Silicon Valley Workers May Pursue Salary-Fixing Lawsuit 130
First time accepted submitter amartha writes with news that a lawsuit alleging Silicon Valley companies of colluding to lower wages is going forward as a class action. From the article: "Roughly 60,000 Silicon Valley workers won clearance to pursue a lawsuit accusing Apple Inc, Google Inc, and others of conspiring to drive down pay by not poaching each other's staff, after a federal appeals court refused to let the defendants appeal a class certification order."
but it didn't remove the option. (Score:5, Informative)
The agreement was not to reach out and poach others' workers. It wasn't to refuse to hire them. You still had the option of getting a 25% raise to go to Google, all you have to do is apply to Google.
The agreement didn't reduce the options available to people, it just made it so the engineer had to take the first step, the recruiter wouldn't call you to entice you.
Re:IANAL, but... (Score:5, Informative)
It might be difficult to prove the INTENT of the "no poaching" agreement was to suppress wages. Unless any of the defendants were stoopid enough to refer to such in emails or other discoverable documentation.
What other purpose could "no poaching" agreements possibly have? Their only purpose is so a company does not have to pay a salary high enough and/or create a work environment good enough to keep the employee from leaving.
Re:IANAL, but... (Score:4, Informative)
The case evolves around a comment made by Appleâ(TM)s late-CEO Steve Jobs to Palmâ(TM)s CEO: âoeWe must do whatever we can to stop cold calling each otherâ(TM)s employees and other competitive recruiting efforts between the companies.â
Copied directly from the article. No logic needed. No need to prove intent because It's right there in the comments at the core of the entire case.
I do agree that these whiny millennials could do the normal thing and occasionally look for other options and therefore lost nothing, but the law does not look favorably on anticompetitive practice, so that statement is pretty much all they needed.