Judge Rejects $324.5 Million Settlement For Tech Workers, Argues For More

An anonymous reader writes with this news from Reuters: A U.S. district judge on Friday ruled that the $324.5 million settlement negotiated by Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe with the tech workers who brought an antitrust lawsuit against them was too low. The judge cited the settlement amount of a similar lawsuit brought against Disney and Intuit last year which resulted in plaintiffs obtaining proportionally more for lost wages. And yet, according to the judge, the current plaintiffs have "much more leverage". She cited evidence clearly showing Apple's Steve Jobs strong-arming the other companies in the suit into agreeing to a no-employee-poaching agreement, and in one instance, of Google failing to rope in Facebook into a similar agreement which resulted in a 10% increase of all Google employee salaries. In other words, clear evidence that the no-poaching agreement effectively suppressed the salaries of these companies' tech workers. Another hearing is scheduled for September 10.

Comments

In other words...

[thieh]

New talents will be nigh impossible to develop from scratch because it's the same guys who shifts between the big firms. Is it really so hard to develop talent who isn't currently working for those firms?

Re:In other words...

[nolife]

Devolving talent and skills requires time. There is always new people coming in but they do not come in immediately to the higher level positions. They start lower and possibly work their way up. If your top performers are leaving soon after they reach that "top performer" level, you will have less top performers. So, you recognize their benefit to your company and provide better benefits to try to keep keep them happy or you illegally collude with your competition and peers to not offer benefits greater then you or flat out refuse to hire them away from each other at any cost. These companies chose the later method.

Re:In other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you stop using the word "talent" to refer to employees? It is retarded.

And yet

[Spy Handler]

how could these companies say with a straight face that they only want more H1B visa employees due to lack worker shortage and not because they're trying to find cheaper labor?

Re:And yet

[thieh]

Their straight answer is that the industry needs more workers or otherwise they will be forced to break such agreements and push up the wages which make the other firm to go on a head hunt and jack up the wages further.

Re:And yet

[Entrope]

They could say that with a straight face because the two ideas ("worker shortage" and "cheaper labor") are two sides of the same coin. If there are more workers in a market, the average (or median) salary of an arbitrary engineer goes down. By definition, a shortage exists in any market when the price exceeds what buyers would like to pay. This is essentially why the "natural rate" of unemployment is not zero: There are workers who are not willing to accept the jobs that companies are willing to offer them.

As a trivial case, imagine two companies trying to hire one very specialized worker: A canny worker will be able to get the greatest salary that either company is willing to pay. If there are suddenly two workers available, that leverage goes away, and it is much harder for either worker to bargain up a salary.

Re:And yet

[Anonymous Coward]

How horrible! Workers should be completely disposable, just like any common tool or machinery. Only the owners are truly indispensable.

Re:And yet

[roman_mir]

It's not about who is dispensable or not, companies do not exist to hire people, they exist to make products / provide services that allow the owners to make money, that's the purpose of a company. Hiring employees becomes necessary when there is more work that can be done, where the cost of hired labour is lower than the value produced by that labour. If you make labour cost too high, less of it will be bought, because the value produced by that labour may not be enough to cover the cost and to make some profit, and the whole point of business is to generate profit, otherwise it's not a business but a hobby. Hobbies have their place in life too, nothing wrong with hobbies, but hobbies can lose money, while businesses can only survive if they make money. Making money is the point and labour is just like any other tool or machinery, that's exactly what happens. Labour cost competes with capital cost, make labour cost too high and capital may win, which means automating or outsourcing the labour (capital wins in this case in terms of setting up the infrastructure necessary to outsource labour).

If everybody ran their own company and nobody wanted to work for anybody else, then you'd have the exact situation where everybody was an owner and there would be no employees, but in some situation the cost of labour would be too high, and so the price offered for labour would go up. Then some people who are making less money running their own businesses than what could be offered to them to work for other employees could shut down their businesses and go work for someone else.

The problem in USA is not that Google and Apple had agreements not to hire from each other, it's that there are so few employers at all, and that's a problem of business costs being too high thanks to government rules, taxes, regulations, litigation costs, inflation etc.

Re:And yet

[Entrope]

People would turn down jobs at Google or Apple on salary grounds if there were a surplus of workers. Almost everyone seems to agree that there is a shortage (according to the usual definition in economics). This case was brought because large companies -- by all accounts -- illegally colluded to counteract that shortage, and thereby suppress their employees' wages.

Re:And yet

[vux984]

The solution to H1B visa employees is to simply have combination of a wage requirement plus an annual tariff on H1B visa employees such that the total cost of the H1B visa employee is higher than the median employee costs.

If the companies still want H1B visa employees then there is a genuine shortage, and they'll pay what it takes to get employees.

If suddenly they don't want piles H1B visas and start hiring locally, well.. that tells us there wasn't really a shortage.

Given H1B employees tend to get paid less though, I expect that's the main reason they are desirable.

Re:And yet

[Anonymous Coward]

> If you make labour cost too high, less of it will be bought

This is meaningless and really the reason I'm modding you down. You have tried to equate rising wages to labor cost to anti-business. The rest of the post is either statement of facts (redundant as it does not lend to an argument) or statements of opinion about orthogonal concerns (offtopic). Specifically, your only point, that I can see, was to characterize a business running at a loss as a hobby and then what that means to you. Let's nevermind the horrendous losses Amazon suffered around the millenium, it was only a hobby.

Re:And yet

[Johnny Mnemonic]

"free market principles," collusion between competitors destroys the free market. The same is true on the other side too, iow unions. I suspect you don't support unions, right? suppressing worker's wages not through lack of demand or value, but by constraining supply through secret conspiracy, is not a free market. It's just the same as the same companies conspiring to raise prices on their goods and refuse to compete with each other, which prevents the Invisible Hand of the market from working correctly.

Re:And yet

[Livius]

They only hire people really, really good at the straight face.

(Or they're actually mentally ill from the cognitive dissonance.)

Re:And yet

[darkseid]

Are you posting because the pages to your copy of "Atlas Shrugged" are stuck together again?

Re:And yet

[udachny]

I am not against unions that do not derive their power from government, so if you want to start your own union, you should be able to, however as an employer, I should not be compelled to work with a union, so I should be able to fire all people in the union, it's my discretion. Agreement between two companies not to hire employees from each other is suboptimal, but nowhere near the scale of damage that government causes with rules and regulations and taxation and inflation. As I said, the problem here is not that Apple and Google decided to agree not to hire from each other, the problem is that there are so few companies in the first place that such agreements can even be noticed.

How small and pathetic is the true state of USA economy when such irrelevant to the larger picture agreements become items of discussion? I will tell you how sad, small and pathetic the true state of USA economy is.

34% of American households feel they are worse off now than in 2008. So more than a third of American households feel that during today's so called "recovery" they are worse off than during the year 2008, the year when the economic crisis hit USA.

Again, the problem is so few employers are out there and unamerican unconstitutional decisions like this one by this court will not help at all, not even a little, it only makes it worse.

---
Anyway, enjoy my last comment here, I had to use my backup account to leave this one. The moderators are already in full swing right now all over my comments, as they often are, making sure that I cannot participate in this discussion. Once they push the 'karma' low enough, I'll not be able to continue leave comments for a while, which is the point I take it, to ensure that the echo-chamber is unchallenged.

Re:And yet

[TiggertheMad]

This is essentially why the "natural rate" of unemployment is not zero: There are workers who are not willing to accept the jobs that companies are willing to offer them.

It is also interesting to point out that there is an 'Unemployment Rate' statistic that is computed, but I don't think there is a corresponding 'Empty Job' statistic that is tracked in a similar fashion. In a perfect world, would the only thing preventing X workers from filling the X job openings in society be the negotiated rate of pay? (After all, everybody has their price.)

Re:And yet

[Dutch Gun]

I'm pretty sure the reason you were modded as flamebait is that you appear to be rather sympathetic to two multi-billion dollar corporations that were illegally conspiring to suppress the true market value of the wages of their highly skilled employees. You also touched a particularly sensitive nerve by justifying the use of outsourcing, something bound to be pretty unpopular on this site, so it's not too surprising. I do agree with some of the points you made. But it's the last paragraph that's the killer.

The problem in USA is not that Google and Apple had agreements not to hire from each other...

It doesn't matter what excuse you provide after that. That's the topic at hand, and that's what their punishment is all about. I agree that there are too many government rules, taxes, regulations, litigation costs. But you can't use that to justify what these companies did. It was wrong, plain and simple, as well as being illegal. These are not companies that are desperately trying to stay profitable - one could understand if not condone the actions if they were unable to turn a profit due to skyrocketing labor costs. This is just trying to maximize profits at the expense of their workers - nothing more than that.

Despite my personal disagreement with your position, your point was stated clearly, without inflammatory language or personal attacks. Unfortunately, -1 Flamebait all too often means "I vehemently disagree with you and wish to show my displeasure / suppress your viewpoint". It's petty and narrow-minded to mod someone down just because you disagree with someone. Goodness knows we can't actually have people disagreeing about something more substantial than one's personal choice of code editor.

Re:And yet

[sjames]

If there was actually a shortage, all of those companies would insist on being free to poach where they could to make sure their own needs are met. If they can afford to ignore a large pool of potential employees, they aren't suffering from a shortage.

Re:And yet

[Belial6]

Even better is to require the company to hire a local worker at equal wages who produce nothing. The premise of H1B is that there are no local workers with the correct skill set to do the job. let the company hire all the H1Bs that they want. Just make them pay full wages to a local worker to train them to do the job. Given that this will double the pay that the companies claim is the prevailing wage, even if they are driving wages down, it will still cost them significantly more than just a local worker. This will give them incentive to actually train the local so that an H1B is not necessary. This would give businesses the flexibility to get workers when needed, while protecting the future by improving the skills of locals.

