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Silicon Valley Fights Order To Pay Bigger Settlement In Tech Talent Hiring Case

Posted by timothy on from the political-economy dept.

The Washington Post carries a story from the Associated Press that says the big companies hit hardest by Judge Lucy Koh's ruling in the "No Poaching" case have not suprisingly appealed that ruling, which found that a proposed settlement of $324.5 million to a class-action lawsuit was too low. The suit, filed on behalf of 60,000 high-tech workers allegedlly harmed by anti-competitive hiring practices, will probably enter its next phase next January or March. (Judge Koh is probably not very popular at Apple in particular.) If you're one of those workers (or in an analogous situation), what kind of compensation or punitive action do you think is fair?

4 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who cares if they pay $0 by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Informative

    WTF are you talking about? The amount is for a class action lawsuit not a government fine.

  2. Re:good plan by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Informative

    This isn't a government action. It's a class action lawsuit by former employees.

  3. Re:Punitive Damages? by quetwo · · Score: 5, Informative

    There was an "agreement" between the companies that said they weren't supposed to hire workers from the other companies. It was more than poaching, it was to keep workers where they were. Sure, some people moved between companies, but a majority of us didn't make it past the filters...

  4. Re:Punitive Damages? by beakerMeep · · Score: 5, Informative

    You dont need to wonder, you need to read:

    http://pando.com/2014/03/22/re...

    http://pando.com/2014/01/23/th...

    Some estimates put it as high as $9 billion.

    This wasn't just about cold calling. The chilling effects were far more reaching. It's just that the documented evidence only referred specifically to cold calling, so that is what can be proved. In reality this was much more of a "gentleman's agreement" and it had the effect of driving down wages at dozens of large companies possibly affecting ~1 million workers. If you think it stopped with just poaching and had no other effect, you are being naive. Google actually had to raise some salaries due to Facebook not participating.

    Here are just some of the companies involved:
      Google
      Apple, Inc
      Comcast Corporation
      DoubleClick
      Genentech
      IBM Corporation (Junior hires okay—also applies to subsidiaries)
      Illumita
      Intel Corporation
      Intuit
      Microsoft
      Oglivy
      WPP
      AOL, Inc.
      Ask.com
      Clear Channel Communications, Inc.
      Dell, Inc.
      Earthlink, Inc
      Virgin Media, Inc. (Formerly NTL, Inc.)

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/2136...

    http://pando.com/tag/techtopus...

    --
    meep