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Microsoft, Ask.com, Oracle Latest To Be Sued Over No-Poach Deal
itwbennett (1594911) writes Oracle, Microsoft and Ask.com are facing suits alleging that they conspired to restrict hiring of staff. The suits appear to refer to a memo that names a large number of companies that allegedly had special arrangements with Google to prevent poaching of staff and was filed as an exhibit on May 17, 2013 in another class action suit over hiring practices. The former employees filing lawsuits against Microsoft, Ask.com and Oracle have asked that the cases be assigned to Judge Koh as there were similarities with the case against Google, Apple and others — and it maybe doesn't hurt that Judge Koh thought the $324.5 million settlement in that case was too low.
Ask.com still exists?
When they signed their contract they missed that checkbox that said "change my employment preference to lock to this company". There was so much legalese to scroll through.
I don't even know what you mean. Reality doesn't have morals, and the feds, at least to the extent they're involved, haven't been at all friendly to the notion of employers doing this.
The memo only talks about executives and product managers. Engineers (at ANY level) are explicitly excluded from the agreement (that is, they can be recruited at will), as well as any product "contributors".
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
This is why I'm opposed to all those "learn to code" programs Zuck and friends keep hyping. The people at the top of the tech industry are not content with their billions. They want your thousands, too. There is a concerted effort under way to push your wages down, take that money and throw it onto their own already huge piles. No poaching deals. H1B visas. "STEM shortage," "coder shortage" bullshit. It's all part of the same offensive. It is class warfare and their class is winning.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The settlement offer the lawyers wanted to take was WAY too low. After the agreement collapsed Google alone had to give their entire staff a $10k year raise, and they think less than $5k per person for multiple years is sufficient? Everyone should be getting $10k per year minimum. Lawyer fees should be capped and be above and beyond payment to the class holders. Only if these companies have to give every employee affected by this $50 or $100K in damages will this set a precedent that will prevent future abuses.
The class should be expanded to cover everyone in the profession not just employees of the companies. Many more people were damaged by this illegal conspiracy because these companies were in large part influencing the setting of wages for the industry. By illegally restraining trade they illegally depressed salaries for the entire market.
Entrpreneurialism is the platitudinous answer to all the unhappiness of capitalism. Just start a company yourself... pull yourself up by your boot straps. Look at Jeff Bezos. 21 years of hot air and no earnings, and the 'markets' still reward themselves as share holders. As long as the balls remain aloft, the emperor's clothes are said to be opaque.
The Gods Must Be Insane...
What do you mean? Microsoft is saying "the feds investigated us and gave us a pass, so you shouldn't let the employee's sue us for doing this"
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
This should be a trillion dollar suit.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The thing is, without some sort of revolution, I just can't see the U.S. ever taking all of Smith's advice. For example, can you imagine a United States where a corporate charter requires a review and approval process where you must show necessity?
As for Friedman, he has some really good ideas, but I can't imagine a GOP that wouldn't filibuster a basic income bill to death even if they had to send the country down in flames to do it.
Because all they're talking about is maybe 500 senior executives. None of those companies are hiring below the executive level in the United States.
"voluntary" is a loaded word. If you don't work, you don't eat. It's no different than saying, take this or die. Yes, they could have worked somewhere else, but somewhere else would have been worse. How about just being "fairly" compensated? It is a complicated grey area. A company couldn't afford to pay everyone a ton of money, similar to how the record industry wants to get a slice of the money at every step of the way. But at the same time, if you add value, you should get a "fair" slice of that value added.