Apple, Google & others could pay 'blindingly high' $9B in anti-poaching class-action suit

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  • Reply 21 of 89
    mistercowmistercow Posts: 157member
    michael_c wrote: »
    As I was reading the article, I wondered how sports teams salary caps, which are aimed to keep players wages down has managed to survive scrutiny.

    Team salary caps are there to enable small market teams to compete with large market. Cities like New York or LA generally have more cash to throw at players. If there were no salary caps, smaller teams would never be able to get any star players as large market teams would just outbid them.
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  • Reply 22 of 89
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    My only question is, how is DoJ/Government going to use this money.

    More illegal arms trafficking or hookers, I presume.
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  • Reply 23 of 89
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member

    I have not followed this closely and maybe someone here has been.

     

    I have not seen any evidence stated that any company agree not to hire someone for any of these companies. I see that as an illegal activity since it bars you from getting a job at any of those company who agree to do that. All I have seen is the companies agree to not actively recruit from each company, in my mine that mean that Company A will not attempt to find out who is doing what at Company B and calling them and offering them a job at Company B. Grant it most companies HR department never call into another company, they usually hire a third part to do their dirty work.

     

    Again I have not seen any evidence where an employee said they were interested in leaving Company A and put their resume out on the market and attempted to get an interview at Company B and was told they would not be interview since they currently worked for Company A. This could be illegal since it does keep someone from getting a new job. 

     

    However, I have work at a company which everyone agree not to interview people from a particular company since those people where just hacks and it was waste of everyone time to even talk to those people. It was a case that you working for the wrong company and no one wanted to interview you, but it was not because the two companies got together.

     

    I also highly doubt that any of those 100,000 people in the case will see anywhere $90K, look what happen when the government sued the tobacco industry back in the 90's the people who die or were dying did not get the billions that the government won, it all went into pet government programs.

     

    With all the case the government is winning against company like Apple, investment banking and such this is how they closing the gaps in their spending. I never saw a dine from the monies I lost from the idiot on wall street playing their games, but the government keep talking about all the fines and such they won against those companies.

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  • Reply 24 of 89
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    michael_c wrote: »
    As I was reading the article, I wondered how sports teams salary caps, which are aimed to keep players wages down has managed to survive scrutiny.

    Because the NFL and other major sports franchises are effectively legal monopolies with the express consent of lawmakers. There is a rich history of the corrupting influence of sports and huge amounts of money permeating public and private education, political graft and a public willingness to look the other way when they are provided bread and circuses.
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  • Reply 25 of 89
    kennmsrkennmsr Posts: 101member
    If they felt they were that valuable they should have gotten off their fat asses and started looking elsewhere. Even if to go to a non no poach partner for a couple years then hop back into the pool. Wine, wine, whimper, and Whine.
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  • Reply 26 of 89
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    maestro64 wrote: »
    I have not followed this closely and maybe someone here has been.

    I have not seen any evidence stated that any company agree not to hire someone for any of these companies. I see that as an illegal activity since it bars you from getting a job at any of those company who agree to do that. All I have seen is the companies agree to not actively recruit from each company, in my mine that mean that Company A will not attempt to find out who is doing what at Company B and calling them and offering them a job at Company B. Grant it most companies HR department never call into another company, they usually hire a third part to do their dirty work.

    Again I have not seen any evidence where an employee said they were interested in leaving Company A and put their resume out on the market and attempted to get an interview at Company B and was told they would not be interview since they currently worked for Company A. This could be illegal since it does keep someone from getting a new job. 

    However, I have work at a company which everyone agree not to interview people from a particular company since those people where just hacks and it was waste of everyone time to even talk to those people. It was a case that you working for the wrong company and no one wanted to interview you, but it was not because the two companies got together.

    I also highly doubt that any of those 100,000 people in the case will see anywhere $90K, look what happen when the government sued the tobacco industry back in the 90's the people who die or were dying did not get the billions that the government won, it all went into pet government programs.

    With all the case the government is winning against company like Apple, investment banking and such this is how they closing the gaps in their spending. I never saw a dine from the monies I lost from the idiot on wall street playing their games, but the government keep talking about all the fines and such they won against those companies.

    Government is the biggest extortion and blackmail racket on Earth.
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  • Reply 27 of 89
    timgriff84timgriff84 Posts: 912member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by bloggerblog View Post

     

    Although I do not support anti-poaching agreements, I can sympathize with the employers' dilemma here. Having your key employees being continuously recruited and scheduling meetings, is very distracting to the employee and I doubt they can focus 100% on their work while thinking about those opportunities. These employees are already getting paid the big bucks and they're aware of their value in the market, and if they're not happy with their current job, they can simply apply at another company and it won't be poaching.


    I wouldn't say its that distracting. It generally starts with a phone call with someone asking if your interested. If a company doesn't want their staff poached they should be focussing on making the staff always answer that their not interested because what they've already got is so good.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post

     

    As for wages etc, to me it's crude and uncalled for that someone would, as implied, use job offers shoved at them by other companies as a tool to get more money. Get it cause you earned it not with what amounts to blackmail (Google is offering me $20k more a year, yeah i told them how much i make and no i don't care that that's against some stupid company rule. now pay me that much or I'll break my contract and go work for them)


    It might be crude, but I wouldn't call it uncalled for. If your employer is under paying you compared to the market you should call them out on it. There either going to give you the pay rise because you do deserve it or there going to say no because you don't.

