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Apple, Google Settle Class-Action Anti-Poaching Lawsuit
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Typical corporate america screwing hard working folks. They should have NEVER settled and got every penny they deserved. For you apple fan boys who think the settlement is fare, apple has you on a string like a puppet keeping you in an over priced eco system with the profits of cheap labor. Real nice company to do business with, NOT!
This gives the lawyers a good payout for a brief effort. They're the only ones who ever 'win' class action suits. For everyone else, this settlement is negligible. The workers will only get a couple weeks salary if that, and for Apple and Google it's about a day's profit each.$324 million? WTF! Someone sold out. Jerks.
Don't take advantage of your OWN engineers, morons (Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, etc.).
First thing I thought when I saw the logos alongside. Glad I wasn't the only one. Thanks for doing it.
The lawyers will get $323 million while all of the workers who got screwed will get a $5 coupon.
The way to retain employees is to make them want to stay not try to prevent them from leaving (Soviet Union, anybody?).
WOW. I am coming out of the woodwork for this one...
Billions of dollars were STOLEN from the techs and scientists that made these companies what they are, over a DECADE, and this small slap on the wrist is all they get? If windows wasn't the only alt to apple, my last iMac would have been MY LAST iMAC. And from one gay to another: Tim, ghurl, you bettah do something to make this ish RIGHT.
Billions of dollars were STOLEN from the techs and scientists that made these companies what they are, over a DECADE, and this small slap on the wrist is all they get? If windows wasn't the only alt to apple, my last iMac would have been MY LAST iMAC. And from one gay to another: Tim, ghurl, you bettah do something to make this ish RIGHT.
Look at wikipedia
Her credentials are looking quite impressive. She seems to be a very good judge, she is also married to a law professor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_H._Koh
"From 2002 until 2008, Koh worked as a litigation partner at the Silicon Valley office of the law firm McDermott Will & Emery representing technology companies in patent, trade secret and commercial civil matters."
Her credentials are looking quite impressive. She seems to be a very good judge, she is also married to a law professor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_H._Koh
"From 2002 until 2008, Koh worked as a litigation partner at the Silicon Valley office of the law firm McDermott Will & Emery representing technology companies in patent, trade secret and commercial civil matters."
I don't think it was the intent of Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe to prevent advancement of their employees. It would have been to prevent companies from stealing corporate secrets. The devastating thought of a key person working on Apple's next thing would be hired by Google, and that person would take all knowledge of what did and did not work to jump start the same product for Google. Lose of intellectual property would be the main concern. Becides, non-compete clauses simply don't hold up in court.
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The world's second oldest profession always wins, at least for themselves. That's why 1 out of every 320 Americans are lawyers. There are likely more lawyers in the USA than there are in the worlds oldest profession.
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How do you figure "STOLEN"? They all agreed to be hired at their pay rate. All the employees 'make' every company, successful or otherwise. If they wanted to get a different job, they could seek employment from any company other than Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe. There are thousands more tech companies out there than these four you know.
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The world's second oldest profession always wins, at least for themselves. That's why 1 out of every 320 Americans are lawyers. There are likely more lawyers in the USA than there are in the worlds oldest profession.
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WOW. I am coming out of the woodwork for this one...
Billions of dollars were STOLEN from the techs and scientists that made these companies what they are, over a DECADE, and this small slap on the wrist is all they get? If windows wasn't the only alt to apple, my last iMac would have been MY LAST iMAC. And from one gay to another: Tim, ghurl, you bettah do something to make this ish RIGHT.
How do you figure "STOLEN"? They all agreed to be hired at their pay rate. All the employees 'make' every company, successful or otherwise. If they wanted to get a different job, they could seek employment from any company other than Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe. There are thousands more tech companies out there than these four you know.
If there was any way to prove that 'billions of dollars' was 'STOLEN' the lawsuit wouldn't have been settled for such a paltry sum. Employees still had the choice to receive offers from other companies by applying there. They employees cannot prove that without the agreement cold-calling would have been widespread and had a major impact on wages.Billions of dollars were STOLEN from the techs and scientists that made these companies what they are, over a DECADE, and this small slap on the wrist is all they get? If windows wasn't the only alt to apple, my last iMac would have been MY LAST iMAC. And from one gay to another: Tim, ghurl, you bettah do something to make this ish RIGHT.
Don't get me wrong, this agreement is paltry and benefits the lawyers involved far more than the class members. However, you need to turn down the hyperbole a notch.
P.S. Tim Cook has decided not to make sexual orientation a central theme of his work. Please respect that and don't bring it into conversations that have nothing to do with that.
I don't agree with the way he worded it. What you should look at is that these companies seem to have colluded in order to control costs, and when it takes place among top tier companies, it can have some influence on market rates.
Did you really have to taint cookie monster
Sometimes you have to commit certain taboos and cross a few lines to make an impact, Kev.
What have you been smoking? Your a true apple fanboy! These employees have every right to work for the competition without being held back and keeping there pay lower than what there work experiences should have been paid. These folks should start there own business and put a serious hurting on the ones who screwed them! Without these workers, apple, google and the rest of the scum wouldn't be where they are today!
Apple Fanboy for sure, since 1978, always have been and always will be, and proud of it.
As far as rights, every employer has the right to decide who works for them, just as you have the right to seek employment from anywhere you want. You can quit your job whenever you want, but your employer needs cause for your dismissal (talk about unfair rights
). None of these companies were preventing their employees from seeking employment elsewhere, just from the other 3 companies. I agree that the agreement was not proper and it may have hindered getting a job with one of the other 3. My point was that the "STOLEN" statement was not correct.
It's a little different in Silicon Valley, where pretty much everyone is floating between projects amongst multiple companies, and only the higher ups tend to stick around in one place.
Are you refering to the book, Neuromancer? I read that years ago, but can't remember anything about hiring practices. Can you remind me? Thanks.
What are you doing on the MacRumors forums then if you hate Apple? Every big company does this, or attempts to do it. You read the original article, right - there were like 10 companies on the list for anti-poach. Every company I've ever worked at has had private anti-poach agreements. Microsoft used to do this too. All full-timers at Apple are well paid - engineers, retail store employees, US assembly workers, Apple makes sure even the assembly workers in China that assembly their products are well paid.
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Yes, I was referring to the book. In it, poaching employees is nothing short of a black-ops military operation, involving breaking in and effectively kidnappingoften involving a healthy dose of explosives and bulletsthe "poached" employee.
Now that I think of it, I believe it was depicted in "Count Zero", the second novel in William Gibson's Trilogy ("Neuromancer" being the first, and "Monalisa Overdrive" being the third).