Not surprised Jobs was a big factor in this, he was a total dick. A genius, but a dick.
Links and docs embedded at the original
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/new-evidence-emerges-of-wage-fixing-by-dreamworks-pixar-and-blue-sky-106529.html
QuoteNew Evidence Emerges of Wage-Fixing by DreamWorks, Pixar and Blue Sky
The wage-theft scheme operated by major American animation studios continues to grow with no end in sight. Yesterday, the three existing class-action suits against the studios filed earlier this fall were combined into one sprawling 34-page complaint.
The amended complaint implicates Jeffrey Katzenberg's DreamWorks Animation as playing a much larger role in the conspiracy than previously assumed, and also presents evidence that Connecticut-based Blue Sky Studios of Ice Age and Rio fame was working in collusion with the other studios.
The accused studios, among them Pixar, Lucasfilm, ILM, DreamWorks Animation, The Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Blue Sky Studios, and Imagemovers, "secretly agreed to work together to deprive thousands of their workers of better compensation and deny them opportunities to advance their careers at other companies," according to the filing.
Demanding a jury trial, the complaint was filed by lawyers at a trio of law firms: Daniel A. Small of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Steve Berman and Ashley Bede of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, and Marc Seltzer of Susman Godfrey. Northern California District Judge Lucy H. Koh, who proved resilient against technology corporations during the High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, has also been assigned to handle this case against the animation studios. She was wrangled into the dispute after lawyers for Robert A. Nitsch, the first artist who filed suit, suggested that Koh take the case due to its relation to the earlier High-Tech litigation.
Mark Ames at Pando has written another excellent must-read piece summarizing the "bombshell new material" in the amended filing:
The wage-fixing conspiracy spread across the VFX industry earlier than previously reported.
DreamWorks Animation's role in the wage-fixing conspiracy was more far-reaching than first reported.
Pixar kept a list of competitors with which it had secret non-solicitation agreements.
New evidence of Blue Sky Animation's participation in the collusion
The new filing maintains that Ed Catmull was the godfather of the scheme along with his co-conspirators Steve Jobs and George Lucas. However, we're beginning to learn the extent to which other studios besides Pixar and Lucasfilm participated in this scheme to artificially suppress the wages of animation workers.
Steve Jobs, it turns out, may have personally brought Jeffrey Katzenberg into the conspiracy. New evidence also suggests that while Pixar and DreamWorks may have competed at the box office, screwing over their employees represented an apparent convergence of interests for both companies:
[W]hen a new contract recruiter at DreamWorks contacted a Pixar employee in March 2007, Catmull wrote him to explain their understanding: "While we do not act to prevent people from moving between studios, we have had an agreement with Dreamworks not to actively pursue each others employees [sic]. I have certainly told our recruiters not to approach any Dreamwork [sic] employees." Pixar's Vice President of Human Resources, Lori McAdams, wrote to Catmull that she "knows [Dreamworks'] head of HR Kathy Mandato well, and she's in agreement with our non-poaching practices, so there shouldn't be any problem." McAdams checked with Mandato to make sure there was "no problem with our past practices of not poaching from each other," to which Mandato replied "Absolutely! You are right . . . (my bad)."
DreamWorks was similarly committed to enforcing the anti-solicitation scheme against other studios. For example, Mandato asked Pixar not to solicit DreamWorks employees when a recruiting email was sent to a DreamWorks employee by mistake. McAdams' response: "Argh, it shouldn't have gone to anyone at work or our competitors people [sic]. I'll put a stop to it!"
Pixar's human resources v-p Lori McAdams, who is mentioned above, pops up repeatedly in the new filing. In an early 2007 email, she wrote to her competitors at Sony Pictures Imageworks, ILM, DreamWorks, Disney, and Blue Sky, telling them "[c]hatting with all of you each day is really becoming a fun habit. I'm thinking it'd be a great resolution for 2007 that we all just have a short conference call each morning to start our days off right." It's unconscionable when you realize why she was chatting with these competing studios, not to mention that such actions potentially put her in violation of American laws, like the Sherman Act and the Cartwright Act.
As the lawyers representing the animation workers conclude::
No studio acting in its own independent self-interest in the absence of a conspiracy to suppress compensation would share this kind of compensation information, let alone with such a large group of competitors. Absent an agreement not to compete on compensation, any studio sharing such information would be handing its competitors specific information about how to best compete with them for employees and candidates. Such behavior only makes sense in the context of a conspiracy to suppress compensation.
The entire complaint which is embedded below offers countless more details about the actions of the studios:
Is 34 pages considered sprawling? :unsure:
QuotePixar, Lucasfilm, ILM, DreamWorks Animation, The Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Blue Sky Studios, and Imagemovers
A rogues gallery if I ever saw one!
And 34 pages is usually when Lawyers are just getting warmed up.
QuoteDemanding a jury trial, the complaint was filed by lawyers at a trio of law firms: Daniel A. Small of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Steve Berman and Ashley Bede of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, and Marc Seltzer of Susman Godfrey.
I thought Jews controlled the media, not sued them. :hmm:
I don't see any evidence of wage-fixing. I see a law firm that hopes that an agreement not to poach each others' animators gets treated as wage-fixing.
I'm shocked.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 05, 2014, 02:16:35 AM
I don't see any evidence of wage-fixing. I see a law firm that hopes that an agreement not to poach each others' animators gets treated as wage-fixing.
What would qualify as evidence of wage-fixing? Do you know a lot about anti-trust laws?