     

    In general companies don't pay you more than they have too. When you hire people you offer a competitive salary, but when your doing pay rises you pay the minimum you think someone needs to stay with the company.

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  • Reply 28 of 89

    I suspect that Steve's thought wasn't "Lets save money and screw these engineers", but rather "I've got the best people and you other losers can't have them!" Google and the rest may have thought of it as cost saving, but I suspect Apple thought of it as talent retaining.

    Doesn't change the douchebaggery, and Steve should have just manned up and paid the ones he wanted enough to keep them from leaving, and if someone else had someone he wanted, he should have paid enough to get them to blink. I kind of wish Apple would just own past mistakes and pay up. Even if they paid the whole $9B to take the high road it would be chump change in the big picture. 

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  • Reply 29 of 89
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by GordonPrice67 View Post

     

    I suspect that Steve's thought wasn't "Lets save money and screw these engineers", but rather "I've got the best people and you other losers can't have them!" Google and the rest may have thought of it as cost saving, but I suspect Apple thought of it as talent retaining.

    Doesn't change the douchebaggery, and Steve should have just manned up and paid the ones he wanted enough to keep them from leaving, and if someone else had someone he wanted, he should have paid enough to get them to blink. I kind of wish Apple would just own past mistakes and pay up. Even if they paid the whole $9B to take the high road it would be chump change in the big picture. 




    I agree it was probably more about wanting to keep the best people with the thought that Apples best people are better than their competitors and therefore this deal would be better for Apple. But at the same time he or someone else at Apple must have thought it would be cheaper and easier to retain people by taking away the potential jobs rather than incentivising them to stay. Even to the point where they thought the benefits of doing it this way would also out way the negative reaction when their employees found out about it.

     

    I still get shocked by just how much of a dumb idea it really was and that they actually did it.

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  • Reply 30 of 89
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



    This wouldn't have happened if Steve....oh wait...

     

    Well in some sense Apple is either paying for or having to deal with decisions made by its founder years ago. Jobs apparently made decisions sometimes without considering the legal ramifications down the road. 

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  • Reply 31 of 89
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RadarTheKat View Post

     
     As an employee, co-founder, and VP in the software business for decades, I was always under non-compete agreements.  


    In California restraints on trade, aka non-compete agreements, are illegal and void for employees and independent contractors.

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  • Reply 32 of 89
    inklinginkling Posts: 784member
    Anti-poaching agreements are certainly bad, but I'm not sure I'd sign on to this lawsuit, were I one of those involved. $90,000 isn't a lot of money in comparison to becoming known as a troublemaker. Delay in getting a job a couple of times might cost more than that.
    Also, as another poster noted, this isn't an open-and-shut case. If these companies can show that employees of one company who, on their own initiative, applied for work at another got hired, it's hard to show damages. The harm suffered is only the result of what those employees themselves did, which was not seek work elsewhere.
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  • Reply 33 of 89
    kibitzerkibitzer Posts: 1,114member
    lkrupp wrote: »
    Well in some sense Apple is either paying for or having to deal with decisions made by its founder years ago. Jobs apparently made decisions sometimes without considering the legal ramifications down the road. 
    Absolutely. Steve was a genius in many ways, but apparently not in employment law. If his in-house counsel knew at the time about Steve's phone calls, he should have warned him.
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  • Reply 34 of 89
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    michael_c wrote: »
    As I was reading the article, I wondered how sports teams salary caps, which are aimed to keep players wages down has managed to survive scrutiny.
    Salary cap is not aimed at keeping players wages down.
    It is aimed at making teams have equal buying power in that a rich owner cannot simply buy whoever they want to have an unbeatable team.
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  • Reply 35 of 89
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,770member
    My only question is, how is DoJ/Government going to use this money.

    The US Government has nothing to do with this case. This is a class-action brought by the affected employees.
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  • Reply 36 of 89
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post





    Government is the biggest extortion and blackmail racket on Earth.

     

    Aside from the obvious objections to such an absurd view, this is a class action lawsuit.  Nothing to do with Government.  Unless you think there shouldn't be laws or courts in general.

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  • Reply 37 of 89
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jasenj1 View Post

     

    Scenario: Company A needs some employees with skill set X. They know company B has such employees, but because of this agreement they do not attempt to recruit employees from company B.

     

    The employees never know of this opportunity. 

     

    - Jasen.


     

    Please. Are you telling me that Company A never advertises for employees or has any other methods to let the tech industry know about positions?

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  • Reply 38 of 89
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post

     

     

    Well in some sense Apple is either paying for or having to deal with decisions made by its founder years ago. Jobs apparently made decisions sometimes without considering the legal ramifications down the road. 


     

    Riiiiight. And Apple is the only company being sued here?

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  • Reply 39 of 89
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,770member
    Riiiiight. And Apple is the only company being sued here?

    Nope. Google was plainly evil for playing along as were the rest of them. But it apparently all began with threats from Steve Jobs. Google, Adobe and others were to cowtow to his demands or face the consequences. Frankly I'm shocked that few of the Valley elite thought these consequences were the wiser and less fearful than the wrath of Jobs.
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  • Reply 40 of 89
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post





    Nope. Google was plainly evil for playing along as were the rest of them. But it apparently all began with threats from Steve Jobs.

     

    Apple innovation!

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