Re: And yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, the association with Hitler rhetoric? Sure, fascists and authoritarians and totalitarians make those kinds of promises. And a doctor or person seeking investments makes the same kind of promises as a con artist or quack doctor.

It's almost as if you can't know people by the hats they wear and have to show some discernment.

Even roman_Mir here is promising some idealistic freedom with his advocacy. At best, it is naive. At worst? He knows it won't work, but sells the fair tale anyway.

Unfortunately, your particular spiel is just a tired and baseless bit that makes for its own trope.

Re:And yet

[phorm]

Even at wage/cost parity, it still might not cover the benefit of having an employee who is beholden to the company and less likely to report unpaid overtime and/or poor working conditions etc.

Look at the situation in Canada with TFW's. Approximately the same pay, but employees were benefiting from the ability to shaft employees while holding the "we'll pull your work visa if you don't tow the line" card.

Re:And yet

[MightyMartian]

H1Bs from New Jersey get a lot of grief.

Re:And yet

[JanneM]

Given the premises of this thread (the costs and salaries of work immigration need to be controlled by the state), here a half-serious suggestion:

Have work immigrants be employed by your federal govermnent, not by the company they work for. The immigrant reports their working hours and conditions to the government, and they get their salary paid out from there. The government dispatches the worker to the company, and get the salary and other costs paid back from them.

The great benefit is that the worker is no longer there at the mercy of the company, and has no incentive to accept bad conditions or missing pay checks from them. And in any labour dispute they have the backing of a major legal and administrative organization. The government gets a clear view of exactly who the work immigrants are and what they do for their employers. The companies are relieved of some of the responsibility for these workers. Everybody has a common, single point of focus where they can turn in case of problems.

Re:And yet

[AK Marc]

companies ... exist ... to make money.

Companies are "people." Why do people exist? Companies exist so people can pool resources to do what people do. What do people do?

For your statement to be correct, the sole purpose of people existing must be to make a profit. That is suitably flamebait.

The problem in USA is not that Google and Apple had agreements not to hire from each other, it's that there are so few employers at all, and that's a problem of business costs being too high thanks to government rules, taxes, regulations, litigation costs, inflation etc.

And that's loonitarian bullshit. Lower regulations, and there are more worker deaths, and more profits, but not more jobs (except to replace the dead workers). When the minimum wage goes down, there aren't more jobs, there are fewer. When the minimum wage goes up, there aren't fewer jobs, but more. Reality proves loontarians wrong every time. That's why you are flamebait.

Re:And yet

[serviscope_minor]

Despite my personal disagreement with your position, your point was stated clearly, without inflammatory language or personal attacks. Unfortunately, -1 Flamebait all too often means "I vehemently disagree with you and wish to show my displeasure / suppress your viewpoint". It's petty and narrow-minded to mod someone down just because you disagree with someone. Goodness knows we can't actually have people disagreeing about something more substantial than one's personal choice of code editor.

This is why I have roman_mir on my friends list, so /. automatically up-mods him for me. I rarely agree with his conclusions, but his posts are generally well thought out and argued. However, they're usually downmodded to hell, because people disagree.

Re:And yet

[serviscope_minor]

As to slavery, thievery, murder all of those concepts are government concepts first and foremost and in a free market economy people don't need governments to deal with any of it, private courts and private security is enough to deal with aberrations.

Well how do you force people to abide by the private courts? If you force it by virtue of private security, then you're just a de-facto government and have become what apparently you don't need.

Re:And yet

[Rockoon]

I agree that there are too many government rules, taxes, regulations, litigation costs. But you can't use that to justify what these companies did. It was wrong, plain and simple, as well as being illegal.

How was it "wrong" and why is "illegal" something we care about?

Behold the ordinance of laborers which made it illegal to "entice away" other peoples employees (and also fixed waged to low levels, and required everyone under the age of 60 to work.)

Just because the government says its illegal that does not make it wrong. As you see here one of the first labor laws of the western world pretty much mandated exactly what these two companies were doing. It can be argued that such laws were necessary at the time because there was an extreme labor shortage. Well now there is an extreme jobs shortage. It is clear is that governments do not always enact laws that are to the benefit of the working class, and that changing conditions can also alter what is beneficial and what is not.

Now, for something to be "wrong" as you declare then you need to argue the morality of it. This is something you have not done but instead have simply taken it for granted that these agreements are wrong.

If you hold the belief that the liberty of all people should be equal, then I believe that your morality should lead you to the conclusion that these sorts of agreements are not "wrong." To outlaw these agreements is to weigh the liberty of the worker above that of the liberty of the employer. I personally think that a discriminating application of liberty is despicable. I believe that you could argue a philosophy that put such discrimination into the "morally right" category but I do not think that you would feel good about yourself while making it because you would know that the philosophy itself is reprehensible.

"but they are rich!" is not an excuse any more than "but they are black!", "but they are women!", or "but they are gay!"

...liberty and justice for all.

Re:And yet

[Entrope]

You failed economics, didn't you? If they recruit employees from other companies, they have to make better offers, and they will have to make better counter-offers to their own employees to counteract poaching by other companies. They do not have bottomless pits of money for salary; they calculated that it was better to have a conspiracy against poaching than to try to poach. (There was also Apple's threat of patent lawsuits if Google in particular didn't agree to the deal.)

Re:And yet

[geoskd]

The problem in USA is not that Google and Apple had agreements not to hire from each other, it's that there are so few employers at all, and that's a problem of business costs being too high thanks to government rules, taxes, regulations, litigation costs, inflation etc.

No, the problem is the free market economy. Economists will tell you that the proper functioning of free markets requires several things. First, It can exist only in the presence of proper supply and demand. This requirement has a prerequisite: Scarcity. without scarcity, Supply and demand cannot work, and the free market economy adjusts to create artificial scarcity.

This problem is compounded in the labor market, where disenfranchised individuals go on to have very high costs for society. The markets approach to these (obsolete) people is to simply discard them, but in sufficient quantities these people can and will destroy society through political action, or in extreme cases, military action.

Both of these problems are compounded by technology which allows the general elimination of scarcity, especially in the labor market. This is having the effect of eroding one of the fundamental requirements of capitalism. In the 1930s, it took a radical social agenda to rip large amounts of capital away from the capitalists and basically give it to the bottom 10% to restore a temporary stability to the markets. Welfare, medicare and social security are all socialist concepts, and yet have been one of the only long term solutions to the problems listed above.

The problem with socialist programs is that, like anarchy, they cant truly exist outside of specific government protections because they require a power vacuum, and as soon as that exists, it is filled by the first people to show up (the last people you want in power).

Re:And yet

[TapeCutter]

Game of Thrones

Is a fucking TV series, the reason it's popular is the same reason Shakespeare has lasted so long, it paints a compelling and simplistic picture of human behaviour. Humans are apes, they have a complex hierarchical social structure. Like most of us here you're nowhere near the top of that structure and never will be no matter how much you rant about how the current rules stopping you from owning your own court and dealing out your personal idea of justice via your own personal jackbooted militia. Be honest with yourself and your readers, come out and tell them straight you desire to be their demi-god.

From memory you're in your 40's and have been posting your incoherent garbage for years, isn't it about time you grew up, got over yourself, and cheered the fuck up!.

Re:And yet

[Entrope]

Not really. People consider factors besides salary when choosing jobs -- location, fringe benefits, work content, prestige, and more -- and there are other constraints on worker/job compatibility. A married person might become a homemaker if it takes too much effort to find a job that is sufficiently attractive; moving to a different city is expensive, especially for someone who expects low earnings; an employer cannot have a workforce that consists entirely of people who are learning to be productive in their jobs; the list goes on.

Most fundamentally, though, the number of available jobs is flexible in a way that defies quantification. If an employer has unmet demand, they could hire more workers if they can find workers at a low enough salary. It might be cheaper for the employer to hire more people who are individually less productive than to hire more-skilled workers. Automation and other forms of labor substitution further complicate the equilibrium. In contrast, the number of people who have applied for unemployment assistance is very easy to measure.

Re:And yet

[AmiMoJo]

Unions are necessary because of the huge imbalance of power between the employer and the employee. The company can replace most of its staff easily and at minimal cost. Most employees can't afford to be out of work for long.

Re:And yet

[Dutch Gun]

As a society, we make value judgments all the time about what sort of behaviors should be allowed or prohibited when engaging in commerce. Most of them are based on nothing more than a simple application of the golden rule, or other basic tenants of morality that most societies can agree upon: Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't cheat. Etc, etc.

I wish you luck in trying to argue that, from a moral perspective, two corporations should have the right to secretly negotiate in order to suppress their employee salaries and maximize their profits. Don't lie. Don't cheat. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Re:And yet

[Seumas]

Fortunately, abundant litigation when dealing with US employees will surely make them want to hire more US employees, in the future.

Re:And yet

[thrich81]

"the reason a government exists is to serve the people, not to earn a profit
- wrong. The reason that governments exist is our inertia, laziness and jealousy. Originally governments were all nobility with the power in hand to kill you."
No, you both are wrong on this count. The reason governments exist is because nation-states with organized governments can out-compete any other form of human organization both economically and militarily. It is conceivable that this is a local minimum in human organizational effectiveness but it has been true for some thousands of years now (often with a closely integrated religion included). This statement of reality says nothing about the desirability or morality of government but it is a statement of fact for now. Will some super-national organizations (multinational corporations) superseded governments some day -- I hope not in my lifetime. As far as the libertarian dream of loosely organized self-reliant bands of free living peoples becoming dominant? -- it's been tried, isn't going to happen.

