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How Silicon Valley CEOs Conspired To Suppress Engineers' Wages

Posted by Soulskill on from the ungentlemen's-agreement dept.

Oneflower writes "As we discussed last week, a lawsuit is moving forward that alleges widespread conspiracy among the CEOs of Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and Pixar to suppress the wages of their tech staff. Mark Ames at Pando explains how it happened, and showcases some of the emails involving Steve Jobs and other CEOs. Quoting: 'Shortly after sealing the pact with Google, Jobs strong-armed Adobe into joining after he complained to CEO Bruce Chizen that Adobe was recruiting Apple’s employees. Chizen sheepishly responded that he thought only a small class of employees were off-limits: "I thought we agreed not to recruit any senior level employees. I would propose we keep it that way. Open to discuss. It would be good to agree." Jobs responded by threatening war: "OK, I’ll tell our recruiters they are free to approach any Adobe employee who is not a Sr. Director or VP. Am I understanding your position correctly?" Adobe’s Chizen immediately backed down.'"

3 of 462 comments (clear)

  1. see also, increasing the # of H1Bs awarded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If only the tech workers of the world had a touch more self and class-consciousness, they'd be able to see that, often, management is actively working against their interests. From wage-manipulation & collusion, to selling sitting cheek-to-jowl with coworkers as "open" and "collaborative," there's enough to give even a naïve, "everything is awesome!!!," workaday programmer pause.

    1. Re:see also, increasing the # of H1Bs awarded by rmstar · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a voluntary relationship where each side can expect the other to exploit any weakness for their own interest.

      For the engineers, it is a weakness that they are peasants before they are engineers. The CEOs have an unfair advantage over them, and that advantage is not part of engineers voluntary agreement.

      Why do I have to even explain this to you?

  2. Re:So, cue up.. by FriendlyLurker · · Score: 4, Informative

    OK. I am actually a free market libertarian software engineer. This does bother me, but I would suggest that the solution to these sorts of problems is exposure rather than laws.

    This time they got caught out in a few emails, next time they will just keep it to verbal agreements on the country club golf course. The "exposure" is not going to come from a few or even many Engineers complaining in isolation that there might be some collusion going on as the alternative offers are drying up.

    I don't need to work for any company that would underpay me.

    and if you did you would not be able to get a decent higher paying job elsewhere due to collusion like this.