Silicon Valley class action suit may net workers token damages

In January, a federal judge allowed the Silicon Valley “anti-poaching” class action suit to proceed against employers such as Apple, Google and other companies. As Speed Matters wrote, those companies had been “... secretly and deliberately suppressing wages in the industry – by agreeing not to hire away workers from each other.”

Now, four of the major employers are offering the 64,000 plaintiffs in the suit a settlement, in hopes of avoiding months of embarrassing revelations of collusion and worker suppression. The settlement offered was $324 million, or a fraction of one percent of Apple’s $150 billion cash reserves.

However, not all the plaintiffs are grabbing for the payout, which must also be reduced by hefty attorney’s fees. According to The New York Times, Michael Devine, a 46-year-old freelance programmer – one of the four named plaintiffs – wrote to the judge in the case and said the companies were getting away with paying one-tenth of the estimated $3 billion that the worker lost through wage-fixing.

“As an analogy,” Mr. Devine wrote, “if a shoplifter is caught on video stealing a $400 iPad from the Apple Store, would a fair and just resolution be for the shoplifter to pay Apple $40, keep the iPad, and walk away with no record or admission of wrongdoing? Of course not.”

According to Devine, his lawyers didn’t respond to his objections. Orly Lobel, a professor of employment law at the University of San Diego, said “The lawyers wanted a quick and certain result. But the companies won’t feel it at all.”

The companies and at least some of the lawyers want a quick and quiet resolution, but Mr. Devine and others would rather see justice done.

Court upholds tech workers’ right to class action (Speed Matters, Jan. 16, 2014)

Plaintiff in Silicon Valley Hiring Suit Maligns Deal (NY Times, May 12, 2014)