ad Hominem. Seriously.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Don't bother. It's like the bandwagon on ./ hears the words "monopoly" and suddenly the 99% of the too-helpless-to-get-a-job-unless-someone-calls-and-offers-it-to-them crowd rise up.
It's not like people aren't capable of finding their own jobs.
With employment there is an implied understanding that there is a long-term relationship,
If someone says anything to the contrary, they are a consultant and thus in the minority of people who have that choice. A long-term relationship provides the necessary security of being able to plan in the long-term and to mitigate risks that exist outside of long-term employment. Short-term workers are ones that are desperate and negotiating from a position where the company has only contempt for the worker.
Corporate monogamy isn't dead, just that the minority of consultants wants to kill it for the rest of us who don't have their luxury of choice. The bulk of people that work, do well in the arrangement where there is a long-term relationship where there is some defined, if tenuous, loyalty. The only thing that these consultants and short-termers do is enable companies to destroy loyalty. If you were to remove the ability for a company to use the short-term arrangement of distrust, loyalty would return.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Not everyone has come from a country where businesses treat workers like one-night-stands.
Why do you hate job security? It promotes skill development more than anything else.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
No there isn't, employers will lay you off in a heartbeat if it's in their interest. They'll provide no raises and pay new hires 20% more. They'll do everything they can to pay you as little as possible.
That's only due to the social contract being broken in the 1970's of voluntarily recognizing each other as peers and not as enemies. When other workers in less-free countries could be used to counteract the effects of US labor, the cost of being a jerk towards dropped like a stone. In addition, this was reinforced in 1981 through the PATCO strikebreaking, in 1983 through GE's switch to an anti-worker executive, in the 90's through NAFTA, and finally in 2003 with the offshoring of the professions of last refuge.
The possibility of you leaving is what keep them inline, if they know you won't leave then they'll fuck you up the ass till you need wear an adult diaper. It's called capitalism and supply and demand. Look it up sometime.
Only true if there isn't a large surplus of labor. When replacement costs are maintained to be low by employers, departure won't matter to them. This is done through jurisdictional arbitrage, where workers are played against each other.
Short-termers actually work against other workers, as they enable business to give less respect towards their workers save for a infinitesimally small portion that succeed anytime. They make it harder for workers that do very well when the long-term arrangements are covered with reciprocating loyalty. A solution to this would be to enact a Right To Direct Work, where short-term work cannot be a condition of work.
I've been treated rather well by my employers and that's because they knew I could leave and find a new job within a week for probably more pay. I also know many people who don't have that luxury and they did not get the same treatment as me.
I've been well-treated at prior employers who thought to give a damn about the people that work for them. Yes, this was with IT and with a large employer.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I want to mod you up, but it wouldn't be clear why I think your words deserve more notice, so I'm replying instead.
Conservatives often have (what I consider) valid criticisms of liberals' proposed solutions to various problems.
The problem is, instead of offering alternative solutions, they deny the problems.
We need to get a dialogue going on both sides of the aisle which both acknowledges the existence of the problems, and the inadequacy of the proposed solutions currently on the table, and begins brainstorming new ideas, instead of this monotonous repetition of "There is a problem and THIS is the solution!" vs "That solution sucks, therefore there is no problem." Somebody needs to say "There is a problem; now, what is the solution?"
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
I worked for HP in the bay area about 15 years ago. Every year at annual raise time they herded us engineers into a room and made a presentation about how their HR people had sat down with the HR people from Intel, Apple, Cisco, and every other engineering employer in the bay area to define job titles and benefits, including salaries. They told us this as if it was a good thing. Then they'd announce the amount of that year's raise and everyone would cheer and I was flabbergasted. What they had just told us was that they were conspiring to fix salaries and benefits so don't bother looking for a job elsewhere- you're not going to get any better deals.
The next time you can't understand why you don't get more than 10 days vacation even though you've got 15 years experience at your previous job, thank this sort of collusion. This is why I have not made any attempt to push my son towards an engineering "career". Engineering isn't a career any more. It's a job and you are about as valuable to the company as the guy who sweeps the floors at night.
IBM's 'achieve prosperity through cost cutting, particularly in HR has been in effect for nearly 2 decades.
I can understand the 'no cold calls' policy, taking it literally to mean "Don't have recruiters cold call our engineers and offer them more money". I disconnected my office phone a few years ago, and have kept it that way. Two or three calls a day from headhunters is a huge distraction, especially if they're pushy and indiscreet. Co-workers have adopted the same strategy, so we effectively have no phones here. So I'm all for a literal no cold-call policy. They're a waste of worker's time.
Did anyone actually read the article? There's nothing in there saying that Apple and Google can not hire away from each other. The unspoken rule is that they would not "cold-call". There's no problem with a Google employee going to look for work at Apple or vice-versa. The two companies just agreed to not actively poach from each other by cold calling employees.
All that means is that if you are unhappy with your job or compensation, all you have to do is get off your ass and ask around. All this meant was, if you work for company A and you are unhappy, then you shouldn't be whining that company B hasn't called to fix your situation. Instead, you should take control of your own life and go interview at company B.
There was nothing "evil" about this at all.
Horseshit. Because I don't fall for your bullshit of "Everything that ever goes wrong, ever, is the government's fault!"
You're obviously not intelligent to explain yourself. And further, you're not intelligent enough to realize when you've brought up something completely unrelated.
Now we understand why there's an IT skills gap. Everyone whose taken Economics 101 learned that when prices are held artificially low a shortage will ensue. Perhaps this also explains the previous post about U. of Florida killing their Computer Science program. It's hard to convince students to study a subject where their worth is not valued properly.
From the company's perspective, they would hardly get anything done if their key staff members were switching sides all the time.
If your key staff members are always taking the bait then you are doing something wrong. Either your "best" employees are mercenaries, which means that more loyal types with options are not willing to come work for you or you are facing widespread discontent in a team that it expected it would be different. Maybe the irritation hasn't risen to the level that they are willing to face the ugliness of the job market but it will. You might even be better off if they left earlier.
It is what it is, profanity doesn't change the simple fact that you are not intelligent enough to understand what is being said.
You can't handle the truth.
Horseshit. This has absolutely nothing to do with government. You simply cannot articulate any reason why you would bring up government other than you're an anti-government nut.