US Justice Dept. Sues eBay For Anti-Competitive Hiring Practices 66
McGruber writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. Justice Department is suing eBay for allegedly agreeing with Intuit not to hire each other's employees. According to the article, 'eBay's agreement with Intuit hurt employees by lowering the salaries and benefits they might have received and deprived them of better job opportunities at the other company,' said acting Assistant Attorney General Joseph Wayland, who is in charge of the Justice Department's antitrust division. The division 'has consistently taken the position that these kinds of agreements are per se (on their face) unlawful under antitrust laws.'"
Quickbooks User Here (Score:5, Funny)
As a software developer and QuickBooks user I can assure you that no one should hire the Intuit guys anyway.
Re:Quickbooks User Here (Score:5, Funny)
Is this the same for "contractor" companies? (Score:4, Interesting)
IBM uses contract employee companies like CDI for disposable employees. CDI and IBM have agreements that limit CDI employee's ability to apply for other positions within CDI and IBM. Would these agreements be illegal as well?
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Re:Is this the same for "contractor" companies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe not in the case of CDI/IBM, but otherwise contractors working for the government cost 2x what it would cost them for direct hire(including benefits). They just want the freedom to increase/decrease workforce as needed. It gets around alot of red tape as well in terms of both hiring/firing. If there is a hiring/pay freeze instituted at the state level, but your agency has enough money to hire needed employees, then pay for "services" of an agency. What's ironic is the blindly broad hiring/pay freeze results in agencies wasting money in this case.
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My first guess would say no; and this is an uninformed opinion - but that is probably structured as a non-poach agreement, e.g. IBM is not allowed to poach employees from CDI.
That does tend to be legal - although the punishment is relatively thin. IBM would only have to pay for a recruiter to find someone of similar calibre to CDI in damages if it ever went to court/arbitration/settlement.
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I work for a contracting company, and I cannot imagine taking a full time job at one of the companies that hires my firm. It was my company's marketing that gathered that contact, and for me to snake that out from under them just seems wrong.
But then again, legally I can't really see any difference between this and and what eBay is being accused of. I honestly cannot figure out what my opinion on this is.
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This happens all the time though, in fact frequently these positions are marketed to contractors as "contract to hire" (not that it usually happens, that's just a gimmick, I think I saw one contractor turned in 7 years, most are removed and replaced in 1.5 years). The company with the job just wants a disposable employee with a side effect of try-before-you-buy, the employee just wants a job, and the contracting company wants a piece of the action.
It seems to me that it's perfectly acceptable for you to lea
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Or how about non-compete clauses in general?
IANAL, but last I heard it varies by state. There's a good discussion of it here [findlaw.com], but the article is 4 years old.
Re:Is this the same for "contractor" companies? (Score:5, Informative)
The eBay/Intuit agreement (and the other similar agreements that were subject to a settlement a few years ago) were very broad in scope. It might be the breadth that is the issue.
I know, for instance, that it is legal for a company to agree not to solicit employees of another company for a defined period of time. This is often done as part of M&A transactions, where a company is buying a subsidiary of another company, and doesn't want the seller to just turn around and hire back key personnel. But those are limited in time. Also, the ones I've seen do not limit the ability to hire those people, only the ability to solicit them. So if the employee makes the first contact, all bets are off.
Another agreement I've seen often is as part of a M&A confidentiality agreement. Example: "You will provide us information about your company and access to key personnel in order to discuss a potential aquisition, in exchange, we agree not to solicit any of those employees for one year."
The eBay/Intuit agreement, however, is that they will not hire each others' employees for as long as the agreement remains in effect AND that it doesn't matter whether the employee approaches them first.
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IBM has agreements like that with most contracting companies. Generally, the way around it is for IBM to pay a finder's fee to the contracting agency if IBM wants to hire the contractor as a regular employee. I've seen it done a few times. Not all contractors are amenable to it, but for those who are, it's a payment to their agency and then hiring can proceed as normal.
latin lessons (Score:4, Informative)
per se -- in itself
prima facie -- on it's face
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Re:Unions (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean the agreements explicitly agreed to between union management and corporations? Or the agreements explicitly agreed to between union management and employees? As far as I know, with the exception below, union employees are free to leave their union and sign up, there's nothing legally stopping them (caveat: there are some social issues).
Trying to figure out which of these is as unethical as two people agreeing not to hire a third person without his consent.