Re:And yet

[MrKaos]

I am not against unions that do not derive their power from government, so if you want to start your own union, you should be able to, however as an employer, I should not be compelled to work with a union, so I should be able to fire all people in the union, it's my discretion. Agreement between two companies not to hire employees from each other is suboptimal, but nowhere near the scale of damage that government causes with rules and regulations and taxation and inflation. As I said, the problem here

Free assembly is the primary expression of democracy. For you to asset that an employer with 100's of millions of dollars of resources can contrive legal agreements, collude with each other and fire people at their discretion because they exercise those rights is an admission that America is not a democracy but a corpocracy. You're suggesting as soon as ordinary people openly, legally, democratically, get together, combine resources for their mutual benefit it's your opinion that they should be un-employable. What about the companies that *do* want to do the right thing by their employees but can't because they have to compete with these unetical entities who act in secret collusion to derive profit from supressing their employees salaries?

These corporations operate in western countrys that protects them by rule of law devised by citizens. These companies don't deserve to enjoy the benefits of operating in a stable environment provided by a democracy if they are not going to pull their weight in securing the prosperity of the citizens who provide that stability. If the free market determines that the price of a good or service should increase because it's in demand then that applies to people as well. If their skills are in demand because they invested in education to develop it then why shouldn't they profit from the investment in their education free of any hidden machinations to suppress the very free market these corporations expect to profit in.

Most IT workers I know don't belong to a union because they expect companies operate by the same principles that drive a free market. Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe have created a precedence that demanded a response that no-one in IT should have ever had to seek all because they didn't want to share the prosperity of the IT industry with the people who make up the IT industry. Clear examples of corporations working to suppress the free market and upset the balance that has negated the need for unions in the IT industry for decades.

Re:And yet

[ultranova]

It's not about who is dispensable or not, companies do not exist to hire people, they exist to make products / provide services that allow the owners to make money, that's the purpose of a company.

People start companies to institutionalize some set of goals, typically including making money. Society supports this, for example by acknowledging the existence of a company as a legal entity, because of the side effects, such as employment. Other tie-in groups have their own reasons to either support or oppose a company, which will naturally affect its ability to meet its goals. So yes, companies absolutely exist to employ people, and should expect to face official and unofficial penalties if they ignore that duty.

One might even argue that the entire concept of "business" is the art of giving other people opportunities to further their goals by furthering yours.

The problem in USA is not that Google and Apple had agreements not to hire from each other, it's that there are so few employers at all, and that's a problem of business costs being too high thanks to government rules, taxes, regulations, litigation costs, inflation etc.

Success is always due to genius leadership, while failure is always someone else's fault, eh? Or more generally: profits are private but losses are public.

The problem in the US and elsewhere is that we let companies grow to the point where their failure would cause a cascade failure in economy, hence they are "too big to fail" and thus outside the normal regulation systems of capitalism. Also, even if a company does go down in flames, the leadership sails away with their golden parachutes, to direct other companies to their doom, and it's only the powerless rank and file who suffer due to no fault of their own.

Re:And yet

[MrKaos]

Behold the ordinance of laborers which made it illegal to "entice away" other peoples employees (and also fixed waged to low levels, and required everyone under the age of 60 to work.)...

during the black plague in England in the 1300's - hardly relevant now.

Just because the government says its illegal that does not make it wrong.

And just because something is legal does not make it just.

If you hold the belief that the liberty of all people should be equal, then I believe that your morality should lead you to the conclusion that these sorts of agreements are not "wrong."

Well, the agreements are between corporations, not people - so that argument is a strawman.

To outlaw these agreements is to weigh the liberty of the worker above that of the liberty of the employer. I personally think that a discriminating application of liberty is despicable.

A corporation may have the same rights as a human, but it is not a human. The concept of a Proprietary Limited Liability Company already *is* an application of liberty that is despicable because it is absolved from the full responsibility for its actions. It's liability is limited, a person's is not.

...liberty and justice for all.

How does a corporation pledge allegience to anything not in it's corporate charter?

Re:And yet

[russotto]

Guess what? There is a minimum wage requirement on H1Bs.

Given a lack of standardized job titles, it's easy enough to fudge. Anyway, H1Bs are so dominant in some areas that their salaries set the prevailing wage.

There is a $6,000+ processing fee for H1Bs that act as tarrifs.

Not high enough to be significant.

A local worker can take an H1Bs job away at anytime by meeting the absolute minimum requirement of the job description and the job description must be posted in public at the company.

The first part isn't even true, and in any case the job description typically includes things which work out to "experience in this particular position.

The main problem is that H1B is 90% Indian and Chinese and there is a certain "hate" for such people. Do people ever mean H1B employees from England, Australia, Netherlands etc? Nope. By H1B, they mean Indian and Chinese high tech workers.

You can put the race card down now. About 64% are Indian, 8% Chinese. Do you ever see rooms full of nothing but English H-1B workers, with maybe one token American in sight? How about French? Australian? Japanese? You DO see that with Indian H-1Bs. Why is that, do you think?

Re:And yet

[junglee_iitk]

The only problem with your solution is that you are still assuming that the government works for the people. Government works for lobbies, and people are not a lobby.

Re:And yet

[sjames]

Actually, no I didn't but you may have. An actual shortage would mean they couldn't find enough people to maximize their own productivity. They would be leaving money on the table for a lack of employees necessary to do the needed work.

In such a case, they will prefer to pay a bit more for the employees so they can scoop up that money on the table.

At the same time, they would also be more flexible about hiring older engineers, offering scholarships, more telecommute opportunities, etc. If, that is, there was an actual shortage.

Re:And yet

[chihowa]

That it's an undesirable situation is the point. The availability of H1B workers is a construct of US laws and the point of US laws should be to benefit the citizens of the US and the country itself. Hiring foreign workers (and not making them citizens and integrating them into the US) and leaving US workers unemployed and incapable of performing necessary jobs, as well as leaving US-based job functions dependent on foreign citizens, is an undesirable situation for the US and its citizens.

Anything that remedies the situation by training US citizens for US jobs is good for citizens and the country alike. A good clue to this is the fact that very few (if any) other countries have systems in place to displace their own citizens' jobs and deliberately sell out their country's knowledge and skill to foreign interests. Hell... if the whole situation didn't primarily benefit the extremely wealthy, shutting it down in the name of national security would be an easy sell.

Re:And yet

[khallow]

So what makes collusion "artificial"? I imagine there are a number of people who would argue that the problem is that collusion is instead a natural consequence of free, open markets and a "market force," hence, a natural market force, yet one which must be resisted.

My use of the coy third person above is because I think the artificial/natural division is arbitrary, especially when discussing phenomena like markets which tend to be a bit of both. What's artificial in an artificial market?

I also think it's worth remember that while regulation can be helpful to making a "playing field" more level, it's far more useful for making the playing field less level. To give a IT labor example, I think the games surrounding the H1-B program in the US (and the US's abysmal immigration system as a whole) are a good example of that. Those are depressing US labor more than collusion games do IMHO.

Also, I must somewhat echo the grandparent's sentiment (though his legal interpretation is delusional). I don't see that a level playing field is actually that valuable especially if it comes at the expense of stable businesses. And given that the rules in question are readily subverted (and outright flouted), they may actually be harmful by both providing a false sense of security, by providing yet another mechanism for government to selectively enforce such regulation, and by masking market signals that more competition in a sector is viable (if the labor is cheap in a sector due to employer-side collusion then that's yet more incentive for new competitors to enter the market).

Finally, it's worth noting that the collusion fell apart on its own due to a new party (Facebook) "poaching" employees from the existing group (indeed without consequence except to significantly raise labor costs for at least one rival, Google).

Re:And yet

[khallow]

If we're speaking of straightforward stuff, secret negotiations to collude against workers may be wrong, but they aren't lying or stealing, perhaps not cheating either. Lying is the spreading of deliberate falsehoods. Stealing is the taking of someone's property. There's no such thing going on here. Similarly, cheating indicates the business acted unfairly or dishonestly in order to gain advantage. I can see how in some moral systems, fairness can be defined to preclude collusion, but that's only a feature of those particular moral systems.

Re:And yet

[khallow]

I was thinking that as well. I really wish roman_mir would get his community of detractors to stop downmodding my posts.

Re:And yet

[khallow]

Well, the agreements are between corporations, not people

They are between the leaders of these businesses who happen to be people. It would be just as much an act of collusion between people, if none of the businesses were corporations and thus, considered "people" by your viewpoint.

Re:And yet

[Entrope]

You're applying single-stage reasoning to an iterated game, which is a good way to lose in the iterated game. If company X hires an employee from company Y by making a better offer, how should company Y respond in order to maximize its own revenue? (It will almost always involve a counter-offer to the employee, and if that fails, company Y will probably try to hire away another experienced engineer for reasons that Fred Brooks described in The Mythical Man-Month.)

If you don't think there is a shortage of software developers in the US, why are developers in the US paid so much more than ones in Europe?

Also, there is no hard threshold to define an "actual" shortage when you're talking about such a large job market.

Re:And yet

[sjames]

Actually, no. I am well aware of that. It's called supply and demand and it's part of the market. It's funny how free market capitalists suddenly like regulated markets when they might have to pay employees better. What they call a shortage is actually more like the lack of a glut.

If you don't think there is a shortage of software developers in the US, why are developers in the US paid so much more than ones in Europe?

