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  1. #1
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators. On February 27, 2005, Bill Campbell, a member of Apple’s board of directors and senior advisor to Google, emailed Jobs to confirm that Eric Schmidt “got directly involved and firmly stopped all efforts to recruit anyone from Apple.”


    Later that year, Schmidt instructed his Sr VP for Business Operation Shona Brown to keep the pact a secret and only share information “verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?”


    These secret conversations and agreements between some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley were first exposed in a Department of Justice an rust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010. That DOJ suit became the basis of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of over 100,000 tech employees whose wages were artificially lowered — an estimated $9 billion effectively stolen by the high-flying companies from their workers to pad company earnings — in the second half of the 2000s. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied attempts by Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe to have the lawsuit tossed, and gave final approval for the class action suit to go forward. A jury trial date has been set for May 27 in San Jose, before US District Court judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the Samsung-Apple patent suit.


    In a related but separate investigation and ongoing suit, eBay and its former CEO Meg Whitman, now CEO of HP, are being sued by both the federal government and the state of California for arranging a similar, secret wage-theft agreement with Intuit (and possibly Google as well) during the same period.

    http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-tech...gineers-wages/

  2. #2
    Veteran Wild Cobra's Avatar
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    I don't know how true that is. Even in the 90's when I was in that industry, many business partners had such agreements.

  3. #3
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    it's illegal, WC. anti-compe ive. anti-free market.

  4. #4
    I play pretty, no? TeyshaBlue's Avatar
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    I don't know how true that is. Even in the 90's when I was in that industry, many business partners had such agreements.
    :facepalm

  5. #5
    The Boognish FuzzyLumpkins's Avatar
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    Well at least WC knows his place. I cannot stand a kiss ass. It must be why I cannot stand him.

  6. #6
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    In his deposition, Schmidt made clear that Sheryl Sandberg’s defection from Google to Facebook in March 2008 posed a serious threat to Google:



    “Sheryl had built our recruiting organization, was an excellent recruiter, and as she went over to Facebook, many people left Google to work for her in jobs which they perceived as promotions.




    “There were also a number of engineering leaders who also went to Facebook, and it became — and it was pretty clear that Facebook’s management structure was being built out of executives coming out of Google, which is now a public company, Facebook was a private company.”

    According to testimony from Sandberg, recently unsealed, almost as soon as she left Google for Facebook in March 2008, her former Google colleagues began discussing ways to bring her and Facebook into the illegal wage-suppression cartel.
    For her part, Sandberg insists that she and Facebook rejected Google’s overtures, and the evidence (much still redacted) supports her position. People familiar with this case who have spoken off the record to PandoDaily back up Sandberg’s account as well.
    http://pando.com/2014/03/30/court-do...hiring-cartel/

  7. #7
    Veteran Wild Cobra's Avatar
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    it's illegal, WC. anti-compe ive. anti-free market.
    That doesn't mean agreements aren't uncommon.

  8. #8
    Veteran InRareForm's Avatar
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    interesting

  9. #9
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    That doesn't mean agreements aren't uncommon.
    if its customary for businesses to form illegal cartels to suppress wages, so much the worse for the so-called free market and for all of us.

  10. #10
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    We'll see if any colluding companies get fined. Certainly no execs, who PERSONALLY colluded, will go to jail, if collusion on salary suppression is even a jail-able offense.

  11. #11
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    forbearing to predict the outcome? what happened to your crystal ball?

  12. #12
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    more collusion crime from hyper-wealthy Apple

    U.S. judge OKs class action in e-book suit against Apple

    A federal judge in New York granted class certification on Friday to a group of consumers who sued Apple Inc for conspiring with five major publishers to fix e-book prices in violation of an rust law.

    U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said the plaintiffs had "more than met their burden" to allow them to sue as a group. She rejected Apple's contentions that the claims were too different from each other, or that some plaintiffs were not harmed because some e-book prices fell.

