Slashdot Mirror
Anti-Poaching Lawsuit Against Apple, Google and Others Given the Green Light
An anonymous reader writes "A class action lawsuit against Apple, Google and a number of other high-profile tech companies has been given the green light by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh. The lawsuit stems from anti-poaching agreements that Apple a number of tech companies entered into from 2005 through 2009. Parties to the agreement all promised not to recruit employees from one another. The companies involved include Apple, Intel, Google, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Adobe."
...you get to see the tip of the iceberg
Time to add anti-poaching to the California Business and Professions code to make it strictly forbidden. This keeps coming up year-after year. There needs to be a law to protect the free market for talent. California should lead the way, but it would be really nice to see it at the Federal level as well.
Typical class actions: Lawyers will settle for $20 million dollars for the lawyers and $3 for each person who didn't get a job.
Not to worry, as soon as this class action lawsuit is won, every employee will get a $20 coupon at the Microsoft store! What has any union ever done for anyone by comparison?
Don't get ahead of yourself my friend. This is just the start of the suit. Nothing says this suit will be successful, or that the resolution will be helpful to the employees even if it is successful.
>>even non-union employees have rights, too?
Indeed, which is why we're reading an article about how prohibitions against unionizing helped prevent anti-poaching agreements between corporations.
Ah who am I kidding, what I just typed makes about as much sense as what you typed, and is loaded with just as much bias!
Anti-poaching is only one means by which corporations weaken workers. Illegal retaliatory firing for union organizing is another. The suit is about maintaining a free market in labor. Union membership is one way that individuals participate in that free market. The decline in union membership is a major cause of the decline in the income of American workers.
As documented in Robert Reich's book Super-Capitalism, the most productive and prosperous time in US history was the age (1950s-1960s) of collaboration between big government, big business, and big labor. With labor out of the picture and government oversight waning, is it any wonder that corporations are feasting on the bones of their powerless workforce?
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Pretty sure that anti-poaching agreements actually lead to people getting paid less, as there isn't as much competition between companies for salaries.
Let the free market work its magic. Companies should start using employment contracts for stellar performers so that they don't have to fear them leaving for competitors, and the contract can be renegotiated every 2-3 years, if the stellar employee doesn't like the terms, they can walk when the contract expires.
And once your anti-poaching agreement kicks in, that employee will spend 6 months unemployed, then come back begging for the same job at half the pay! Free market FTW!
The suit, originally brought forth by five software engineers in 2011, alleges that the anti-poaching agreements served to lessen their employment opportunities, thereby weakening their negotiating power and ultimately affecting the salaries they were able to command.
Wait, what?
I've been told for years that the only way employees can ever fight their employer is if a union represents them and does all the negotiations. Now you mean to tell me that even non-union employees have rights, too?
Yes, it's possible. If you have the money and the time you can even get it to court. Then it's you, and maybe a few others, against the combined experience and cash of the justice a multi billion dollar company can buy.
Because if you are truly a stellar employee, you can put in the contract what YOU think your raise should be and not be beholden to what the company thinks your raise should be.
It balances the concept of salary negotiations, however, there is a risk that if you are not a truly stellar employee, the company will not want to renew your contract.
One problem is that poaching encourages a dichotomous working class system. Poaching is good for employees who have experience, since their wage will go up because companies fight over them, but it's bad for potential employees fresh out of school. No employer wants to be the one to front the capital to train them. They would just rather poach someone that will be effective on day 1.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
People get paid more? I think you're confused. Anti-poaching agreements results in employees being paid less.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
The only persons that win these are the lawyers.
Right, because they're paid so well, they can easily afford to bank a year's worth of living expenses. Why don't you just come right out an admit you want to reinstate slavery? Oh, excuse me, "indentured servitude".
People who are truly good at what they do should be paid well....
Actually it is quite the opposite: MoneyInTheBank == Freedom. If you truly want to be free, you must make the effort and do this, otherwise you will always get the short end of the stick.