Probably because the U.S. companies insist on being located in the most expensive place in the country. If they were serious about cutting costs, they'd move development to cheaper cities and just maintain a sales office in SV.

Re:And yet

[sysrammer]

Lobbies are people.

Re:And yet

[Entrope]

Meanwhile, in the reality-based community, Apple et al. *found* a free-market solution to their woes, and are now in court because government regulations say that their solution is not allowed.

US software developer salaries are much higher than in Europe when you control for cost of living. For example, most of the big cities in Europe have higher costs of living than Silicon Valley, but software developers earn much less there. You have to look pretty far down the list of US cities -- say, Charlotte (NC) or Peoria (IL) -- to find salaries that are roughly in line with expensive places in Europe. Companies stay in Silicon Valley because of infrastructure, network effects, and because there are a lot of potential employees in the area.

Re:And yet

[sysrammer]

Interesting suggestion. It would solve some problems. Of course, it seems every time we solve a problem we create a problem.

Junglee has a point in his reply. Governments can be just as perverted as corporations, just as can be people.

Business owners won't be happy because they won't be able to pay less-than-minimum wage. To them, this will be the evil govt taking their rights (profits) away from them.

Unless the workers were somehow subsidized. Maybe they can work out some kind of business welfare system like the corporations and farmers get.

Re:And yet

[sjames]

...and because there are a lot of potential employees in the area.

So now you're saying there isn't a shortage?

Re:And yet

[Entrope]

You missed the key word "potential" in that sentence. There are many thousands of good programmers in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco area, although basically are already as employed as they wish to be. In the kind of places where you think a company might be able to relocate, there are probably dozens of programmers with the same level of skills. When a company wants to hire hundreds of good engineers, that is not very useful: they'd need to convince most of their workforce to relocate.

Re:And yet

[sjames]

There are many thousand in any large metro area.

They don't have to have just one office. In fact, many of them do have offices elsewhere that do have staff. They would emphasize those if they were serious about cutting costs. They would also give more consideration to older programmers.

I didn't miss the word 'potential' there. If they weren't potential, they would either already be hired by them or wouldn't matter to the conversation.

Just because I can'tr buy a new Ferrari for $10,000 doesn't mean there's a shortage.

Re:And yet

[MrKaos]

Well, the agreements are between corporations, not people

They are between the leaders of these businesses who happen to be people. It would be just as much an act of collusion between people, if none of the businesses were corporations and thus, considered "people" by your viewpoint.

Indeed, they are the people who represent the company and the company is legally bound to the agreement, not the people who sign it so the OP's point remains a strawman.

Re:And yet

[Lisias]

how could these companies say with a straight face that they only want more H1B visa employees due to lack worker shortage and not because they're trying to find cheaper labor?

One thing doesn't excludes the other.

There's a man-power shortage on T.I. in the whole world, and everybody wants to pay less to the ones that are still working in the field.

Re:And yet

[dgatwood]

At its core, the purpose of government—and by this, I mean any legitimate government, as opposed to tyranny—is to protect the powerless from the powerful. Nation states with organized governments can out-compete other forms of organization precisely because they limit abuse by those with power, allowing those without power to flourish, thus creating a larger market for goods and services.

The reason we have labor laws is not merely that some companies will abuse workers, but rather that any labor contract is inherently not an agreement between equals. With the exception of people who have enough money to retire, the employee will always need the job more than the employer needs that particular person in the job. Therefore, the employee is relatively powerless in any negotiation, and the employer is powerful. Governments regulate those agreements to ensure that companies do not abuse their power to harm individuals who have little choice but to continue working (unless they want to starve).

Labor unions are another approach to balancing employers' power. These groups have many advantages and disadvantages. Their biggest advantage (IMO) is that by pitting the needs of the group as a whole against the employer, they have more leverage to negotiate better terms. Their biggest disadvantage (IMO) is that over time, they tend to become bloated organizations that have trouble representing their members adequately. Either way, to a large degree, labor unions' sole purpose for existing is as a workaround for governments not doing their job properly.

Similarly, the fundamental problem with the argument that free markets are the most moral form of dealing because of a lack of coercion, is that there isn't really a lack of coercion. When you're talking about a local-level free market, there isn't much coercion. You can always go to another store if you don't like the way one store behaves. But when you start looking at companies whose industries have high barriers to entry, such as high tech, infrastructure, and so on, that ceases to be true, because those industries tend to consolidate into monopolies or oligopolies that have much more power than consumers by their very nature. Governments can help restore the balance of power between consumers and those companies in many ways—regulation, socialization, trust busting, and so on. In the absence of action, in such markets, abuse runs rampant.

Re:And yet

[vux984]

Even at wage/cost parity

Re-read my post -- I never said parity. I want the H1B employees to come at a premium.

Look at the situation in Canada with TFW

The Canadian TFW program has depressed wages; and one of its signature features was the ability to import 'low cost labor". It doesn't really exemplify your point.

That aside, I concede the hold employers have over TFW employees itself creates its own problems. But if they were paying a significant premium for TFW employees; it wouldn't be much different than "over paying locals" in terms of motivating them to "toe the line".*

  (Its "toe" not "tow" by the way, as in metaphorically to stand with their toes against a hypothetical line -- a symbol of conformity to rules / authority)

Re:And yet

[ultranova]

Goal of a company is to make profits.

Goal of a politician is to stay in power.

The goal of a company executive is to stay in power and make money while they're at it. The goal of a goverment is the success of their country.

If you want to criticize government, do so honestly. Comparing the goals of an organization to those of an individual in another organization is transparently deceptive, and won't convince anyone.

As to slavery, thievery, murder all of those concepts are government concepts first and foremost and in a free market economy people don't need governments to deal with any of it, private courts and private security is enough to deal with aberrations.

So you'd be happy to let your grievances be settled by a judge who's being paid by your opponent? And any resulting decisions enforced by private enforcers who are likewise in their payroll?

Or did you simply figure you'll only go to court against people poorer than you?

Re:"Don't be evil"? My ass

[wannabgeek]

I got a good deal on a bridge for you. It's between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

They are not interested. They already built a bridge between Mountain View and Cupertino!

WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[redelm]

Settlement? What settlement? This is a prima facie Clayton Act Anti-Trust violation. Multiple felonies, with jailtime due. Amazingly, this appearently exists on paper, so everyone who negotiated or signed it should go to jail.

The Clayton Act makes organizing supplier boycotts a prohibited activity. And that's just what they have done -- organized a boycott not to hire an employee, times the collective number.

That this has not gone to a Federal Grand Jury appears more like corruption than anything else.

Hang them by balls ..

[MonsterMasher]

Damn right it's too low!
.
Those bastards need to spend time behind f.ing bars, when you consider the pain ans suffering, moving, family brake-ups and suicides this kind of shit ends up doing to people, mostly men.
.
F.ing Tech companies of this size .. just go through top admin, and ALL boards of Directors, and take a vote for each manager, and nail there testicles or pussylips to boards and hall them up in the air ..
.
and let those that suffered, or anyone in the tech industry a bottle of salt water they can use to clean these people's wounds as they hang.. and tell them how it made you feel, to live with too little money .. they will pay attention if you spray when their eye's move away..
.
Thank them one for me!

Re:Hang them by balls ..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how people are so pro-corporate freedom, and yet are so vehemently against the idea that a CEO should be tried for murder whenever that company's product kills somebody. It's almost like a different set of rules exists for people and corporations, as if they're entirely different entities that serve different purposes in an economy.

Re: Hang them by balls ..

[AK Marc]

Government has no authority to dictate any salary to anybody whatsoever, it usurped that power that it didn't have and destroyed individual freedoms.

It didn't. It stated that collusion to prevent people from earning a living was illegal collusion.

As to people being out of work, the exact opposite is the case. Without laws that make it extremely expensive and difficult and dangerous (litigation) to hire and fire people, more people have jobs.

It was "free" to hire and fire people, they just illegally colluded to not hire competent people in order to taint the free market. You say that barriers to hiring and firing are bad, it was the companies that erected barriers, not the workers, or the government.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[Entrope]

How was it a boycott if the engineers in question still had jobs?

and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Joe_Dragon]

and now we just use H-1B they don't complain about there pay or hours they don't even want to rock the boat as if they get fired they have to get out of the usa right way.

It's time for an union in IT RIGHT NOW.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad. Fucking. Examples.

Lawyers have the bar association.
Doctors have AMA.

They're basically trade guilds that limit entry and make legal & medical expenses ridiculously high.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors and Lawyers have large lobbying bodies (AMA and ABA, respectively) that represent their interests. Does a comparably large organization exist for Programmers?

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[iced_773]

The ACM could be........but it isn't.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[JoeMerchant]

There's a local shop that hires a mix of experienced developers, kids still in college, and H1Bs... they have horrendous turnover (average tenure 1 year is because the H1Bs stay put. The college kids bolt at first opportunity, and the experienced ones seems to find better things fairly often too...

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

They're not strictly speaking unions though.

If you want something like the AMA ABA for programmers, that would be fine. So long as neither group does collective employment negotiations for contracts or requires that all employment contracts go through them.

If I can hire a programmer or a programmer can contract on his own without interference from such a group... then that's fine. I believe people and companies should be free to hire whomever they want on whatever terms they want. The point of a larger organization would be to give workers some leverage in those discussions as well as get laws passed to allow workers to object to company directives on ethical, safety, moral, legal, etc grounds.

This does not address the H1B situation but that's largely the result of the chamber of commerce getting co-opted by some unsavory people and the political parties seeing it as in their interest to dilute domestic voting blocks.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

You're saying you want accreditation and expert advocates to separate the men from the boys.