    "This is a paradigmatic an rust class action," wrote Cote, who has scheduled a trial later this year to determine damages, which could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

    An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

    In July 2013, Cote found the technology company liable for colluding with the publishers after a separate non-jury trial in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. Cote found that Apple took part in a price-fixing conspiracy to fight online retailer Amazon.com Inc's dominance in the e-book market.

    Apple is appealing that decision.

    Thirty-three states and U.S. territories have separately sued on behalf of their consumers, while individual consumers in other states and territories filed the class action lawsuit that Cote addressed on Friday. The plaintiffs are seeking more than $800 million in damages.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,1618933.story

    So Jobs was a criminal son of


  13. #13
    Veteran Wild Cobra's Avatar
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    if its customary for businesses to form illegal cartels to suppress wages, so much the worse for the so-called free market and for all of us.
    It's not for suppression of wages, but protection of propitiatory information. A no recruitment clause simply meant they could not try to take a valued employee. It did not mean the employee could not apply for the job, nor did it keep them from hiring them. I also had two employers that had me sign agreements that I could not work for the compe ion for two years after leaving them for the same reason. Proprietary knowledge. After that two year window, such information was less useful to compe ion. It did not exclude me from working for the customer, which I did do once. However, they were not allowed to ask me to work for them.

    I don't think such scenarios are illegal. The no recruitment was at the workplace. That didn't keep an peer from another company after hours meeting for a beer from telling me I should apply, that I was guaranteed a job if I wanted it...

    There are loop holes both ways.

  14. #14
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    apples and oranges. you limited yourself contractually; Apple, Intel and Google conspired to suppress wages and labor mobility.

  15. #15
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    apples and oranges. you limited yourself contractually; Apple, Intel and Google conspired to suppress wages and labor mobility.
    Jobs was a criminal conspirator in both cases.

  16. #16
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Please pay attention, boutons. WC was comparing his no-compete clause with an unlawful cartel.

  17. #17
    Veteran Wild Cobra's Avatar
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    apples and oranges. you limited yourself contractually; Apple, Intel and Google conspired to suppress wages and labor mobility.
    Maybe so. Do we really know the details? Too much misinformation in the media today.

  18. #18
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    did you read the emails posted above?

  19. #19
    Veteran Wild Cobra's Avatar
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    did you read the emails posted above?
    No, I don't read all links. I have time now, I'll look at them.

  20. #20
    Veteran Wild Cobra's Avatar
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    I read over them quickly. It is an interesting exchange. From a certain perspective, it makes sense. One perspective is legitimate if the intent was not to have recruitment wars to retain valuable employees. I doubt this would affect very many employees, and there appears to be nothing that keeps the employee from applying elsewhere.

    I wonder how the courts will rule.

  21. #21
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    One perspective is legitimate if the intent was not to have recruitment wars to retain valuable employees.
    facially illegal. not at all legitimate. the market isn't free if it's free only for the owners.

  22. #22
    Veteran Wild Cobra's Avatar
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    facially illegal. not at all legitimate. the market isn't free if it's free only for the owners.
    But they are still free to apply.

    Dismiss that perspective if you want. I understand not wanting to have such wars. The financial damage from wages is minor compared to consonantly having job movements. It takes a long time to teach new employees these skills. The lawsuit may fail, as reasons and more evidence comes out. The law might be challenged and deemed wrong as well.

    People don't believe I made as much as I did and I can't speak for today, but before the semiconductor industry collapse, we were paid well for our skills and had first class benefits. This was to retain employees, mitigating the numbers who would seek other employers.

    Again, it will be interesting to see how this lawsuit is ruled.

  23. #23
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    But they are still free to apply.
    had you read the OP, you'd see this wasn't really the case.

  24. #24
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    however, your compassion for the wage fixing cartel has been duly noted

  25. #25
    Veteran
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    however, your compassion for the wage fixing cartel has been duly noted
    I noted LONG AGO the WC ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS supports the organization over the individual, must be an vestigial authoritarian bias from his military years.

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