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

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

[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

[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.