I have no problem with that. You don't need a trade union for that though.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[sjames]

Apparently they do, since both professions have one. Further, both professional bodies have their authority enshrined in law.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Skuld-Chan]

I'm a software packager and I'm represented by a union. I work along side a bunch of programmers, dba's, unix and windows admins - and we are all represented.

I like to think of our union as a catch all - they blow the whistle and step in when management fucks up. A good example of this is they screwed up the budget for raises this year - our representatives stepped in and worked with management to fix that.

I guess if you work somewhere where your managers aren't a bunch of fuckups - you probably don't need a union. For everyone else - don't kid yourself.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[nedlohs]

Well done. Pick the two most unionized professions on the planet as your examples of not needing unions!

Their AMA and the bars have got themselves so deeply in the system you effectively can't practice those professions at all without being a union member.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

Sure, and if a dictatorship calls itself a democracy then its a democracy.

Listen you cheeky little fool, AMA is not a union. You don't get hired by the AMA. You get hired by the company. That is not how a union works. Your employment is controlled by the union.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

Unions don't do that. They keep people in with seniority, not competence.

Look at the teacher's unions. They literally are protecting pedophiles and even some teachers that are literally illiterate.

THAT is what unions do. Now, I grasp your concerns. But if you want that, you want something similar to what doctors and lawyers have. Not what teachers and auto workers have.

And even then, there are incompetent doctors and lawyers. Its just less common.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

The protection is that their authority is enshrined in law. And IT people and programmers should likewise have that same sort of privilege. They have too much responsibility to not have a special relationship.

Once that is in place, you really don't need anything else.

Most of the problems we've run into have come from management giving unethical orders to programmers and IT people.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[AK Marc]

Listen you cheeky little fool, AMA is not a union. You don't get hired by the AMA. You get hired by the company. That is not how a union works. Your employment is controlled by the union.

Nope. When you "work for a union" you are hired by Bob's Electrics, and you are a member of the IBEW. If you let your IBEW membership lapse, then you can lose your employment. The same is true with lawyers. If you want to work as a lawyer for Bob's Lawfirm, you must join the Bar. If you get disbarred while a lawyer, you lose your job as well. But the whole time, you work for Bob, not the union.

The AMA and ABA are unions. They are trade organizations you must join to be in that job.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[AK Marc]

THAT is what unions do.

Nope. They protect workers from arbitrary and capricious firings. If the teacher is a pedophile, prove it and fire them. If they are literally illiterate, prove it and fire them. Whining about not being able to prove it to fire them is the reason the unions exist. To stop jackasses like you from making unfounded accusations and expecting mass firings.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read a lot of posts in this thread and it is amazingly clear to me that most of the posters here, who I assume are mostly from the US, simply do NOT know how a union works. I'm not sure why this would be, but I do realise that there is a lot of disinformation in the US about unions and they are not held in very high regard.

Here in Australia a union works like this:

  - You are hired by your employer as normal.

  - Some workplaces have compulsory union membership, which would have been previously negotiated. If you don't like it, don't take a job there. It's an interesting political debate, but at the end of the day, the compulsory union membership is to the advantage of the union which is to the advantage of the worker.

  - If you enter a dispute with your employer then you can ask the union for help. AND THEY WILL. Legal aid, counselling, wage advice, negotiating. All you guys on here saying "I should be free to negotiate my own contract" well guess what: you fucking can. But with a union, they're there to help you when that all goes tits up. Like when you get fired. If it was an illegal firing then the union can pursue legal means (with a much larger war-chest than you have) to either reinstate you, or, ensure you are paid all due severance payments.

  - If a group of you at work (who are all union members) are unhappy then the union will take note and with the will of the members (unions often vote before taking action like this) will pursue industrial action like holding a strike. This group mentality may sound a bit weird to you guys over there in the US, but it's actually a wonderful thing: people looking out for each other, people supporting each other, and being part of a community.

  - In case it wasn't obvious, union membership levies a small fee each year (usually a few hundred dollars, but it varies widely) to help fund its operation.

So I hope that's a better picture about unions and how they work. Are they perfect? Of course not, and they can become too powerful for their own good. And, it would be pretty frustrating have a problem, and to be a member of a union, but not receive any support from it. But to say that "all unions are bad" is a ridiculous overreaction.

In my opinion: anyone slating unions either doesn't know what they are, or, is actively against them since an organised and informed workforce can demand (shock, horror) better working conditions and higher wages.

For the rest of you, how's that clause in your contract prohibiting you from EVEN TALKING about your wage with other workers? Just stop and think about that for a fucking second. You guys are being fucked and you don't even know it. Where's this magical free speech you keep banging on about?

You know what it is? I've actually worked for a few companies in the US and I've been there, at ground zero, when someone has been instantly fired (typically illegal in Australia) and frog-marched out of the building. During the coffee break everyone was up in arms, shocked, and ranting about how unfair it was. Then, HR held the meeting in the afternoon to "debrief" and every person there clammed up tighter than a nun's bum. It was a fucking joke. No one was prepared to say a word. I stepped up and chewed out HR, chewed out the boss, and told them all they were a pack of pussies. But what I didn't realise at the time was that everyone was terrified of being fired. And I think the number one reason for that was the health care situation in the US. You guys are slaves to that system and until you pull your heads out of your arses and sort out the health care, then changes to workers rights and employment conditions will just be icing on a turd.
 

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

Okay, so long as you admit that you're irrational on the subject and simply want unions for their own sake.

If you actually think unions are utterly blameless and have a completely undeserved bad reputation then fine. Live in that fantasy world.

Everyone I know that has any contact with unions has revealed only corruption, coercion, and theivery.

Am I saying they're utterly without value? Of course not. Against the worst sorts of businesses and employers they are often the last resort. What is more, they are a reasonable response to the plight of unskilled labor.

However, they serve no utility for skilled labor. Which is in large part why they're in rapid decline. Because most of the positions unions would otherwise have represented are increasingly skilled labor. If you can go anywhere and get people to fight over your contract then why do you need a union?

You need a union when you're easily replaceable and have no skills that are particularly rare.

If you're a low level IT drone then maybe you need a union. But if you're much of a step above that then you don't.

As to what the tech companies did in this case... its clearly fraud and I agree that people should go to jail for it.

They won't and this union talk not only will not accomplish that but I can guarantee you that most of the people you presume to include in the union will fight against you to avoid being represented by you.

The problem here is that the unions often do not have the interests of the workers in mind. They are often mostly concerned with the union itself. And that often means workers get hurt or just as bad the industry that the workers supply with labor is damaged.

What good is it to auto workers for example if the auto companies go out of business? You want to call that win?

the only places unions are doing well is in government. And only there because they can draw upon tax dollars to subsidize their excesses. Even so, many towns have gone totally bankrupt because the compensations became excessive. And that isn't compensations just to the mayor or whatever but rather blanket compensations to everyone.

You want me to tell you what a city sanitation worker makes in many cities? You want to pretend that we couldn't find someone else to do that job for a lot less? And who pays for it? Everyone.

That is what your unions are doing these days. And while some might be insane enough to want to spread that rot around... you will find extreme resistance in the tech industry against the idea.

No one trusts you. We've seen what your ideology has done everywhere it has been given free reign and everyone with a clue wants nothing to do with you.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

I disagree that the interests of the union are absolutely and without reservation the interests of the worker. We have many situations in which a given union will engage in behavior that either harms a portion of the labor pool merely to serve the interests of the union leadership or when the union does something that helps often the senior union members while utterly destroying the younger union members.

I understand quite clearly how unions are SUPPOSED to work.

What you don't seem to grasp is that you do not live everywhere or have knowledge of every place on earth.

I will not presume to tell you how unions work in Australia. You could all be hoping around on Kangaroos for all I know. But in the US, unions are often intensely political organizations that often belong to larger political coalitions. They serve as a source of revenue, labor, and political power for those coalitions. The notion being that there is reciprocity between the two and the unions will get something they want in return for the money, time, and influence.

However, politicians only invest political capital in you when they think they might lose you. Often as not, unions become linked to a given political faction and can't really switch sides if they don't get what they want. They create enemies and that binds them to allies that might not have done anything for them in a long time.

Rather then serving the workers or the unions or the industries, the consequence is to polarize populations and make controversial something that otherwise might not have been controversial. It makes everything adversarial. And often unions and the workers and the industries will suffer as part of regular political quid pro quo gamesmanship. You hurt me yesterday so I'm going to hurt you today.

This means the unions have to protect themselves by getting even more involved... raising dues... increasing political action... and the idea is that whomever you're fighting will break before you do.

Well, what tends to happen over time is that whole industries get turned into scarred battlefields.

Look at the once great city of Detroit.

That is what unions do in the US.

I have no patience for little fools elsewhere in the world that think they know everything about everywhere. You know something about where you live. Congratulations. You don't know much of anything about where we live. Presuming otherwise is merely hubris.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

What makes you think you'd even know bullshit if you saw it, you half educated cybermonkey?

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[AK Marc]

That is what unions do in the US.

No, that's what CEOs do in the US.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[AK Marc]

Okay, so long as you admit that you're irrational on the subject and simply want unions for their own sake.

I never said I wanted them. You are making up shit. Why?

If you actually think unions are utterly blameless and have a completely undeserved bad reputation then fine. Live in that fantasy world.

I never said they were blameless. Why are you lying again? It's not like people can scroll up and see that I never said what you are lying about.

anti-union = lying asshole. I couldn't even get past your second sentence without giving up from the number of lies you've told.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[AK Marc]

I'm not sure how that's relevant to my post.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

Right, because industry is collapsing everywhere in the US...

