Plaintiff In Tech Hiring Suit Asks Judge To Reject Settlement

An anonymous reader writes with news that Michael Devine, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing tech firms including Apple and Google of conspiring to keep salaries low, has asked the court to reject a $324 million settlement. "Apple has more than $150 billion in the bank, eclipsing the combined cash reserves of Israel and Britain. Google, Intel and Adobe have a total of about $80 billion stored up for a rainy day. Against such tremendous cash hoards, $324 million is chump change. But that is what the four technology companies have agreed to pay to settle a class action brought by their own employees. The suit, which was on track to go to trial in San Jose, Calif., at the end of May, promised weeks if not months of damaging revelations about how Silicon Valley executives conspired to suppress wages and limit competition. Details of the settlement are still under wraps. 'The class wants a chance at real justice,' he wrote. 'We want our day in court.' He noted that the settlement amount was about one-tenth of the estimated $3 billion lost in compensation by the 64,000 class members. In a successful trial, antitrust laws would triple that sum. 'As an analogy,' Mr. Devine wrote, 'if a shoplifter is caught on video stealing a $400 iPad from the Apple Store, would a fair and just resolution be for the shoplifter to pay Apple $40, keep the iPad, and walk away with no record or admission of wrongdoing? Of course not.' 'If the other class members join me in opposition, I believe we will be successful in convincing the court to give us our due process,' Mr. Devine said in an interview on Sunday. He has set up a website, Tech Worker Justice, and is looking for legal representation. Any challenge will take many months. The other three class representatives could not be reached for comment over the weekend."

Comments

if you want your day in court

[ganjadude]

you dont join class actions. Everyone should know by now that the only people who get rich in class actions are the lawyers. If you believe you have been wronged, bring a suit yourself

Re:if you want your day in court

[coolsnowmen]

This has been covered here before

You do not have the resources to beat the likes of apple in a case like this unless you have video of them laughing at your resume as they burn it and shout, "We're conspriing not to hire this guy!"

Re:if you want your day in court

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a video, but the email exchange that's already been made public is pretty damn close to this. It basically reads:

Stevie J: Hey Eric, you're trying to hire one of our employees and we agreed not to do that.
Schmidt: Right...won't happen again...the recruiter in question has been sacked to make an example.
Stevie J: :-)

Time for a union that is only way to get the power

[Joe_Dragon]

Time for a union that is only way to get the power to the workers!

Lawyers didn't do their job

[jmcbain]

From the NY Times article:

Mr. Devine said he told his lawyers that he found the settlement inadequate as it was being negotiated, but they ignored him. Lawyers in the case declined to comment on Sunday. ... As a class representative, he is eligible for an incentive award for the time and effort he put into the case. His lawyers have asked the court to approve a $20,000 payment for each representative from settlements reached last year against three other defendants in the suit — Lucasfilm, Pixar and Intuit. A similar payment might be forthcoming from the settlement with Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe. Even if the case went to trial and the plaintiffs got the full $9 billion, he would not get much more.

Re:Why does how much money the company's have matt

[pnutjam]

RTFA, the reward is about 1/10 of the damage done, insulting and hardly a deterrent.

ouch... so low

[CamelTrader]

assuming that attorneys don't eat all the settlement money, this is what, like $6,000 bucks per person in the class?

Re:Time for a union that is only way to get the po

[clarkkent09]

Libertarians are not against unions. Show me one source that shows that libertarians are against the right of people to associate or not associate however they wish. They are against laws that force employers to recognize unions and bargain with them as well as the laws that force employees to become paying union members even if they don't want to.