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Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

reuters.com

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Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#131

Post by argonaut »

codezero wrote: post #93
argonaut wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not find it especially disgusting. The specific approach Ben advocates is asking candidates at the interview stage whether they would be okay if you checked with their company. It is your choice whether to say yes or no. You have total latitude to walk away.

Ok, you can walk away, but that's not the point. The point is that if I want to get a better offer, and I seek that at another company, it's not fair to ask my current employer if they're willing to let me take that offer, because they may also not be willing to improve your compensation, so you end up stuck where you are just because your company wants you and you are skilled enough for other companies to want you t…

There is nothing preventing you from engaging other employers if you wish to improve your compensation level. We saw this with Facebook ultimately being responsible for the breaking up of the downward pressure on salaries.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#132

Post by jasonlotito »

Zigurd wrote: post #43
Consultant32452 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting to see an analysis of what the economic impact of these depressed wages has been. $3 Billion is probably not too far off the mark. Probably not $3 Billion directly to the programmers impacted, but definitely to the broader economy.

Across the industry, the number of employees affected is easily in the high hundreds of thousands, at a direct cost to them of tens of thousands of dollars per year. So billions to maybe low tens of billions is not an unreasonable range. And would that get trebled under California employment law?

This, right here, at multiple levels. A company paying market rates have benefited from this collusion. Any company still paying market rates after this is knowingly taking advantage of this illegal behavior.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#133

Post by dreamdu5t »

asdfologist wrote: post #128
dreamdu5t wrote: post #113

There's nothing wrong with "collusion." Collusion is nothing more than free association. Same with "poaching" for that matter. There's nothing wrong with two people agreeing to work for each other. People should be free to negotiate their own agreements. The arguments for criminalizing such free association are based in sentiment not reason.

Collusion leads to artificially suppressed wages, which makes the labor market inefficient, to the detriment of the employees. In general, completely unregulated free markets lead to monopolies and price manipulation, among other problems. So no, collusion is wrong.

What's artificial about wages or prices determined through agreement (the market)? What constitutes an agreement's artificiality?

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#134

Post by lmakeppleave »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #130
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when two people freely work together peacefully to break the law, it's called conspiracy. What is wrong with two people freely working together to burn a factory down? To collude to deny others the right of free association and free employment is just as wrong. The CEOs of major corporations that dominate an industry can have a disproportionate impact on an industry, so this is especially wrong.

> What is wrong with two people freely working together to burn a factory down? I think this should be obvious, but burning a factory down is fundamentally different from hiring agreements, in that it is destruction of someone elses property. A hiring agreement does not involve the destruction or restriction of property, but laws against such agreements do. > To collude to deny others the right of free association an…

Take the argument to the extreme, is it OK for every employer in every industry to agree on wages and no-poach? What about on child labor? Minimum Wage? What about colluding on prices? Aren't these all the same infringement? The truth is sometimes society has to take away the rights of the few for the sake of the many. While I agree we tend to do it too often, you will be hard pressed to find many who agree with you on this matter. The fact is rules like this almost certainly make our economy more productive as a whole.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#135

Post by asdfologist »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #133
asdfologist wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collusion leads to artificially suppressed wages, which makes the labor market inefficient, to the detriment of the employees. In general, completely unregulated free markets lead to monopolies and price manipulation, among other problems. So no, collusion is wrong.

What's artificial about wages or prices determined through agreement (the market)? What constitutes an agreement's artificiality?

Consider the extreme scenario where all companies collude, sending wages to near zero. Would you still call this "agreement"?

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#136

Post by rayiner »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #122
JDShu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, wikipedia is a good start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_law_theory

I'm familiar with anti-trust theory. The idea of collusion reducing competition is fallacious because market competition is not a quantity, but a process by which goods and services are exchanged. Price fixing and hiring agreements do not involve force, fraud, or misrepresentation- yet the regulation or prohibition thereof directly violates the property rights of the market participants. I've read the Wikipedia entry…

Why do you distinguish force and fraud arbitrarily from collusion? Me bashing you over the head and taking your stuff is the ultimate freedom of action.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#137

Post by codeonfire »

cma wrote: post #115
alexqgb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not convinced this helps the investors either, if the employee is staying within their broader portfolio of companies. Yes, he may cost a bit more, but presumably he's moving to do more valuable and / or productive work, so the uptick in salary should pay for itself several times over.

Let's say all he does is leverage your offer to get a raise at his current job. That raise comes out of investor dividends.

Lets say the price of electricity goes up. That comes out of investor dividends also.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#138

Post by DrewAllyn »

phaker wrote: post #88
balls187 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems taken out of context. Do not hire is different than do not poach. The wisdom I subscribe to is, if you have common investors, it's bad form to actively poach from portfolio companies. For companies that are later stage, it's bad form to poach key employee's from portfolio companies. Do Not Hire agreements between companies, however, seem unreasonable, except when there is clear cause for conflict of interest.

Seems taken out of context. In a [post] on his blog Horowitz describes a scenario in which a person currently employed at a company that is "important" to you comes in for an interview. The recommended course of action is to 1: block the hire, 2: inform said company about it. There are two things i just can't agree with at all: * The part about informing the current employer: about 50% of the time it will end with ru…

> Note that at e.g. apple the standard procedure when they find out that an employee is looking for a job is to escort them out of the building right then and there.

Do you have a source on this? I couldn't find anything with a quick Google search.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#140

Post by dreamdu5t »

rayiner wrote: post #136
dreamdu5t wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm familiar with anti-trust theory. The idea of collusion reducing competition is fallacious because market competition is not a quantity, but a process by which goods and services are exchanged. Price fixing and hiring agreements do not involve force, fraud, or misrepresentation- yet the regulation or prohibition thereof directly violates the property rights of the market participants. I've read the Wikipedia entry…

Why do you distinguish force and fraud arbitrarily from collusion? Me bashing you over the head and taking your stuff is the ultimate freedom of action.

It's not arbitrary. Hiring agreements (collusion) do not involve force or fraud. Do you truly not distinguish between bashing someone over the head for my stuff from agreeing to exchange something for it? The latter is voluntary and the former is forced.
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