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Judge OKs Class Action Wage Suit Against Apple, Google and Others
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BladeVenom
Supreme [H]ardness
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Microsoft wasn't a part of that agreement? Why did they leave them out?
This ruling doesn't give anyone anything, lawyers or otherwise. It just says that the plaintiffs have limbo-ed under the low bar of evidence for being able to file one of these lawsuits and the case can move forward. This is going to be at trial for ages before anyone gets paid. And if it's true we should expect to hear about a sealed settlement eventually. But didn't Apple get it's panties all in a bunch when it had some employees go to Google? And didn't Google get all fired up about Facebook stealing it's talent? Seems like there is a mountain of evidence that points to this lawsuit being full of crap. A couple of engineers thought they were more valuable than they were and screwed themselves so they filed a crappy lawsuit.
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
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This suit is bogus ... the companies all have pretty iron clad non-disclosures and non-compete clauses these days (which are perfectly legal) that make it much harder to poach employees ... hopefully stupid lawsuits like these will get the big companies to move away from Silicon Valley to Austin or other software locations in Right to Work states ... hope this suit dies quickly
no, non-compete clauses are *not* "perfectly legal"
non-competition clauses are generally not enforceable unless the business can demonstrate that they're necessary to keep the business' interests viable
and even then in some places, like California, there is an even stricter interpretation limiting such clauses in employment contracts
and this has been true for a few hundred years going all the way back to English common law (the roots of our jurisprudence)
that said, non-compete clauses in employer contracts are not what this is about. this is about companies conspiring together to refuse to hire employees from one another. if Google adheres to a policy not to hire Apple employees in order to safeguard it's own trade secrets that might be acceptable. if plaintiffs can demonstrate they were refusing to hire apple employees because apple and google agreed to play by a set of secret rules so they could pay their employees less than prevailing wages that's not legal
Wrecked Em
Supreme [H]ardness
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Google and Apple practically set up shop across the street from Microsoft, specifically to steal their "talent". I see nothing wrong with it. As far as wage fixing; that seems far fetched, since there are so many other smaller companies that these people would be qualified to work for. It would be like Apple and Google saying "let's agree to let our most talented employees leave, so they can aid or create what might your future competition".
you may not believe it to be happening but it's all in the court documents
here is one example of the impact these agreements have had on the job market and compensation:
rudy
[H]F Junkie
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Man I knew all along those 120k salaries that are 3x the national average were way to low to be legit!
Hooray for class action lawsuits! Lawyers get bazillions, plaintiffs get pennies.
When FB refused to join "the truce," salaries went up 10%. That's an annual loss of 10-15k/year. The truly frivolous class action suits target MS or East TX, where the jurors think $100,000 bills are Smarties and every day is Halloween.
considering these are the most successful companies in all of human history how little should the engineers who did the work be paid?
I understand the mentality [H]. Whenever a patent gets pasted on the front page the shit flies about how the engineers do all the work so why should anyone like Jobs (especially) get any credit? Then there's all this [H]atred toward companies like Apple (especially) for the prices they charge.
But when the engineers that everyone has been bitc[H]ing at the companies about sue for more money and say they've been discriminated against by these megawealthy corporations (among the wealthiest on the planet right now) people want to s[H]it down their necks.
here's an article about average engineer wages
the article basically says that Google and Apple are paying above the national average but only ranking 4th and 6th (respectively) behind Juniper Networks ($159,000), LinkedIn ($136,000). and Yahoo ($130,000), with twitter in between. Last year Google was 1st and Apple was 3rd.
It's possible that they were colluding to keep those wages down and then companies starting breaking away from these truces. A $30,000 dollar differential between wages is substantial--especially when it constitutes a fourth of one's yearly salary. The average wages of $90,000 have been kept down by this collusion, if the lawsuit is valid, when instead the top wages are two-thirds higher!
Engineers who work at corporations like Google, Apple, Intel, and Pixar etc. shouldn't be getting paid near the average wages. They should be earning the highest wages. In a rational system that wasn't being tampered with the most successful companies would be paying the highest wages to attract the best talent. If they have the best talent without paying the highest wages we should look carefully to verify that there is no tampering going on, right?
the article basically says that Google and Apple are paying above the national average but only ranking 4th and 6th (respectively) behind Juniper Networks ($159,000), LinkedIn ($136,000). and Yahoo ($130,000), with twitter in between. Last year Google was 1st and Apple was 3rd.
