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The critical point is that, potentially, you were a candidate of having your wages colluded to be depressed illegally. Ponder about this fact for a moment. Now,

The critical point is that, potentially, you were a candidate of having your wages colluded to be depressed illegally. Ponder about this fact for a moment. Now, how could you straightforwardly make an argument that you are okay because they "treated me very well" or that it's a good thing because it helps the housing market (less income on your end)? These are not in any way, shape or form arguments or defences for these practices.

skybrian 8y ago
It was never OK or legal but it was settled. I can say that I was happy with the settlement. I cannot speak for others except to say that I don't think I'm all that much of an outlier, so don't write me off, bro. I still think this is a better argument than people arguing on behalf of hypothetical others they don't know anything about. One data point is better than zero. If you want to pursue justice, find a current problem with some identifiable victims.
- defen 8y ago
  Imagine if they had been paying you actual market wages, instead of "collusion-depressed" market wages. Then they came to you and said "Hey skybrian, we need you to take a $100k/year pay cut. You'll still be making a ton of money by any standard and this will help us hire other people for less money, so our business will be even more profitable". How would you feel about that deal?
- mrmuagi 8y ago
  Perhaps you got a better deal, but the settlement itself was pennies (/u/nostrademons) reported in this thread it was ~1K for him/her but the wage inflation the next year was around 100k). > I still think this is a better argument than people arguing on behalf of hypothetical others they don't know anything about. One data point is better than zero. Harh, harh. I must admit, I know nothing about a lot of things. Thanks for sharing your viewpoint however, it grows my knowledge by at least one :) My main point I'll make is simple -- you were victim of wage depression, it was found out and 'fixed' because it was illegal, and you benefited -- precisely because you were an identifiable victim. Now, imagine if you 'benefited' X to (X+Y) years earlier. Wouldn't you have retired earlier -- if that's your desirable outcome?
  - skybrian 8y ago
    Well, maybe but filling in those numbers would be hard. The reason it makes sense to settle something like this is that it's a bunch of what-ifs and would be hard to prove either way. How important is recruiting for getting people to switch jobs when it's well known you can get a higher salary from job-hopping and some people already do it? Particularly since there is also competition from other companies not in on it, and many people ignore recruiters. It's never going to be clear whether the settlement was overly generous (a bit of unearned money for us) or whether we would have done much better if it had never happened, so the settlement should have been higher. The illegal collusion stopped, so I guess that's successful government action? Since the market for software engineers was and still is pretty robust, it seems like you could just as easily argue that it was a big success or that it made little difference. It just seems weird to question the settlement now. Would you want to re-argue a settlement for some bankers who supposedly got screwed a decade ago? Aren't there more important injustices in the world that are still going on?

skybrian 8y ago

It was never OK or legal but it was settled. I can say that I was happy with the settlement. I cannot speak for others except to say that I don't think I'm all that much of an outlier, so don't write me off, bro. I still think this is a better argument than people arguing on behalf of hypothetical others they don't know anything about. One data point is better than zero. If you want to pursue justice, find a current problem with some identifiable victims.

defen 8y ago
Imagine if they had been paying you actual market wages, instead of "collusion-depressed" market wages. Then they came to you and said "Hey skybrian, we need you to take a $100k/year pay cut. You'll still be making a ton of money by any standard and this will help us hire other people for less money, so our business will be even more profitable". How would you feel about that deal?
mrmuagi 8y ago
Perhaps you got a better deal, but the settlement itself was pennies (/u/nostrademons) reported in this thread it was ~1K for him/her but the wage inflation the next year was around 100k). > I still think this is a better argument than people arguing on behalf of hypothetical others they don't know anything about. One data point is better than zero. Harh, harh. I must admit, I know nothing about a lot of things. Thanks for sharing your viewpoint however, it grows my knowledge by at least one :) My main point I'll make is simple -- you were victim of wage depression, it was found out and 'fixed' because it was illegal, and you benefited -- precisely because you were an identifiable victim. Now, imagine if you 'benefited' X to (X+Y) years earlier. Wouldn't you have retired earlier -- if that's your desirable outcome?
- skybrian 8y ago
  Well, maybe but filling in those numbers would be hard. The reason it makes sense to settle something like this is that it's a bunch of what-ifs and would be hard to prove either way. How important is recruiting for getting people to switch jobs when it's well known you can get a higher salary from job-hopping and some people already do it? Particularly since there is also competition from other companies not in on it, and many people ignore recruiters. It's never going to be clear whether the settlement was overly generous (a bit of unearned money for us) or whether we would have done much better if it had never happened, so the settlement should have been higher. The illegal collusion stopped, so I guess that's successful government action? Since the market for software engineers was and still is pretty robust, it seems like you could just as easily argue that it was a big success or that it made little difference. It just seems weird to question the settlement now. Would you want to re-argue a settlement for some bankers who supposedly got screwed a decade ago? Aren't there more important injustices in the world that are still going on?