Oh an there are three law firms in on this one.
"Let's not pay people more than X" would qualify as evidence of wage fixing.
Not sure what you mean by "a lot" about anti-trust, and not sure what you're trying to get at.
Wouldn't it be hindering the free movement of labour? I'm just asking, I really don't know US law on this subject, but I think they would have a case in the EU.
Quote from: Norgy on December 05, 2014, 03:25:10 AM
Wouldn't it be hindering the free movement of labour? I'm just asking, I really don't know US law on this subject, but I think they would have a case in the EU.
I don't think that's a thing in the US.
And even if it were, I don't see how it would apply as the agreement was to not *recruit* each others' animators. They could still hire them.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 05, 2014, 03:39:01 AM
Quote from: Norgy on December 05, 2014, 03:25:10 AM
Wouldn't it be hindering the free movement of labour? I'm just asking, I really don't know US law on this subject, but I think they would have a case in the EU.
I don't think that's a thing in the US.
And even if it were, I don't see how it would apply as the agreement was to not *recruit* each others' animators. They could still hire them.
Yeah, I don't see how an agreement not to actively recruit other company's employees is wage-fixing.
And this bit:
QuoteNorthern California District Judge Lucy H. Koh, who proved resilient against technology corporations during the High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, has also been assigned to handle this case against the animation studios. She was wrangled into the dispute after lawyers for Robert A. Nitsch, the first artist who filed suit, suggested that Koh take the case due to its relation to the earlier High-Tech litigation.
Since when to lawyers for one side in a dispute get to "wrangle" a particular judge into hearing a case?
Pixar and Lucasfilm already settled a similar suit few years ago (that also involved Google, Adobe, etc...), and promised to stop these practices, so the plaintiffs have some grounds for trying this.
I am waiting for CdM's take on this.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 05, 2014, 02:16:35 AM
I don't see any evidence of wage-fixing. I see a law firm that hopes that an agreement not to poach each others' animators gets treated as wage-fixing.
Not sure about wage fixing, but an agreement not to poach each other's employees would definitely be treated as a cartel under antitrust law. Given that animators are a primary resource for these firms (at least in the movie animation market), that amounts to pretty blatant supply side horizontal market sharing/partitioning.
Doesn't the lawyer allege their HR teams were sharing info about compensation? Tough to think why competitors would be sharing that type of info.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 05, 2014, 05:14:01 AM
Doesn't the lawyer allege their HR teams were sharing info about compensation? Tough to think why competitors would be sharing that type of info.
Haven't noticed that part. I don't know about US antitrust law, but at least in the EU, competitors sharing sensitive data can very frequently be considered prima facie evidence of a price fixing cartel, especially if the intention to align market behaviours is corroborated by other evidence (which is clearly existing here, based on the "no poaching" arrangement). In such case, you do not even have to prove that there was an intention to fix prices or that price fixing actually took effect.
Quote from: Martinus on December 05, 2014, 05:10:28 AM
Not sure about wage fixing, but an agreement not to poach each other's employees would definitely be treated as a cartel under antitrust law. Given that animators are a primary resource for these firms (at least in the movie animation market), that amounts to pretty blatant supply side horizontal market sharing/partitioning.
You understand that by poach I meant recruit, not hire, right?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 05, 2014, 05:55:43 AM
Quote from: Martinus on December 05, 2014, 05:10:28 AM
Not sure about wage fixing, but an agreement not to poach each other's employees would definitely be treated as a cartel under antitrust law. Given that animators are a primary resource for these firms (at least in the movie animation market), that amounts to pretty blatant supply side horizontal market sharing/partitioning.
You understand that by poach I meant recruit, not hire, right?
Yes. If two competitors agree that they will not actively try to sell their services or goods to each other's customers (but will respond to being approached by each other's customers with a request for a proposal), this still constitutes an illegal cartel. This is the same, only on the supply side.
Edit: Subject of course to US antitrust law working in this regard in the same way as EU antitrust law. Under the EU law, active sale/purchase restrictions are permitted only in the context of vertical agreements (i.e. agreements between e.g. a producer and a distributor); they are considered illegal market/sale/supply sharing agreements if entered into by competitors.
Kay.
from an article on a settlement earlier this year:
QuoteIn one email exchange after a Google recruiter solicited an Apple employee, Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be fired, court documents show. Jobs then forwarded Schmidt's note to a top Apple human resources executive with a smiley face.
:lol:
Quote from: Tamas on December 05, 2014, 04:30:06 AM
I am waiting for CdM's take on this.
I've got my own problems. Don't really give two fucks what rich people are going to with employees they'll eventually eliminate anyway.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 05, 2014, 03:39:01 AM
And even if it were, I don't see how it would apply as the agreement was to not *recruit* each others' animators. They could still hire them.
The DOJ has taken the position that an agreement not to solicit each other's employees is per se illegal under the Sherman Act. Whether that is really the law is not clear, but the DOJ did successfully wrangle a consent decree in a similar sort of case a few years back.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on December 05, 2014, 02:34:31 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 05, 2014, 03:39:01 AM
And even if it were, I don't see how it would apply as the agreement was to not *recruit* each others' animators. They could still hire them.
The DOJ has taken the position that an agreement not to solicit each other's employees is per se illegal under the Sherman Act. Whether that is really the law is not clear, but the DOJ did successfully wrangle a consent decree in a similar sort of case a few years back.
That would be the position under EU law as well - such agreement would violate antitrust law by object, without a need to prove the effect.