There is one place I may see your point on: the existence of "closed shops". That definitely needs to be attacked (and is illegal in many places). There should never be a closed shop, everyone should have the right to apply for a job. If the union is doing ITS job, employees will pay their dues and join. If management is doing ITS job, employees have no need of a union.
Further reading... (Score:5, Informative)
Collusion [wikipedia.org]
Collusion is an agreement between two or more persons, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage. It is an agreement among firms to divide the market, set prices, or limit production. It can involve "wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties". In legal terms, all acts affected by collusion are considered void.
Collusion is largely illegal in the United States, Canada and most of the EU due to competition/antitrust law, but implicit collusion in the form of price leadership and tacit understandings still takes place.
Also known as the opposite of competition, or incompatible with a competitive environment, or simply "anti-competitive."
B B But... (Score:3)
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Maybe she meant "free to collude" rather than compete... after all they both start with 'c'. :)
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It's socialism for the megacorporations, and capitalism and poverty for the rest of us. Except that that will tank the economy, and we will have a big reset. Hopefully people will have learnt how to properly identify the right criminals and do away with them by then.
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All libertarians are only in favor of the freedoms they personally like, otherwise they'd be called anarchists (the state doesn't interfere with anything -> for all intents and purposes the state does not exist).
Also, at least on Slashdot libertarianism seems to mean a pro-corporate and anti-union position (corporations may collude, workers may not), so it's hard to avoid the conclusion that it's less about a coherent ideol
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Well, it seems that in a free market, you could walk in to either company and offer your services and be judged based on your skills and price and on their need. An agreement not to hire another companies employees is an illegal restriction of the free market. Unfortunately, 90% or more of companies do it. The company I work for does it. All of the vendors and suppliers have to sign agreements saying they will not hire from my company.
Intuit is a Veteran! (Score:3)
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I was lured to the Intuit complex off the 56 in San Diego by the promise of a Slashdot "15th anniversary party" which really only turned out to be one guerrilla marketer passing out T-shirts. I was also piss-drunk at the time (3pm on Sunday), but even in my extremely inebriated state I was frightened by the interior of the buildings - they were nice but had a cold, low-ceilinged, cramped and boxed-in feeling reminiscent of an inner-city high school or perhaps a mental institution or prison. They were the ar
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LOL... I never worked in the main buildings, just in the data centers as a contractor for INS. I don't know about the cubes and whatnot, but the beer grill out parties on Thursday nights were well catered. (The best beer available was Heineken though)
I live in Silicon Valley (Score:2)
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Um... wtf? (Score:2)
I hope will also sue Ebay for stealing money (Score:2)
This is news? (Score:4, Interesting)
Where has the DOJ been? Oh that's right going after states who pass voter id laws all the while the AG grand stands and panders to ever special interest in the country instead of enforcing our laws. Now they can go after bigger fish and say "hey, lookie what we got right chere!" Yeah, you got two lame ducks. EBay and Intuit? Come on you may as well have gone after Hostess and Wonder Bread. Oh wait, Hostess is out of business now anyway, so they won't put up much of a fight with the DOJ.
American Airlines, IBM, HP (and the former EDS) and many others, all of them do this and now they're making a point out of EBay and Intuit? Wow, this seems like so 10 years ago when both of these entities mattered. The collusion is rampant and it's meant to keep wages low and remove options for people.
So here's how it'll play out, the DOG will go to court and lambaste these two titans of industry (I'm still laughing) They'll rail against these companies and make really good press for a couple of weeks. Then they'll reach a settlement deal and EBay and Intuit will pay a fine and say "we're sorry and won't do it again." Yeah right. As long as nobody gets caught and held truly accountable for this kind of crap, it will keep on happening
Then again you have a right to work wherever you want and they have a right to fire you whenever they want. It's the American way.
This makes no sense (Score:5, Funny)
I'm confused (Score:1)
I'm confused, is this different from non-competes? I thought non-competes where standard practice in a lot of area's of business. Sorry for my ignorance
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I'm confused, is this different from non-competes? I thought non-competes where standard practice in a lot of area's of business. Sorry for my ignorance
And non-competes are generally illegal as well.
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What about joint ventures? (Score:1)
what about the human rights... (Score:2)
Totally unnecessary (Score:2)
By entering into such an agreement they are only hurting each other. The employees have plenty of other places to go.
It is in the interest of every company to be able to hire whomever best fits the need.