It's possible that they were colluding to keep those wages down and then companies starting breaking away from these truces. A $30,000 dollar differential between wages is substantial--especially when it constitutes a fourth of one's yearly salary. The average wages of $90,000 have been kept down by this collusion, if the lawsuit is valid, when instead the top wages are two-thirds higher!
Engineers who work at corporations like Google, Apple, Intel, and Pixar etc. shouldn't be getting paid near the average wages. They should be earning the highest wages. In a rational system that wasn't being tampered with the most successful companies would be paying the highest wages to attract the best talent. If they have the best talent without paying the highest wages we should look carefully to verify that there is no tampering going on, right?
rudy
[H]F Junkie
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Are you seeing completely different data then anyone else. Google Apple and the others in silicon valley are paying more than anywhere else in the whole USA on average. Yet it is that area where the law suit is coming in. Its a pretty hard argument to say you deserve way more than the most in the USA.
OK, calling people at work to head-hunt is slimy. Not sure why it isn't considered illegal, but it sure is unethical.
The "truce" is an agreement not to flood each other's switchboards with headhunting calls.
Technically, it should be covered by the telecommuncations act that restricted junk mail phone calls.
The "truce" is an agreement not to flood each other's switchboards with headhunting calls.
Technically, it should be covered by the telecommuncations act that restricted junk mail phone calls.
It's among the most expensive places to live in the country. People make 6 figures in TX too and that's a relatively inexpensive place to live. Again, this isn't a starting salary and starting salaries in the last 15 years have only gone up about 20%, which is about what they went up in the Telecom Corridor in TX too. Trust me, if you look at the cost of living, most aren't getting rich (unless they have some stock options and they go up a lot).
Everybody does it. Within 3 months of starting my first job out of college I got calls. Why is it OK for a company to not allow you to discuss your salary with co-workers, but it's not OK for other companies to offer you more money, better benefits etc. The system is already stacked in favor of employers. Do we really need to let them collude to hold wages down even more than they already do?
So it's OK for guys to call your wife to say they have bigger dicks?
Head hunting during business hours is scummy. Period. If an employee wants to explore his options on his time, no problem. Getting paid to look for other work is wrong.
rudy
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Of course its expensive to live there everyone is getting over paid. duh.
From my reading, the defendants agreed to stop cold-call headhunting. This is where a business hires a headhunting firm to research personal data including skill sets on employees of their competition. Since home phones are seldom part of that data, most of it is done during business hours.
What ever happened to placing ads for employees, and have the Employee contact the firm?
If the businesses are competitors, you could perhaps argue that this amounts to unfair business practices and against the No Call laws.
If the CAL wins, this will be interesting. How badly can I flood a companies switchboard with solicitor calls? 1000 calls an hour should screw them up pretty good.
Here's something they are not acknowledging, that no employee is Plug-n-Play. There is an investment in training put into all employees. For serious jobs, it can be a year or more before the employee becomes worth their pay.
By hiring only people who have completed the training, it is financial attack on the target. Akin to "dumping" in the mfr world. You are deliberating buying employees at a loss to hurt the competition.
Say Google wants to cripple Yahoo. You spend a few hundred million to steal critical employees at a loss. He with the most cash reserves wins, then you can go back and lower wages again.
Again... this is good for employees.
I think you do not fully grasp the level of this work...
These jobs can not be outsourced... All the top sw shops realize this, hence why they are in Cali and not in India.
I've had a pleasure working with such top engineers and with outsourcing companies, the really good people are worth 20x of outsourced "engineers" in software world.
20 years ago, virtually no software development was outsourced. Ever notice most programming languages were developed in the USA, and the keywords are in english?
Don't expect that to stay forever.
The electronics and manufacturing sectors thought the same thing. 40 years ago, if you wanted high quality parts and goods, you had to get the USA involved. We were dominant. We said, "we will always be one step ahead of them".
That's gotta be up for worst analogy of the week.
A recruiter calls you at work, if you want to hear more, you call them back at lunch, or they email you and talk to you some other time. They call you if you're interested, they email you and call you later.
If you don't get that, then the problem is yours. I never spend a lot of time talking to a cold call. I may entertain talking to them later, but that's it. However, if my company has a policy that says the best engineering firms can't ask me to work for them, that's fucked up.
Then go get a job there and quit complaining. My guess is you either wouldnt' get the job or you'd quickly find that the cost of living increases more than your salary.
So what? I damned well better earn more than the national average when I've taken the time and effort to make myself better qualified than the national average.
hockeypro889
Gawd
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MS most definitely has buildings in the Bay Area. I work right next to one...