8 ms·
U.S. judge approves $415M settlement in tech worker lawsuit
- olalonde 11y agoDoes anyone know how all that money will be distributed?
- pmorici 11y agoThe lawsuits official information website has some information in the FAQ section about distributions. http://www.hightechemployeelawsuit.com/ http://www.hightechemployeelawsuit.com/ generally speaking if you are a part of the group a class action suit applies to you would have received a notice telling you about your rights. Even though the top line number seems big it probably boils down to like 2-3k per affected employee after fees and taxes.
- thescrewdriver 11y agoGiven the amounts involved likely as a single McDonalds meal voucher per recipient.
- staunch 11y agoThis conspiracy is by far the most intentionally evil thing tech companies have ever been caught doing. Also the worst thing Steve Jobs did in his life.
- x5n1 11y agoJobs was a scumbag through and through... just one more check mark on stupid shit rich business people and their respective corporations can get away with in America most of the time. Even now it's a small sum for these companies, a few thousand dollars a person, much less than the actual pay lost due to corruption. A few billion each would've actually sent a message and actually set the victims whole. Funny how the attorneys wanted to eat up almost 20% of the pie.
- Beltiras 11y ago25% is a rather "normal" attorney fee award. You can argue they shouldn't get that much but remember that they have to eat the cost of prosecuting the case for a long time before seeing a dime. EDIT: I don't get the harsh downvoting. I'm unfamiliar with the particulars of the case but remember that not all class-actions end favourably for the lawyers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Civil_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Civil_Action
- 3princip 11y agoHow much of a financial hit do they really take? Apart from their salaries and associated office costs (covered by past cases presumably) what other costs do they have? Their only excuse is that most businesses do the same thing. Payment processors, freelance agencies, telecoms providers etc, all taking extortionate cuts in relation to the costs incurred providing a service, which comes from our paychecks.
- Beltiras 11y agoNot all class-actions result in a settlement or a verdict and even then not all of them are rainmakers. Saw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Civil_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Civil_Action several years ago and it stuck with me.
- roel_v 11y ago"How much of a financial hit do they really take? Apart from their salaries and associated office costs (covered by past cases presumably) what other costs do they have?" Well then, why don't you come work for me for a few years, and if the software you develop works well enough and I make a lot of money on it, I'll give you 25%. Deal? (PS you'll have to front your own computer, admin staff etc. too)
- Beltiras 11y agoDon't forget research staff and your accountability to some very mis-temperamental validators that your 'work' is worthy of consideration.
- devbin 11y agoIt also happened when he ran Pixar, he had agreement with Disney, Dreamwork, Sony, and Lucasfilm that they would not headhunt animators from each other.
- Beltiras 11y agoDisowning his daughter was a decidedly dickish move, even if the damage was limited in numbers.
- snarfy 11y agoI'm still pissed at Google for falling into this. From a company that prides itself on not being evil, it was clearly an evil practice. I'm not too pissed though. I understand Steve had his distortion bubble and Larry had stars in his eyes. It's sad to see the integrity break down. It makes me not trust Google to always do the right thing because I don't trust Larry to.
- wcummings 11y ago>From a company that prides itself on not being evil Does it, though?
- mtgx 11y agoNot for a few years at least. Now they're all "well...evil is kind of a relative term."
- cryoshon 11y ago"Don't be evil" is just a slogan. Same as any other company's slogan. There isn't any integrity to begin with unless there's a market incentive for it, and there isn't.
- crdoconnor 11y agoI like to think they were just being sarcastic.
- retbull 11y agoI feel like at first it probably was a very good slogan. The founders were interested in following through but as they got further and further form their employees the numbers just looked too nice. This does not excuse they for being assholes but I can see how it happened.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y agoIt goes to show that for all the lofty dreams of Silicon Valley, technology, in the end, does not make the world kinder or fairer - just more convenient.
- GreaterFool 11y agoSurprisingly uninformative article! If I recall correctly per-person damages are staggering $6500.
- pmorici 11y agoI'm not sure if I would call that number staggering. It was noted by one person who objected to the settlement that it amounted to only 10% of the estimated savings the companies reaped from the practice.
- x5n1 11y ago"savings" ... more like "ill-gotten gains from racketeering" usually the government confiscates those and then sends the perps to jail over it.
- littletimmy 11y agoStaggering? I'd call it a pittance. The companies should've been fined much more to make an example out of them so no tech firm attempts something like this again.
- vidar 11y agoPretty sure thats a sarcastic use of the word staggering
- 11y ago
- smtddr 11y agoI commented on this a year ago or so: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8154909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8154909 My opinion on this is unchanged and I'm still disturbed by the greed behind this lawsuit.
- edent 11y agoYou may enjoy The Fallacy of Relative Privation - http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as "Look, none of you were actually murdered, so it's unfair of you to complain about the beating you received." I'm also curious as to why the greed of the companies doesn't disturb you? To everyone else - join, or form, a union.
- littletimmy 11y agoI am more disturbed at the greed behind the original injustice. The tech companies should be punished, the greed of the plaintiffs is completely irrelevant.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y agoWhy is it greed if a walmart worker was being stiffed of a dollar an hour its just as bad as a sales guy losing 20% of a five figure bonus.
- crdoconnor 11y agoWalmart workers and stiffed tech workers have more in common than the "masters of the universe" who rule them both.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoThat's a reach. Minimum-wage workers live an order of magnitude differently than either of the others.
- 11y ago
- WalterBright 11y agoThis cartel had 4 members. With all the Silicon Valley tech companies, it's a little hard to see how this would be successful at holding down compensation. In any case, cartels have a historical reputation of being unworkable without laws being passed to force conformance. The problem for the cartel members is they have large incentives to cheat on the agreement. Probably the most famous cartel is OPEC. "Jeff Colgan argued in 2013 that, since 1982, countries cheated on their quotas 96% of the time, largely neutralizing the ability of OPEC to collectively influence prices." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC
- rayiner 11y agoCartels are dynamically unstable. That doesn't mean they can't cause a net social loss during the period in which they are effective.
- WalterBright 11y agoI looked at some of the articles on this particular cartel. I didn't see evidence presented that employees of the cartel were compensated less than employees at other tech companies. While there is no doubt there was an illegal cartel, I'm skeptical that it was an effective cartel.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y agoIt acted to suppress wages across the industry by reducing wage rises on moves. Effectively its negativly skewing the salery distribution for every one - this is basic Stats 101.
- WalterBright 11y agoOkay, but was compensation at cartel members actually lower than at other tech companies? And if they were, wouldn't that make cartel members vulnerable to poaching from non-members? I just don't see how a cartel of 4 companies could possibly be effective across the tech industry.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]