If you really want indentured servitude, just continue with the secret no-poach agreements, and the H-1B visa program....
Tech employees have no reason to sign onto those agreements unless there was a buy-out for early termination. Although that's typical in C level employment contracts I think you'd be hard pressed to get executives to offer them to rank and file folks. Even if they are stellar performers.
Maybe I'm not understanding this agreement, but to me it sounds like they just agreed not to actively recruit from each other. I've never seen anything indicating that, for example, an Apple employee couldn't apply for a position at Google (and vice versa).
End of line..
From Ed response to Steve Jobs:
"Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other's employees, regardless of the individual's desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal. [...] Palm doesn't target other companies -- we look for the best people we can find. l'd hope the same could be said about Apple's practices. However, during the last year or so, as Apple geared up to compete with Palm in the phone space, Apple hired at least 2 percent of Palm's workforce. To put it in perspective, had Palm done the same, we'd have hired 300 folks from Apple. Instead, to my knowledge, we've hired just three."
That's not the reason for decline in income. The reason for decline in income is lack of jobs because of all of the cheaper off-shore labor and increased the supply of workers in the US. Wage laws, regulations, and an environment generally unfriendly towards manufacturing ultimately drove any industry that doesn't HAVE to operate in the US OUT of the US to places that were happy to have the jobs at all.
If you had all of those jobs back and a thriving manufacturing industry again, the supply of workers would be much thinner, unemployment would be virtual non-existent unless by choice and because of that the wages / compensation would increase in order to attract and retain people. All we've done in the US is drive away a lot of jobs. There's plenty of places in the US where income levels are just fine and those are the areas where there is demand.
You create demand, the income levels will take care of themselves.
The Boeing thing has been especially interesting. As they've started things up in SC, Union workers have come down from Seattle trying to get people to organize to try to convince people that they aren't making enough. The general response they're getting is that most people are just happy to have a job...which is a point that a lot of people tend to forget when they start talking about wanting "more" vs wanting "anything".
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
The law of unintended consequences would indicate that this could be exploited if corporations collude to use such a law to keep downward pressure on employee compensation. If none of your employer's competitors will hire you because of anti-poaching laws, then your employer has no motivation to treat you well because they know you have no place else to go unless you completely change careers, and that would have it's own downward pressure on compensation.
If the unions were still strong, they could've blocked the offshoring of workers by calling a company-wide strike in the US. That would've been effective while most of the talent and production was local. Corp-Exec bonuses are hard to justify when your sales are the shits because the corp wasn't producing anything for an extended period.
Now that all the jobs are disseminated to 3rd/4th world areas without any worker protection, the power is gone and won't be coming back.
If this doesn't end up like a typical class action suite Apple and the other big players could end up paying out Billions in damages, probably making it the most expensive lawsuit ever and making an ever so small dent in the mountains of cash they've managed to pile up.
That is sarcasm, right? You damn well know that this is going to end up like a typical class action suit. At worst the companies will have to pay out a few million dollars each and apologize. The lawyers will get rich, and the employees will get just enough to buy a Big Mac.
> The suit is about maintaining a free market in labor.
> Union membership is one way that individuals participate in that free market.
Lol. Did you just say that collusion, enforced by the government, is "free market"? Unions, organized, enforceable collusion, are exactly the opposite of free market.
A free market means I can hire your teenage son at $20 / hour to change lightbulbs, if you want to do that job at that price. Unions mean I better contract that job out, because I'm only allowed to hire electricians at $65 + $40 in benefits for anything related to anything electrical.
The illegal behavior these companies for busted for, the collusion, is PRECISELY what unions do. Anti-competive collusion is the PURPOSE of a union.
There's no such thing as "the 4th world". It's something you just made up. For the record: 1st world: USA and its allies. 2nd world: USSR and its satellites. Doesn't exist anymore, it's an obsolete term. 3rd world: everyone else.
Unions were the reason jobs left offshore in the first place. Unions only care about the interests of union bosses - to pretend that they represent workers is laughable.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!