[will_brown]

Fixing price of labor would be more along the lines of Palm and Apple coming together and agreeing not to pay their employees greater than "$X". This way it would not matter what company Employee goes to work because his salary would be fixed across the industry. (There are always exceptions, for example if you practice law you have to be a member of the State Bar making Bars natural monopolies - and Bars also fix the industry prices by setting the fees lawyers can charge. Yet Bars do not violate the Sherman Act)

Courts will distinguish that type of labor cost fixing from Palm and Apple agreeing to not solicit one anthers employees, which will keep their labor cost down, but this is not the prohibited behavior contemplated by the Sherman Act.

[walshemj]

Interesting I suppose a "resonable person" would think suppressing the wage bill counted but as ever one rune for you and me one for the employer.

Though this does reduce the state tax take which I know that individual states can get quite litigious over this issue