Oh wait, no it isn't... its just collapsed in places the unions dominate.

I really have no patience for this level of blindness. You want to sign a suicide pact with your ideology?

Go for it. Just leave my name off the list. Your foolishness has destroyed everything its touched. What little growth we have at this point is only found where fools like you have no sway at all.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[AK Marc]

Why do you hold the CEO's blameless for signing the contracts that doomed their companies?

Your blindness is more complete than mine. You have the suicide pact with corporations to rape and pillage.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[mjwalshe]

sorry the only people that work for the Union are the full-time officers?

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

Sure. Just so long as you stop calling kings, "kings" if they do bad things in certain areas of the world. After all, kings sounds like a nice word. Really only good rulers should be allowed to call themselves kings.

And we might as well rename countries or nations that do bad things something besides countries or nations.

And lets do that with world leaders. After all, not all world leaders are bad. But if we call both good and bad world leaders the same name its confusing... right?

All we have to do is get the bad unions in the US to agree with you and stop calling themselves unions.

As soon as that is accomplished, I'd be happy to stop calling them unions.

Until then, their actions reflect upon the whole institution just as any other associated actor reflects upon its peers.

To suggest otherwise is render oneself absurd.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[Karmashock]

A fair number of them only signed those contracts because they really didn't have a choice.

That is supposed to be one the good things about unions. Leverage.

Well, with leverage comes responsibility. If you force companies to comply with your rules then you should be judged for the consequences.

Often as not, they're also compelled by law to obey the unions. The department of labor was set up largely to make the unions even more powerful which had the disastrous results of turning America's manufacturing centers into "the rust belt".

Do I hold the CEO's blameless? No. They could have escaped the trap in much the same way a trapped animal can chew its own arm off to escape. I'd much rather they had done that because it would have been better for the country in the long run if the unions had been resisted more absolutely to the point of corporate destruction. But corporations aren't built like that. They're built to make money. Not have principles or see the long term damages to cultures.

This is ultimately on us as citizens. Part of not having rulers and kings is taking responsibility. The American people collectively have screwed their own country up with a lot of this crap.

The good news is that the hostile politically active unions in the private sector are isolated, demoralized, and shrinking. There are good unions in the US. But you rarely hear about them because they're ACTUALLY concerned with their workers and their industries rather then being proxies for national political games.

I have no problem with the good unions. They are generally well liked by the industries they operate in and don't involve member dues in causes that do not involve the job and industry interests of their workers.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[russotto]

You can start by not signing another contract that forbids you from discussing your pay with fellow employees. Just that one step down the path towards improving workers rights may be enough for you to see the strength that comes from many united to a common cause.

In the US, it doesn't matter whether I sign such a contract or not. It's not valid.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[MrKaos]

You do not live here. You do not understand what we deal with. You do not know our history. You do not know what we are talking about.

Well your corporations operate in Australia and engage in union breaking activities that interfere with the functioning of democracy, probably based on the experiences that made unions the way they are in America today. Beleive it or not, Australia views unions as a functioning expression of democracy - and they work, so no one is lecturing you, but maybe there is something here for you to learn. After all your financial regulators were in Australia recently to learn about the checks and balaces in the Australian economy during the GFC. Perhaps the kangaroo riding, crock wrestling upside down folk may have something other than decent beer to offer.

In the United States, we have unions. They have a history. We know them better then you ever will.

It's unlikely though that you know the history of how your corporation behave outside your borders, especially when they control all of the media that influences the very opinions that you share. Australia however, continues to resist the type of corporate media ownership that limits our access to information.

They have earned a bad reputation for certain types of behavior.

I think that's unfortunate as it really illustrates that people in the US aren't participating in democracy any more than voting, which, iirc is around 17%. Now is the information you got about those unions from personal experiences or from the media outlets that are owned by the corporations that the unions are fighting against. I'm not invaldating what you are saying but I am wondering where the opinion came from.

Speaking of reputations, right now your pharmaceutical companies are lobbing to change the Australain healthcare system so that they can derive further profit from the population, including those who can least afford it. They also lobby to change labour laws in the country and have also been attempting to implement free-trade conditions that by-pass the High-court of our country. Guess which entities are fighting those activities?

The point is that in the US, we have a lot of unions that have done bad things. So many people are not going to be very receptive to expanding their power.

People are scared of the power American corporations yeild and the relentless way they pursue more power at the expense of ordinary people whose opinion of success is that 'they have enough'. This re-inforces that. Americans deserve to be treated a lot better by your corporations because it seems to me that you've lost sight of the things that made your country great in the pursuit of the dollar and, the despotism Franklin predicted is very close indeed.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[AK Marc]

Right, because industry is collapsing everywhere in the US...

How are the steel mills in PA doing? All closed, but they didn't monoculture the place, so it doesn't show as much blight as Detroit?

Industry (large manufacture of end user products) is collapsing everywhere in the US. Apple, the most profitable manufacturer in the USA manufacturers in China. Dell did "final assembly" in the US, but all the parts were made overseas, and now they even do final assembly overseas as well.

The American makers made sure that if they went down, they'd take Detroit with them. It was a deliberate act of sabotage, used as political leverage when they wanted to make demands of the city or state. They won. They got everything they ever wanted, and still ran their companies into the ground. Unions were irrelevant to that incompetence.

But some insane people would rather blame unions than open their eyes to the corruption of Corporate America.

Re:and now we just use H-1B they don't complain

[AK Marc]

A fair number of them only signed those contracts because they really didn't have a choice.

And they treated their employees like shit so often they had no choice but to unionize. Going back to the first "they had no choice" it was the corporation that screwed it up. But yet you hold them blameless.

Toyota manufactures in the USA without UAW "interference", why? Because they don't treat their workers like shit.

The American people collectively have screwed their own country up with a lot of this crap.

"Their" not "our"? Where are you? What country do you claim as "home"?

The corporations screwed it up. They screwed it up so bad, formal aggressive criminal unions were the *only* reasonable response from the workers. Then, once the collevtive workers discussed with the collective owners on an almost even basis, the unions are to blame for every fault, and the management to "blame" for every success.

Why?

as one of the effected people

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda mixed feelings! On one hand, hey I'll get money from it, so cool. On the other, Americans are already VERY expensive to employ compared to equally qualified engineers from many other countries, and it's a globally competitive market. Why employ an American if you can get 4 non-Americans who went to the same universities for the price?

So already US salaries are too high, and this isn't going to help make the US more competitive among major world STEM powers.

Re:as one of the effected people

[oldhack]

Lying prick. You can help by returning your portion of money back.

Re:as one of the effected people

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other, Americans are already VERY expensive to employ compared to equally qualified engineers from many other countries, and it's a globally competitive market.

Largely because the U.S. is a first-world country with clean water, clean air, and other environmental, economic, and cultural attributes that cost money to maintain. Reducing American salaries are going to do worse than nothing to encourage them to pursue careers in the STEM fields. This is why other governments maintain protectionist policies in regards to labor - they understand their responsibilities are to their *own* citizens.

Re:as one of the effected people

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If the Americans are too expensive why would you enter a clandestine agreement to keep recruiters away from yours? Wouldn't you want the overpriced guy to be somebody else's problem? On the other side, why would your competitor be willing to offer a higher salary than you do if you are already paying too much?

This sort of agreement (especially given the legal risk involved) just wouldn't make much sense if you thought that the employees in question were already overpriced.

Re:as one of the effected people

[Skuld-Chan]

Oddly enough I worked at adobe as a TAM (technical account manager) - they let me go and replaced me with 7 Indian employees. The director there was pleased as punch. I heard within a year they lost every support contract I owned - and plenty were worth millions. Funny too - he still works there.

Re:as one of the effected people

[GNious]

Former employer's largest customer had issues with their other vendors all outsourcing support to India, causing constant issues, and a steady stream of complaints internally.
Eventually, that employer lost that customer, with the customer complaining that they were too expensive; a new support-contract was signed, which promised to set up a support-center in India to lower the cost.

Moral of the story: Large companies cannot learn, cannot judge quality and only care about cost.

Note: I'm sure there are lots of people who are perfectly capable in India and other low-cost countries (I know there are - I've worked with some!), but when you outsource to save 75% on labor, you're not getting the most skilled people.

Re:as one of the effected people

[Osgeld]

Americans also dont shit in a open air community ditch

we get paid more cause it cost more to sustain our level of lifestyle, and as far as equally qualified engineers, the fact your calling software monkies engineers shows your level of smug

Re:as one of the effected people

[Skuld-Chan]

I'm sure there are. One thing I noticed though when they were ramping up this initiative (and I was foolishly training them) is they hated to tell anyone - "no" or "sorry thats a bug we'll fix in a patch" or "sorry thats not our issue - its a bug with the xyz driver" - they would drag these customers on for months trying various work-arounds to solve a problem - then when they did seek my advice it look me less than 15-30 minutes to deduce it was a bug - here's when we think a patch might come out.

Re:as one of the effected people

[Yebyen]

You don't get H1B permits for the whole company. You are an American company, you have to fill so many jobs with Americans, and then you are considered for H1Bs. I'm pretty sure that's how it works, you can't just fire all of the locals and staff the whole factory with H1B workers from New Delhi and Guangdong. You also have to show that you made an effort to fill those jobs with qualified Americans and none were available^w willing to work for your pittance, and even then you have a bunch of hoops. So, if all the companies want to keep their pigs from gaining too much weight, they might have to collude together to try and do it... which is of course illegal as we're seeing now.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[JoeMerchant]

The Clayton Act only applies when someone applies it. If you were wronged by these people, bring suit under the Clayton Act and have at them.

