4 ms·
Apple was the ringleader in the illegal anti-poaching agreements between SV companies a couple decades ago.
by paxys 3mo ago
Apple was the ringleader in the illegal anti-poaching agreements between SV companies a couple decades ago.
- Melatonic 3mo agoAnd successfully at the time (illegally) squashed unionization efforts by software engineers
- bilekas 3mo agoI think that's just standard across the US. But the unions are a people problem not a company problem necessarily. People can still form unions even with massive investments to squash them.. Europe has proven that. But the story told to all US workers SEEMS to be, you have to suffer and grind to make money. I might be wrong but that's the impression I get when talking with US people about unions and workers rights.
- adastra22 3mo agoIf Silicon Valley had unions, employee stock options would end. And along with it, most of the incentive structure that drives innovation in the valley.
- dmix 3mo agoNot to mention the all remote workers available to fill in, both within the US and outside it.
- lilbigdoot 3mo agoBullshit lol
- adfgionatin 3mo ago[dead]
- paxys 3mo agoWhy?
- triceratops 3mo agoHollywood has unions and top stars and directors get points.
- WarmWash 3mo agoUnions primarily benefit the weakest workers, and in places like SV, usually the top workers already are getting fat plates and others are pushing hard to get there. Think of it like a football club holding a vote to flatten player pay. The benchwarmers will be falling over themselves to unionize, and the top players will be looking where to move too. This is why union efforts fail, which many find perplexing. The most valuable players get better deals negotiating without a union.
- smackmybishop 3mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Players_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Players_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Players_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Players_As... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Players_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Players_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Actors_Guild https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Actors_Guild Aren't all of these industries where the top workers get fat plates and others are pushing hard to get there?
- WarmWash 3mo agoI'll take the L, it was a poor example. Generally when workplaces unionize, jobs are clearly delineated, and everyone in that role has a defined pay.
- ralph84 3mo agoThere is no reason pay has to be flat with a union. The highest paid members of MLBPA or SAG-AFTRA are paid 1,000x what the lowest paid members are.
- poslathian 3mo agoInteresting point. I think there might be something special about sag given the way Hollywood does business. Everyone switches employers constantly as projects spin up and wind down. Having a mostly permanent role in an organization is super unusual - and I wonder if these roles (like a 20 year soaps gig or the simpson’s) have different stats on working on/off the card.
- sandeepkd 3mo ago> anti-poaching The term make it sounds like a good thing, however I do not know if this was really a net positive. It might have helped the companies but isn't this anti-competitive at the employee level?
- beambot 3mo agoyes, which is why Apple got massively fined for doing it -- nowhere near enough to compensate all the depressed engineering salaries though.
- skeeter2020 3mo agoIt was mass-collusion between big companies to prevent people from exercising labour mobility. Poaching is illegal, i.e. theft from an individual or the crown; we shouldn't encourage treating people like company property.
- adastra22 3mo agoYes and they got in huge trouble for it. It was a massive scandal. The only reason Apple wasn’t made an example of was because all the other big companies followed suit and did the same thing. It was Steve Jobs that drove this monopolistic behavior that could have turned out much worse for Apple.
- cyanydeez 3mo agowasn't that just last decade?
- rpaik 3mo agoThese companies (e.g., Intel, Google, etc.) also had to compensate their employees as a part of the settlement. Especially for people in engineering orgs, many of them received decent settlement checks.
- soperj 3mo agoNo they really didn't. $5000 is not really decent considering how much they would have gained without that agreement.
- rpaik 3mo agoThe amount was dependent on their seniority and a lot of people received bigger checks. Regardless, we can all argue if any amount was sufficient to compensate for limiting peoples' movement among these companies back then....
- fortran77 3mo agoI personally received a check. It was only a few thousand.