Rotten Apple

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe are accused of agreeing not to poach each others staff, therefore holding back career development and suppressing compensation. A federal court in California has ordered seven technology companies in the state including Apple, Intel, Adobe and Google to face a private antitrust suit from five former employees, who alleged that the companies conspired to eliminate competition between them for skilled labor to suppress compensation and mobility of employees.

District Judge Lucy H. Koh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose division ruled on Wednesday that the plaintiffs’ antitrust claims cannot be dismissed on the basis of implausibility, and that they have adequately pleaded antitrust injury as a result of six agreements among the companies. The case evolves around a comment made by Apple’s  late-CEO Steve Jobs to Palm’s CEO: “We must do whatever we can to stop cold calling each other’s employees and other competitive recruiting efforts between the companies.”

Rightfully so, they are under fire for deplorable business practices that restrict fair pay.  It defeats the principles that support working hard and exceeding expectations.  They found a way to skew the results so that they had all the negotiating power, at the expense of the people who were slaving away to build their empire.

We do need to focus on creating jobs for workers.  We also need to make it a priority to make it so that having a job guarantees certain fair pay regulations and a good faith effort to enforce them.  What is and is not allowed must be declared so that workers know where they stand.  This is dirty pool, but I have good reason to doubt that the courts will favor workers.

It's illegal as hell to do this to workers in general, but it's not illegal to pay a woman less just because she's a woman.  Or to use fire at will loopholes to deprive workers of reasonable breaks and lunches.  Or to allow businesses to adopt any rules that suit them, as long as HR gets a signature on a form.  The job system is broken, let's fix it already.