back to article Steve Jobs' Silicon Valley wage-rigging plot costs Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel $415m

Apple, Google, Adobe, and Intel's $415m settlement with Silicon Valley techies over wage-fixing accusations has been formally approved by a judge. On Thursday, Judge Lucy Koh, sitting in the northern district court of California, gave her approval [PDF] to a deal that will see the tech giants compensate workers for potential …

  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Doing the maths

    $415M, half goes to the lawyers. So the 64K employees share $200M = $3K each, or about the difference in one month's salary between what they were paid and what they could have been paid in a competitive marker.

    So the industry really learned a lesson here - save $50K/year for your 100K employees over 10 years and be fined 1/1000 of the amount you saved.

    1. elDog

      Re: Doing the maths

      The highest paid tech workers aren't the bit-pushers, developers, UI wizards. They are the lawyers. Carrion/ambulance chasers.

      Of course, if there were some rules about fair employment trade than this wouldn't happen. But the rules are made by the legislatures, and the legislatures just happen to be staffed by lawyers.

      Not to say that there aren't some good ones out there trying to do good. But they also aren't raking in the megabucks.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Doing the maths

        No problem with the cut lawyers take on class actions - they are investing a lot of time+money up front for a case that may never pay off. A lot of these cases would never come to court if an individual had to pay lawyers to go up against a dozen $bn corporations.

        It's that the fine was so small that it would almost be negligent for a corporation not to break the law.

        There are also a lot of other people (like me) who lost money even though we don't work for any of these companies, because wages are set by market averages.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Doing the maths

      That is not the whole math. Californicating average qualified tech employee cost to the company is > 200K per annum.

      415M equates to cost of ~ 2k employees which could have been subject to such a no-poach agreement. Most participating companies had 10K+ employees potentially subject to this. Let us assume 80K and 2K respectively which is an underestimate. That equates to 2.5% over the duration of the salary pact. This is significantly less than actual workforce mobility in the Silly valley over the same period.

      So if we do the whole math it looks like all of the corporate participants are in profit after paying the cost, the fine and the compensation.

      So the lesson is - hurrah, let's do it again. And they will do it again - there is no doubt about it.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    free market hahaha

    Funny how few of the free market preachers find corporate collusion to be a problem vs say the big bad evil unions %8 of Americans are in, that they endlessly warn us about. Probably because they usually are advocating for the crony capitalism that benefits them personally. The employment market isn't supposed to be free for the little guy. We wouldn't want him thinking he gets a share of his productivity gains over time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: free market hahaha

      Sorry %11 to %12 union membership (and still dropping) actually. Huge difference yeah not so much.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tip of the Iceberg

    See title and think of buddies chuckling together at the country club.

  4. Velv
    Flame

    Free Market Economy

    Collusion between entities stifles competition and the free market economy. It's falsely held down the wages of the little guy.

    And why shouldn't some of the little guys get to stick their snout in the trough too. Just because you work in a growing industry and live in the heartland of employers shouldn't mean you shouldn't profit more than the next man. The gulf between the poorest and the richest is growing which is wrong for everyone but I still want more.

    Back in the real world, I in no way condone the collusion. But if you want to see what a "free market economy" does for wages in a localised community just look at the evil bankers. Be careful what you wish for...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Free Market Economy

      >But if you want to see what a "free market economy" does for wages in a localised community just look at the evil bankers.

      How is it free market when a sector greatly benefits by shifting the risk but not the reward of the free market onto the government and public? The current banking system at least in the US (and sounds like UK too) is the very definition of crony capitalism (and moral hazard) who even the avowed "socialist" (sarcasm off) Obama won't touch. A better example you might be reaching for is how low wages of teachers and social workers might be in a free market compared to their value to society which points out why the free market is a very valuable tool (when not rigged which it seems almost always to be at least slightly with humans involved) but ideal markets don't always make for ideal society.

  5. earl grey
    Joke

    well, there is a place

    for good lawyers...

    1. fishbone

      Re: well, there is a place

      The place is sitting in the last two seats at the back of the bus that's going over a cliff.

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