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Silicon Valley Anti-Poaching Cartel Went Beyond a Few Tech Firms
The gentleman's agreement that several Silicon Valley firms are now widely known to have taken part in to minimize employee poaching within their own circles went much further than has been generally reported, according to a report at PandoDaily. The article lists many other companies besides the handful that have been previously named as taking part in the scheme to prevent recruiting, and gives some insight into what kind of (even non-tech) organizations and practices are involved.
Yuck
So, can look forward to anyone doing jail time? That is the really the only way this will stop. That or directly start suing the individuals who implemented the policies and make them pay. After that I am willing to bet once a few executives lose their hard won millions will be a little gun shy about conspiring to do anything.
Actually the more I think about it, the best way to reign these practices in is directly suing individuals. Once they can no longer hide behind the corporate veil, the less inclined they will be collude together.
Is it illegal to make these "agreements"?
I think it's ridiculous, and like another pointed out, shows a flaw in capitalism.
It *should* be illegal. IMHO it's an anti-trust issue. Workers are vendors of their labor, and the owners of the capital are colluding, like a 'trust', to monopolize & unnaturally control the scarcity of that capital.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I thought this was about an agreement to not support anyone who goes on grey-market safaris, etc. to protect endangered species...
And so much cheaper than having to pay what employees are actually worth.
Rivalr7, and we'll Else to be 1an How it was supposed
The article mixes two things:
Collusion between the companies to not recruit from each other, which is apparently illegal (since the DOJ stepped in).
No solicit agreement with employees. That's part of a contract, I'll hire you but you have to agree that you won't refer my other employees to the headhunter who placed you. That's pretty standard and presumably is legal.
I've worked at several places and when I do a great job, I get blackballed.
Then they don't have to worry about me leaving and they don't have to give me pay commensurate with my contributions.
Should be pretty obvious, but nothing gets written down. To do anything they would need years of collecting testimony. The companies could just say that was a few CEO's ago and disavow all knowledge.
Apparently, none of the companies I've ever worked for were on that list, because I'm hounded by clueless recruiters every week.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I remember when I worked for Borland we used to joke that we were Microsoft's training site they poached so many people. From what I understand in one of the MS/Borland lawsuits Borland got no-poaching added as part of the settlement.
If anyone actually was trying to collude to hold tech wages down, they failed. We're some of the highest-paid workers in the country.
I got cold-called by Google recruiters when I worked at Apple, and I know people who've gone from Apple to Pixar, Apple to Yahoo, Microsoft to Apple, etc, etc.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I often wonder what supposed geniuses want to live there. SF is a dirty shit hole that costs 4-5 times more to live there. NYC in a tiny apartment is great for your twenties and I can totally understand that. Senior positions for 100-150k in SF? Yeah right. You can get that in most parts of the US. I am not suggesting to move to Iowa or Nebraska. There are plenty of tech cities out there if you want to keep your options. Maybe some of those lazy VCs will get a clue and hop on more planes. They should be chasing investment not forcing a concentration of tech people bad at economics.
The game is, was and always will be rigged! If you work for a living, your doing something wrong! That's why I'm joining the ruling class, suckers!
Like any glutinous, power hungry 1%'er, there are always be Capitalists ready to engage in monopoly behavior.
The defenders of the thieves are Judas Goats or Chauvinists, singing the Praises of the Emperors until they starve to death themselves, hoping for a greater reward for loyalty.
Here's a hint chumps.
Loyalty in Capitalism goes ONLY up, never down.
I don't get it. Engineers voluntary entered into employment agreements, and now they're crying? If they'd "won the lottery" (Apple, Google, etc.) with stock options, I doubt they'd complain. Plus from what I understand, this was mostly above the engineering level. By definition, if engineer "X" had a better opportunity, he/she would have taken it.
Sounds like a bunch of 20-something hipsters whining that they could have bought more craft brews if only big bad Apple/Google hadn't screwed them over. What an injustice.
Where do you report this type of illegal deal ? I know there is on ein place in telecoms between vendors and carriers and has been for a long time.
which the TFS failed to include, as contacted by the publisher:
AMD
AOL
Adecco
Adobe
Apple
Best Buy
CDI Business Solutions
Cingular/AT&T
Clear Channel
Comcast
Dell
Dreamworks
eBay/PayPal
Foxconn
Genentech
Google
IBM
Illumita Inc.
Intel
Intuit
Jcrew
Kelly
Kforce
Lucasfilm
Mac Zone
Microsoft
Nike
Novell
Nvidia
Oglivy
OpenTV
Oracle
PC Connection
PC Mall
Pixar
Sun Microsystems
Virgin Media
WPP
It would be interesting to see the connectedness of the Boards of Directors graph for the set.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
What a good example of class warfare! Those company fight each other every day, with dozens of patent lawsuits, but when it comes to limit worker wealth, they manage to work together.
They used to actually tell employees in big meetings of engineers where they announced the annual pay raises. First they'd give a powerpoint presentation on their benefits packages, etc., and explain that their HR people had met with HR people from other big engineering employers in Silicon Valley and elsewhere to agree upon job titles and descriptions and pay scales. Finally they'd announce the annual raise and everyone would cheer except me, who didn't like being told "don't bother looking for a better deal, we've seen to it that you won't get one".
I ultimately left HP and went to Fujitsu, a company that wasn't part of the "cartel" and got a pay raise of 50% and kept all my hard earned vacation time to boot. I haven't seen any mention of HP in any of the articles about this yet.
Please stop calling this a "Gentleman's agreement. Those engaged in this practice are not "gentlemen".
By your same logic, the whole open-source community should be forbidden by law to cooperate.
This is considered communism................. People sharing, everyone is equal [all though, 50% in the open-source community are arrogant to the point they could a dictator in some country]
Capitalism --- "Free Market"............Is the opposite, bottleneck everyone, have corporations-AKA lobbyist, special interest groups, money dictates everything, who gets to be fu**d over, and who get to ride the crazy train to the next economic collapse. Hey how about those customers we f**d over with debts, but hey f**k'em were still rich, bitch. HAHAHA.......Who want to do some coke off of Jennifer Lopez's ass!!!
It was not even trickling fast enough for these giant companies they had to cheat.
Just think how little trickled to you my guess is none noteven one cent.
...why not simply treat them better? Oh, sorry, what a stupid question.
If we had to pay key programmers like key football players, OH MY.
If those pesky football players didn't have that dang union!
It obviously restrains free trade of services by employees and vendors.
Why? It's not saying any employee cannot switch companies. Just that one company agrees not to ASK an employee to switch.
Again, anyone is free to seek work elsewhere with whoever they like.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A frozen top down controlled job market where the employee has zero input or freedom but most likely a great deal of security as they are locked in place. At least until HR decides they should eat dogfood somewhere else.
This is a ridiculous tangent.
By stenvar's logic a restaurant customer is the "owner" of the product of their hunger and they are selling the access to it...it's backwards.
This is about twisting logic to support a fallacious conclusion.
curse all GOP trolls!
Thank you Dave Raggett
It doesn't have to be like the teachers or auto workers unions, but there are certain standards that:
- All workers ought to meet
- That employers need to follow, or get their asses kicked
Yes yes; let us not envy one another's slaves. We have plenty to go around.