I do not read a major city newspaper. I get news from two major newspapers on-line, where I usually pedal through the headlines and pick and choose what I read. How did I miss this in 2010? And, why does it take so long to do something about it?
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.
The secret wage-theft agreements between Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and Pixar are described in court papers obtained by PandoDaily as “an overarching conspiracy” in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, and at times it reads like something lifted straight out of the robber baron era that produced those laws. Today’s inequality crisis is America’s worst on record since statistics were first recorded a hundred years ago — the only comparison would be to the era of the railroad tycoons in the late 19th century.Jobs 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
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 antitrust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010.
To the naysayers, it isn't excusable, and it is theft of not only wages, but of career opportunity.
Imagine you were a hot shot Apple employee. If this anti poaching agreement didn't exist, that Apple employee could have (potentially) doubled her salary by becoming an executive at Yahoo or Intel. Two companies which would have paid through the roof to get some of that Apple pixie dust. But since they were afraid to incur the wrath of Jobs, the workers lost out, and they had no idea that they were secretly blacklisted.
Gosh, weren't they making enough money? They had to cheat?
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 antitrust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010.
To the naysayers, it isn't excusable, and it is theft of not only wages, but of career opportunity.
Imagine you were a hot shot Apple employee. If this anti poaching agreement didn't exist, that Apple employee could have (potentially) doubled her salary by becoming an executive at Yahoo or Intel. Two companies which would have paid through the roof to get some of that Apple pixie dust. But since they were afraid to incur the wrath of Jobs, the workers lost out, and they had no idea that they were secretly blacklisted.
Gosh, weren't they making enough money? They had to cheat?
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