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...except if all the competitors ask how much the employee was paid at their last gig, so bid $12. Price fixing is an actual thing, that's why we have labor la

...except if all the competitors ask how much the employee was paid at their last gig, so bid $12. Price fixing is an actual thing, that's why we have labor laws. Also see: non-compete agreements.

eru 10y ago
If you get bitten by that, you are just a bad negotiator.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  64k Bay Area tech workers were bad negotiators? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
  - eru 10y ago
    Sorry, I was only responding to your first line. Totally agree that the price fixing wasn't kosher.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    "Our policy only impacted cold calling, and we continued to recruit from these companies through LinkedIn, job fairs, employee referrals, or when candidates approached Google directly. In fact, we hired hundreds of employees from the companies involved during this time period." It doesn't sound like it was very effective. Cartels in general tend to be unstable, as members have powerful incentives to cheat on the agreement. It's hard to say if this agreement actually reduced salaries in any significant way, as there were plenty of other companies in the area who were not part of the cartel.
WalterBright 10y ago
And the next competitor bids $12. There are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages down. Non-compete agreements are invalid in many states. Also, would you sign a non-compete agreement in order to get paid 10% of your value to the business?
- sgift 10y ago
  > There are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages down. This takes many assumptions: People know of all these businesses. People are able and willing to move at a whim (not so easy with family/friends), people are willing to change their jobs every other month (for a business a job is just a transaction of money vs time, human beings, failed constructions that we are don't see it that simple) and so on. Neither the world nor people are completely rational, so things which work in theory often donThere are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages don't work in reality.

...except if all the competitors ask how much the employee was paid at their last gig, so bid $12. Price fixing is an actual thing, that's why we have labor laws. Also see: non-compete agreements.

eru 10y ago

If you get bitten by that, you are just a bad negotiator.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
64k Bay Area tech workers were bad negotiators? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
- eru 10y ago
  Sorry, I was only responding to your first line. Totally agree that the price fixing wasn't kosher.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  "Our policy only impacted cold calling, and we continued to recruit from these companies through LinkedIn, job fairs, employee referrals, or when candidates approached Google directly. In fact, we hired hundreds of employees from the companies involved during this time period." It doesn't sound like it was very effective. Cartels in general tend to be unstable, as members have powerful incentives to cheat on the agreement. It's hard to say if this agreement actually reduced salaries in any significant way, as there were plenty of other companies in the area who were not part of the cartel.

WalterBright 10y ago

And the next competitor bids $12. There are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages down. Non-compete agreements are invalid in many states. Also, would you sign a non-compete agreement in order to get paid 10% of your value to the business?

sgift 10y ago
> There are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages down. This takes many assumptions: People know of all these businesses. People are able and willing to move at a whim (not so easy with family/friends), people are willing to change their jobs every other month (for a business a job is just a transaction of money vs time, human beings, failed constructions that we are don't see it that simple) and so on. Neither the world nor people are completely rational, so things which work in theory often donThere are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages don't work in reality.