
Oracle latest to be sued for wage-fixing - luu
http://pando.com/2014/10/21/oracle-latest-to-be-sued-for-silicon-valley-wage-fixing-following-pandos-reporting-on-their-involvement/
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fsk
The whole aftermath of this wage-fixing scandal was just a slap on the wrist.
The amount they paid in fines and settlements was less than the amount of
money they saved by suppressing wages.

~~~
learnstats2
This seems to me to be a problem with the existing justice system.

Businesses which are caught doing something dodgy pay - _at most_ \- the
amount they would have had to pay to obey the law. And the chance of being
caught is not exactly high.

~~~
fsk
When deciding whether to do the right thing or not, the formula is (amount you
save from breaking the law) - (cost of getting caught) * (chance of getting
caught)).

If "cost of getting caught" is always less than "amount you save from breaking
the law", then there's no reason to behave honestly. In fact, this causes the
"market" to select against corporations run by honest people, because they're
at a competitive disadvantage.

~~~
DanAndersen
I wonder if, barbaric as it sounds, introducing more non-monetary punishments
for corporate crimes would help with this. If CEOs of price-fixing companies
were punished by public flogging or other pain-based punishments, something
outside the normal money-based calculus...

Though I suppose the chances of something like that would be even less than
such folks seeing jail time, which would also be a non-financial punishment.

~~~
YZF
The fix is to make individuals in the company, e.g. the directors, personally
responsible. In many countries the legal framework is already in place for
that.

As long as the fines are only coming from the company the only one you're
really punishing are the shareholders who really have no control over the
company's day to day activities and these decisions. They have no visibility
into this either.

The CEO should be held responsible for any illegal activities the company
undertakes under his direction as should the directors. Assuming they're aware
of it. Otherwise the responsibility is probably at some lower level. This does
not contradict the responsibility of the company as a legal entity which is a
party to these contract.

EDIT: A decision that may cost the company 100M in fines in 10 years and help
the CEO make his bonus this year is a no brainer. This is not unlike deciding
to do share buybacks when you hold stock options...

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czep
Interesting that this doesn't apply to engineers, only product, sales, and
g&a. Why is that? I have heard arguments that engineering salaries are
likewise kept low through collusion but this wouldn't provide any evidence for
that unless there's another such agreement for engineers.

Do product and sales typically make more money than devs? Or are they in
shorter supply than engineers hence the desire to keep churn low for those
positions?

~~~
click170
In my experience, Sales folks make sometimes more than double what engineers
make. Glassdoor has more information about salaries for different positions,
do yourself a favor and check it out.

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gaius
This is from 6 months ago; what happened next?

~~~
fharper1961
My Google searches aren't showing anything after january 2015. And the WSJ
article from that date doesn't add any new information.
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-rejects-settlement-in-
sili...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-rejects-settlement-in-silicon-
valley-wage-case-1407528633)

~~~
arunabha
Exactly my thoughts. The near silence in the MSM and tech press is most...
curious.

~~~
tzs
Nothing interesting is happening, so there isn't anything for any press to
report.

There were motions to seal things, and rulings on those. There have been
meetings between the attorneys for both sides and the court to work out issues
of case management, and rulings from the court on case management issues.

Oracle filed a motion asking to dismiss on two grounds: (1) if everything the
plaintiff alleges is true, it does not amount to the crimes Oracle is accused
of committing, and (2) the plaintiff waited too long to file, and has run into
a statute of limitations problem. A ruling on this issued 2015-04-22, and is
probably the most interesting development since the case was files.

Oracle lost on the first part of their motion. If all plaintiff allegations
were proven true, they would constitute the crime plaintiff alleges, according
to the court.

Oracle won on the second part of their motion. The alleged acts in their
filing were long enough ago that the statute of limitations applies. The court
gave the plaintiff 30 days to amend the complaint to fix this. If plaintiff
fails to do so, the case will be dismissed with prejudice. (Dismissal with
prejudice means it ends. Dismissal without prejudice means you can try again).

I don't know if this signals anything or not, but the court noted that the
case management conference scheduled for the day after this ruling was to
still go on. Maybe that means that the court thinks the plaintiffs have a good
chance of amending the complaint to avoid the statute of limitations issue,
and so expects the case will continue?

I'd expect the next newsworthy event to be in late May if plaintiff cannot
figure out a way to amend the complaint to avoid the statute of limitations
issue. If plaintiff does amend the complaint successfully, that probably won't
be newsworthy, and the case will continue. That continuation will still mostly
just be motions by the parties maneuvering to try to get favorable evidence
in, exclude unfavorable evidence, and get favorable interpretations of the
law, and the judge's rulings on those motions. None of this stuff is
interesting enough to most people, even most techies, to make the news.

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yuhong
Personally, I am wishing for admission of wrongdoing with an apology letter,
as I said before.

~~~
damm
Too bad that will never happen.

Remember a successful company must be a psychopath in order to succeed. You
only see what they want you to see.

Oh and they are always right; every lawsuit thrown against them is without
merit ...

~~~
yuhong
Huh?

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vkjv
> "...Silicon Valley wage-fixing _sandal_."

That sounds way more interesting than a scandal. Too bad it's probably a typo.
:)