Unfortunately, if you're just a bystander, or the statute of limitations has run out, or you have accepted other settlement in the matter, you can't.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[redelm]

Some of those with jobs might have tried to leave! Most likely to escape poor supervisors.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[redelm]

Do you mean to say Standard Oil and AT&T did not donate enough? Methinks they would have.

Not quite accurate

[TiggertheMad]

Unions aren't the same a secret collusion between competitors. A better comparison would be a secret union of all tech workers that required that none of its employees take work with Apple until they raised their entry level salaries for engineers to 500k per year out of desperation. Also, unions are manipulating the invisible hand of the market, but they only exist as a result of the power that currently lies in the hands of capitol. If capitol hadn't collectively acted in a selfish and greedy fashion for the previous thousand years or so, unions would have never been formed. You could say that they are consequence of the invisible hand, but that is sort of a cop out, since any behavior related to the market (up to and including regulation) is a consequence of the market. Gotta love feedback loops.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[eth1]

Settlement? What settlement? This is a prima facie Clayton Act Anti-Trust violation. Multiple felonies, with jailtime due. Amazingly, this appearently exists on paper, so everyone who negotiated or signed it should go to jail.

The Clayton Act makes organizing supplier boycotts a prohibited activity. And that's just what they have done -- organized a boycott not to hire an employee, times the collective number.

That this has not gone to a Federal Grand Jury appears more like corruption than anything else.

By that argument, everyone in a union belongs in jail, too.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[pitchpipe]

That this has not gone to a Federal Grand Jury appears more like corruption than anything else.

You're just noticing that there is corruption that goes on in favor of big business with impunity in the US? What are you, a fucking Republican?

many companies exist to hire people

[raymorris]

> It's not about who is dispensable or not, companies do not exist to hire people ...

For many years I worked for a corporation that was set up primarily for the purpose of hiring people and taking care of those employees. For the last 12 months, the company has been losing money by continuing to provide health insurance and such for employees who work fewer than 12 hours per month.

You may think that's incredibly unusual, but actually it's not because many, possibly most, corporations are set up for the purpose of hiring a very small number of people, most notably the owners. There have been many times over the last 20 years when I, as the sole shareholder, have needed to choose between making more money or doing more good for the employees and customers. I decided that money is a means to an end. The PURPOSE if making more money would be in order to better take care of the people I care about. I'd like more money because it would allow me to send my daughter to a better school. I'd like more money because it would allow me to give more to my employees and other friends. I'd like more money because it would allow me to give more to organizations such as United Way and the Crisis Pregnancy Center. Choosing between being good to people or making more money, I choose doing good because after all the whole point of more money would be to do good with it. Choosing more money would be putting the means ahead of the ends.

Re:many companies exist to hire people

[dbIII]

the company has been losing money by continuing to provide health insurance and such for employees who work fewer than 12 hours per month.

Offtopic maybe, but one of the reasons the USA has lost film production jobs to "socialist" places like Canada and Australia is because those health insurance costs to the company do not exist. Instead there's a slight tax markup which is far less you would expect due to not having to waste a lot of cash funnelling it through insurance fat cats before it gets anywhere near the health services.

Re:many companies exist to hire people

[sysrammer]

I pay lots for a PPO. I have to wait weeks for non-emergency appointments. I live in America.

Re:Uh oh...

[Hamsterdan]

Can somebody please contact his ISP? I can only hope /. has an Abuse department. When an admin contacted us concerning one of our users, we would warn/cut/close the account

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[Thruen]

While I completely agree and feel a handful of people should get locked up for this, I'm no longer shocked to see laws and punishments not being applied fairly to corporations. It wasn't long ago we saw a company get away with killing three hundred people.

MOD PARENT UP

[serviscope_minor]

Flaimbait != disagree.

There is no disagree mod for a very good reason.

they exist to make products / provide services that allow the owners to make money,

No, that's not strictly speaking correct. I'm assuming you're referring to limited liability entities (LLEs). LLEs exist for the sole purpose of protecting the owner's personal assetsso that they can operate the company without personal risk.

Many of these are set up to make a profit (as are some non LLEs, like sole traders and partnerships), but by no means all of them are.

the whole point of business is to generate profit,

For profit making entities, then yes, the point is generally to make profit, for the owner. However, these are being granted special legal protections (limitation of liability). Why?

We do that for the greater good. We collectively appear to believe that profit motivates people, so providing a mechanism for companies to operate somewhat freely (i.e. with limited liability) is of net benefit to society. That's because they want to make a profit and they do that by doing useful things. On the whole.

But make no mistake: the point of limited liability companies is not profit, it's for the overall benefit of society. If that link is broken, then there is no reason for them to be given such protections. Of course, the owners are still free to pursue profit as they see fit, but why should they also have the right to do it without personal risk?

In other words, an indicidual might make a company to make a profit, but the reason LLEs exist at all is for the greater good, not for profit.

The problem in USA is not that Google and Apple had agreements not to hire from each other,

No that was a problem. Google and Apple are given amazing protections by law (limited liability), far more than exist in any naturalistic sense. It is entirely reasonable for them to also be constrained while they make use of these protections. In that way the law is completely reasonable and just and they broke it. What they did is plainly unethical.

it's that there are so few employers at all, and that's a problem of business costs being too high thanks to government rules, taxes, regulations, litigation costs, inflation etc.

They're not though.b You can set up a little contractor business with just you as an employee pretty easily. You can do it yourself if you feel like or if, like me that stuff turns your brain to mush, you can save hassle and pay someone else to do it. The overall costs are not that high.

The main problem is that businesses have been granted unnatural rights (limitation of liability) but are not keeping to the responsibilities that those rights must require. If anything more regulation is required to keep them in line.

"hobby" has made a million dollars. Mission statem

[raymorris]

Well you can make up your own definitions of words if you want to, I guess.
My "hobby", as you call it, has brought in over a million dollars. That million has been used according to the company's mission statement.

You know, people actually write down the purpose of the company when they create it. It's called a "mission statement". You might read some sometime. I've yet to see one that says "make money". I have seen a few companies where the people apparently FORGOT their mission, forgot the reason the company was started, and started focusing on money instead. That's why you put the mission statement in prominent places - posted on the wall, on banners, etc - to remind people of why you're there lest they forget.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[drinkypoo]

By that argument, everyone in a union belongs in jail, too.

Strikes are not boycotts. You don't buy labor, you hire it. HTH, HAND.

The above poster worked in the USA

[dbIII]

The above poster worked in the USA but you probably didn't read that far before your kneejerk reaction to some "outsider" daring to suggest that things are not perfect in the USA.

As for Detroit - are you kidding? GM and Ford have to deal with far more militant unions overseas in place where they are doing a lot better than in Detroit. Considering trust fund babies like Edsel Ford as the model instead of Henry Ford was what killed Detroit. If you populate management of a large corporation with almost nothing but the members of a single college tennis club you end up with something so inbred with so little talent that failure is inevitable. Detroit is not an example of a failure of unions, capitalism or any ideology - it's the result of decades of nepotism and mismanagement.
Also we get into the really stupid bit with blaming unions. If management is unable to get it's shit together and deal with problems related to unions in an environment with very low union membership and very high unemployment then why is it seen as the fault of unions and not as mismanagement?
I've never been in a union but I've managed to notice these things. Why haven't you?

Australia. You could all be hoping around on Kangaroos for all I know

Charming. Especially with your "little fools elsewhere in the world that think they know everything about everywhere".

Somebody please mod the GP poster up so readers can see more than Karmashock's knee-jerk reaction to an informative post.

Re:The above poster worked in the USA

[Karmashock]

Except for the auto industry is doing quite well outside of Detroit. We're seeing expansion and growth while everything the unions control withers.

It doesn't matter... the militant unions are well on their way to killing themselves. And then we have only the government unions to deal with... a much bigger problem. But then some of them have gone so far as to bankrupt the cities and states they've dominated. So we'll see what happens.

I know police officers that brag about having politicians in their pockets. I know teachers that confide that they're terrified of reprisals from the local union reps over the most petty of issues. This is what happens when you empower such entities without restraint or oversight. People run wild.

Things that can't go on forever... do not. This business model is rapidly running out of time. And when it does... you'll likely propose something closer to full state socialism or something equally hilariously inept.

But then you'll be in the position of the Venezuelans as well as turning the US into a true banana republic. You see... even with total power you still need to make the system work. And it doesn't so you won't... and thus there will be shortages, brown outs, water will get cut off, whole civic institutions will collapse...

At some point, you either deal with empirical reality and set success as the first criteria. Or you're setting everyone that associates with you up for suffering.

Re:The above poster worked in the USA

[dbIII]

You need a LOT more than a few anecdotes or recycled chamber of commerce propaganda to get "empirical reality".
You also failed to address how it's possible that the Detroit situation was the fault of unions when GM and Ford are dealing successfully with far more militant unions elsewhere. It just does not make sense. It's the pointless demonization of blaming things on those who cannot shout as loud as others.

Re:The above poster worked in the USA

[Karmashock]

Its the common denominator. The rot is concentrated in union controlled areas.

Look, you want to draw this out into some sort of extended debate? It doesn't matter. The areas where your idea is applied are dying. All I have to do to win is wait.

I wish you were reasonable. But you're not. So fine.

It is people like you that force every situation to be resolved with some sort of power play because you're utterly unreasonable. Nothing short of a loaded gun against you forehead with a cocked hammer ever makes you stop.

