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"Wage-fixing" is probably more accurate than "wage theft", but it is most certainly illegal under antitrust law.

The key issues I see in the case:

1) they agreed not to do counteroffers

2) some of them shared salary data

3) they agreed to disallow active recruiting (cold-calling)

4) they agreed notify each other when hiring from each other

The third seems a little weak, but it definitely crosses the line when you combine it with the fourth (and emails between CEOs to stop hires that were already in the works).

What an apologist for corporate theft.

It is absolutely clear that the market price for engineers in a free market would be much higher if there wasn't collusion.

And their efforts are evidently working, because otherwise Jobs wouldn't be threatening other CEOs with "going to war" over this. It's so important to them that they're willing to cut significant cooperative deals with each other.

This is the exact proof that software needs unionization and is not in any exempt from the worldly issues of labor anywhere else.

If big tech companies are colluding to depress engineer wages, they're pretty obviously failing.

If crooks are trying to rob retailers, I don't see empty shelves at walmart so the crooks are obviously failing.

(I don't think it matters if Jobs failed or succeeded. The appalling thing here is that Steve Jobs attempted an extremely scummy and potentially illegal move.)

it's a fairly weak attempt at 'collusion'.

What form of success here qualifies as "weak?"

If big tech companies are colluding to depress engineer wages, they're pretty obviously failing.

You're going to have to show your work here.

The fact that I'm a 21 year old drop out making nearly 100k because I sat in my mom's basement for a few years and studied software that interested me is pretty crazy.

why?

what makes you think you aren't worth 10 times that?

How do I properly quantify exactly how much value I'm adding to the company I work for and the world to possibly determine how much I'm precisely worth?

You're almost there...

Now apply this to the implication that these sv companies did not depress engineer wages.

You're absolutely right. I'm demanding a 500k bonus from my boss tomorrow or I'm GONE!

why does that make sense?

you aren't paid in proportion to your worth; you are only paid in proportion to your negotiating power. if 50 other people can produce the same worth for your employer, you're going to be paid a lot less than if you are the only one who can produce the same amount of worth.

don't take this as an argument that you are being paid "unfairly" - you're not. just see it this way - you are worth much more than that. set your career sights a lot higher because you deserve it.

You should. I write code in another industry (HFT) and most people coming out of college are getting 400-500k bonuses or more after a year. We joke about how raw of a deal the average developer in SV is getting -- Google has roughly the same net profit/employee that we do (maybe even more), and all they're getting is chump change.

I both hate and admire you for that. One bonus like that is all I need to finish plans for good. I know talented programmers getting the equiv of $50k and I wish I could do something for them.

Interesting. How does one get into that industry? Can you shoot me an email?

I thought HFT was going into rough times?

You need to ask yourself what your replacement cost is, not how much value you are adding.

Sure, you're a drop out, but if you have an in-demand skill set replacing you is not going to be cheap.

This is true, but irrelevant.

Market price is market price. These companies are generating massive income. They are paying high wages (and colluding to avoid paying higher ones) because engineers are necessary to that.

The question you should ask during salary negotiations isn't, "Do I, based on my own value judgments and moral code, deserve this much money?" It's: "Are they paying me market price for my skills?"

If market price for your work is more money than you need or you believe you deserve, then take it and give it to somebody you think does deserve it. I promise you that if you let your employer keep the extra, they will not do anything better than you will with it.

Take the money.

> These companies are generating massive income.

Illustration:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=profit+per+employee+app...

Remember this is net rev, what they take in after paying everyone. Assuming the average employee makes $120K, and given that they can't exist long enough to make $1 without the engineers showing up, these companies should be willing to pay everyone up to 2-3x that

Wtf, wolfram alpha doesn't know how to display units properly?

Anyway, considering that employees also have equity, those numbers aren't obviously damning.

Nor are they particularly relevant, as "willing to pay" isn't the same as "market price"

> "willing[ness] to pay" isn't the same as "market price"

It should be the same if aggregate engineer negotiation for compensation was efficient

either that or there's a glut of engineers on the market, which would seem to be the opposite of what we're always hearing

What's even crazier: owners of firms get paid millions or billions of dollars for doing much less than you do--literally nothing besides initially deciding to purchase shares, in large companies--merely because they acquired, one way or another, a big bundle of cash earlier in their history.

Part of the reason it's crazy is because the collusion in other industries is even worse.

From the article,

"a) never cold call each other’s employees; b) notify each other if making an offer to an employee of the other company, even if that employee applied for the job on his or her own without being recruited; c) any offer made would be “final” so as to avoid a costly bidding war that would drive up not just the employee’s salary, but also drive up the pay scale of every other employee in the firm."

I think it's clear how this would affect wages.

If big tech companies are colluding to depress engineer wages, they're pretty obviously failing.

How do you conclude that they're failing?

Astroturfing

I assume that the poster was being genuine, but is also suffering wage-shock - the wages that tech workers get are so much higher than what he/she was used to getting, and for far less (apparent) effort than people who make peanuts. It seems unfair, until you realize how much money the company is getting for these services.

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?