I'd agree that using the term 'wage theft' roughly 500 times in the article seems way over the top, and makes the whole article sound like left-wing propaganda.

I'd agree that using the term 'wage theft' roughly 500 times in the article seems way over the top, and makes the whole article sound like left-wing propaganda. Yeah, it's illegal, and I don't have much sympathy for them getting whatever happens as a result of the collusion investigation, but it does seem pretty weak. The best proof I can think of that they were or were not effective is to look at engineer wages at companies that were not subject to these agreements, like startups. Most of them are probably too small to benefit from tech giants agreeing not to try to recruit their people, or at least stand to gain much more from paying excessively high salaries to recruit from those tech giants. So are there a bunch of startups routinely paying much more than normal salaries to hire top talent quickly?