What I want is to be left alone. What you want is to control everything. My goal might be selfish or whatever silly insult you might wish to throw at it. But its at least obtainable. Your goal... its as impossible as it is self destructive.

Re:The above poster worked in the USA

[dbIII]

Also WTF is it with the murder fantasy? That's some seriously fucked up shit that you are bullying the kids with there karmashock.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[Entrope]

Those who tried to leave probably succeeded. Can you cite to a single case where this anti-poaching agreement prevented an active searcher from getting a job offer?

Sounds like a union at the other end of the scales

[clay_buster]

A better comparison would be a secret union of all tech workers that required that none of its employees take work with Apple until they raised their entry level salaries for engineers to 500k per year out of desperation.

Ignoring the secret part... Isn't that the definition of a strike? People refusing work until the hiring company caves to work policies or salaries?

Union states vs "right to work".

[clay_buster]

The grandparent's post was correct and in line with your comments about Australia. One thing that might be different is there are union states and "right to work" states. Union states require that workers be in unions for certain types of contracts. They also generally mandate that every worker in a "union shop" be a union member. This means you can't work there if you are not a member. Quit paying your dues and you can no longer be employed. "Right to work" states are the other end of the spectrum. Union membership is optional and enrollment tends to be low.

We recently had an issue where a union state and a right to work state built a bridge across a river to each other. The union state mandated that all contractors be union shops. The "right to work" state demanded that non union shops be allowed because of the cost difference. (There is also a slight cost of living difference between the two states aligned with the wage differences) I don't remember how it got worked out but construction was delayed for months.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[redelm]

Probably easy to find for the DoJ. Ask jobchangers. But not necessary. Anti-Trust law is highly unusual -- the govt does not need to prove harm, and it is much closer to "guilty until proven innocent". Just ask the oilcos.

Re:WTF? Jailtime! Boycott violates Anti-Trust

[Entrope]

Yeah, I figured you had nothing.

Standard Oil and Ma Bell were broken up because they exploited monopoly power. There's nothing remotely similar for tech employers. You claimed there was some kind of supplier boycott, I pointed out that there obviously wasn't one in the usual sense, and you fell back to "maybe this kind of harm happened, you can't prove it didn't!"

Re:"hobby" has made a million dollars. Mission sta

[Solandri]

Making more money in and of itself isn't a problem. Money is just a representation of productivity. The more productive you are for a given cost (relative to your competitors), the more money you'll make. By that token, it's in society's best interest for everyone to try to make as much money as they can. i.e. It's good to want to make more money (in a productive manner - scamming or skimming doesn't contribute any productivity). Whether you do so with a hobby or a job is irrelevant - the fact that you're making money means you're doing something productive which someone else values and is willing to pay for. (I think the AC was trying to distinguish between non-productive "hobbies" and productive "work". But what distinguishes those is productivity, not how well the employees are compensated.)

The problem comes about with how that money is distributed within a company. The owners/high-level executives have too much control over the process of wage/bonus distribution. It's like passing around a bag with money (profits), and the owners/executives get to pull as much out as they want first. Not enough is left over by the time you get to bonuses and salary increases for regular employees.

I don't know a good solution to this problem. It's one of the reasons I'm not opposed to unions despite my fiscally conservative beliefs (as long you don't make the union a monopoly, which just creates different problems). The taboo against telling others how much you make helps contribute to it though (not all countries have this taboo). Maybe if you required companies to post annual salary/bonus stats with the names redacted out? That would give individual employees a better idea where they stand, and if they should be demanding higher wages because they know they're one of the better employees but they see they're near the bottom of the pay scale. Giving regular employees stock options helps too, though I always felt the rules regarding exercising those options and what happens when you leave the company were too complex and arbitrary.

I always analyzed bonus distribution for my employees as a pie chart, so I could see which fraction of bonuses were going to managers, salaried employees, hourly employees, etc. The idea was to try to make sure the ratios of the bonuses in the pie chart were pretty close to the ratio of wages (which is also a general measure of productivity). That way it'd be pretty obvious if I or the managers were taking too much money out of the bag first, and grabbing a disproportionate share of the bonuses. (Actually I tried to bias it the other way - with non-managers getting a greater share of the bonus than the managers, who were already pretty well-paid.)

Partial truth, mostly not

[s.petry]

I felt the need to re-arrange a bit so the most severe issues are first.

The problem in USA is not that Google and Apple had agreements not to hire from each other, it's that there are so few employers at all, and that's a problem of business costs being too high thanks to government rules, taxes, regulations, litigation costs, inflation etc.

Wrong, absolutely wrong. Companies colluding to reduce employee wages is illegal and a problem. Hence the ruling and pending judgement to both reward people shafted by these illegal arrangements and punish the companies for using them.

Have you ever interviewed for either Google or Apple? I have, and their built in exclusion process ensures that they can hire only who they want when they want. If they want to save money they hire nobody local, and then claim that they need more H1B workers.

I don't take issue with the ability of a company to exclude people based on a lack of experience or knowledge, but that's not the criteria these companies are using to make exclusions. Google for example demands that you spend about a week studying various "trick questions" for their interview process. Your first phone interview will provide you a list of things to study, none of which have to pertain to the job you are interviewing for.

"trick questions" which does not test your real knowledge. It is however a great test to determine who will provide free labor without complaints.

Hiring employees becomes necessary when there is more work that can be done, where the cost of hired labour is lower than the value produced by that labour.

That part you have correct, but then it all goes downhill.

If you make labour cost too high, less of it will be bought, because the value produced by that labour may not be enough to cover the cost and to make some profit, and the whole point of business is to generate profit, otherwise it's not a business but a hobby.

Great, but why are you limiting your point on labor to only the worker bees? A CEO should make 145 million dollars a year while a worker bee makes 40K and is told they are overpaid? A manager can make a 1 million dollar bonus by eliminating 5 minimum wage employees and replacing them with 5 people making .60 an hour in a foreign country? Events similar to these happen frequently in the US. Do the math, how does this add up?

Look, I agree that the welfare state is a huge problem. That last paragraph has nothing to do with the welfare state, it has to deal with deregulation and incentives in the system to fuck people over so that you can make big bucks. Even to the point where a board will fire a CEO of a profitable company for not fucking his employees.

Who gets the money?

[RogueWarrior65]

The lawyers are going to make a yacht-load of money off of this. Will the actual plaintiffs get anything or will they get coupons for discounts on cellphone cases?

WTF? When did the strawman walk in?

[dbIII]

It is people like you that force every situation to be resolved with some sort of power play because you're utterly unreasonable. Nothing short of a loaded gun against you forehead with a cocked hammer ever makes you stop.

How about you address at least ONE of the points in the AC's post instead of going off into the far side of crazy and snide comments about "You could all be hoping around on Kangaroos for all I know"?
That way we'd have some idea of what is going on instead of seeing one side of a conversation between you and a strawman inside your own head.

BCBS, S&W

[raymorris]

Sounds like you need a better one. We've been very pleased with Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Texas for insurance and Scott and White for healthcare.
Obviously there are things that need to be improved with the entire systems of a) health insurance and especially b) health care. Given the available options (worldwide), this combination is hard to beat. If you happen to be in Texas and aren't happy with what you're getting, they are worth a look. If you aren't in Texas, and all of the options in your state suck, I'd be curious to know what causes the difference.

with you until this part, opposite of fact

[raymorris]

> The owners/high-level executives have too much control over the process of wage/bonus distribution. It's like passing around a bag with money (profits), and the owners/executives get to pull as much out as they want first.

You know of course that companies frequently lose money in one quarter or one year, and make money another year. So owners may or may not get ANY money this year. Employees get paid every month, precisely the amount they expect. That's because the money bag goes in the opposite direction. First, production employees get paid (payroll). Executives get a portion of their pay. If there's money left, executives get their bonus, which is the other half of their pay. If there's still money left, investments are made to prepare the company for the future. If there's STILL money left, owners get some, in the form of dividends. Dividends (owner's) are, by law, the very last thing that gets paid.

Pyramid scheme

[NewYork]

Every MNC is a Pyramid scheme in Globalization

Shortage propaganda versus wages

[Lonewolf666]

If you don't think there is a shortage of software developers in the US, why are developers in the US paid so much more than ones in Europe?

Also, there is no hard threshold to define an "actual" shortage when you're talking about such a large job market.

Curiously, European employers (in Germany in particular) are complaining about a "shortage" too and have lobbied with some success for easier immigration of qualified workers. It looks quite similar to the discussion and critique about H-1B workers in the USA, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Criticisms_of_the_program.

Personally, I think a "shortage" can best be detected from the development of wages, relative to other fields where the necessary education is similarly difficult and time consuming. For instance, does the average engineer earn significantly more than the average M.D., lawyer or business manager?

For Germany, AFAIK the answer is "no" and the complaints about a "shortage" are mostly propaganda. I'm not as familiar with the US labor market but the anecdotical evidence I pick up here and there tends to say "no" as well.

Re:Shortage propaganda versus wages

[Entrope]

In the US, a typical manager earns some amount more than the people they manage. As a result, the average software engineer earns significantly more than the average non-engineering manager, and more than many engineering managers.

And in the US, doctors and lawyers are not comparable to software developers for two main reasons: they have significant legal duties towards their clients (and must carry malpractice insurance as a result), and it is a serious crime to practice medicine or law without a license (which is granted by the people already in the field). Doctors and lawyers typically have further education, as well, which is not required for software developers. We also hear chronic complaints about doctor shortages, too -- but thankfully none for lawyers :) The kind of doctors with the worst shortages are "primary care" doctors, rather than specialists and surgeons, who also make much less money than the specialists, and I think in the same neighborhood as software developers.