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Screw 'penalties.' Have you looked at Wall Street over the past decade? Every month or so there's some 'settlement' with a regulatory agency with some fine or t
by tsax 13y ago
Screw 'penalties.' Have you looked at Wall Street over the past decade? Every month or so there's some 'settlement' with a regulatory agency with some fine or the other for all kinds of issues. Class-action lawsuits also enrich the lawyers mostly. It would be best if the engineers themselves would get compensated, but not sure how it would be possible to identify the plaintiffs.
- rayiner 13y ago> Class-action lawsuits also enrich the lawyers mostly Many companies love to use the public's negative sentiment against plaintiffs' lawyers to their favor, by invoking precisely the "class-action lawsuits also enrich the lawyers mostly" canard. This is a sleight of hand. The value of class-action suits is deterrence. Otherwise, it can be very profitable to steal a little bit of money or cause a little bit of harm to a large number of people. Look at it another way: if the alternative is the companies keeping the ill-gotten gains, is that better?
- talmand 13y agoIt's not necessarily sleight of hand when it's often true.
- dllthomas 13y agoSleight of hand is about manipulating attention. What I'm doing with my other hand that you're watching is "true" - what you're seeing that hand do is what it's doing - but you should have been paying attention to my elbow. It's (let's grant) true that the lawyers make most of the money in a class action suit, but they're doing the work and taking much of the risk. Denying a legitimate claim to spite the lawyers is wrong if it means the company keeps whatever incentives lead it to hurt people.
- talmand 13y agoI don't think I was necessarily disagreeing with your second point, although a person with a legitimate claim doesn't necessarily have to join the class-action unless forced to by the court. As for sleight-of-hand, I was referring more to the context that somehow the lawyers are pulling a fast one when it's quite clear what the outcome shall be. But I can see how my statement can be misunderstood.
- JonFish85 13y agoAnd honestly, you'd have trouble convincing many people that wages were kept all that low. What's the median salary of an engineer in the Valley? [1] would seem to indicate a starting range in the low 6-figures is common. I don't know if these things go to juries, but if it came down to that, I imagine that an engineer complaining of a low 6-figure salary with stock options will convince a jury that (s)he is really being hurt that much will be very tough. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/record-salaries-for-valley-programmers-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/record-salaries-for-valley-pr... Edited to fix grammar.
- acjohnson55 13y agoAt the same time, we're talking about a class of even more affluent people screwing engineers out of money. If that's what it looks like near the top, how does that play out down the pyramid? Not to mention, that this is an affront to free mobility of labor. Even if this is a "top 1% of the first world" problem, I do think it's worth taking a principled stand.
- reboog711 13y agoThe Valley is also an expensive place to live. I was at a conference in San Jose; and the organizers donated a portion of their income to a local Charity. The charity organizer spoke a bit during one of the keynotes and said that any income under $70K was considered below poverty level due to the cost of living. With that said, a 6 figure salary is not hurting, but not rolling in it.
- dopamean 13y agoI kind of think the high cost of living thing is not that relevant here. The cost of living is high because the people who live there make a lot of money. If they made more money the Valley wouldn't be more affordable for them. It would just be more expensive.
- talmand 13y agoThere are many other factors that influence cost of living in a given area, not just income. Plus, in some cases increases in income lags behind increases in cost of living.