[suprgeek]

I have personally witnessed the frustrating side of this "no poaching" pact. A close friend was tired of the "Manager Arrogance" at one of these colluding companies.

He quietly put out the word,pretty quickly got approached by a hiring manager at another company - things were going swimmingly.

Then the Hiring manager put in the Req to HR - a V.P. called him personally and but confirmed this "no poaching" B.S. The wage hike would have been considerable for my friend (you can guess the two companies - Arrogant vs Top Payer) & he was pretty upset to learn that the real reason was Jobs being a Huge Asshole and bullying everybody into such a blatantly illegal pact.

So this is a very real "wage theft" collusion case. Unfortunately most of the parties involved had the "good" sense to NOT document it officially so the Smoking Gun might be hard to prove conclusively.

There was even a "no hire" list at one of these companies tacked on the wall of a HR Manager with the Caption "If you hire from there, we will fire (u) from here."

[walshemj]

The CIPD and other HR regulating bodies need to permanently disbar any member found guilty of this. and for HR directors the the Judge should name them as "not fit and proper persons to be a director" and probably the CEO on Chairman for good measure.

Of course if the Hr director turned states evidence they might be let off with a slap on the wrist.

[smsm42]

Wait, HR has the bar that you can be disbarred from? Thanks for expanding my horizons, I had no idea.

[walshemj]

Its not like a PE or CENG but senior HR jobs often have CIPD qualified as a requirement. At the Director level you can be disbarred.

[gergles]

The CIPD is in the UK. The closest thing in the US is SHRM, which has the PHR/SPHR designations -- which are indeed often a requirement for senior HR positions (though I don't know that those designations have ever actually been revoked.)

[walshemj]

should be if HR is to live up to it's pretensions about being a "profession".

[ma2rten]

Why not name the company? These companies deserve to be called out.

[asdfologist]

I'm guessing "Arrogant" = Apple and "Top Payer" = Google.

[suprgeek]

He posts regularly on HN so (I guess) has almost certainly seen this thread. Up to him now.

[raverbashing]

What about quitting first after knowing of this fact?

[watwut]

I guess it is risky. Many people see finding next job before leaving previous one as the responsible thing to do. Especially if you live in an expensive location or have family or other financial obligations that simply needs to be paid.

Technically, you can find "temporary" job in smaller company and then move to the company you "really" want to work in. It just seem to me somewhat jerk move toward that smaller company.

[Bahamut]

The article mentions that Apple also put that former employees were also off limits.

[smtddr]

Back in AT&T around 2005-2006 a "change of guard" occurred and a very technical team supporting SAP systems lost about half their staff to HP within 3 months. Rumor has it that at&t upper-management had a conversation with HP and a few other people who wanted to go had the door shut in their face.

I know of at least one person who had to quit her job... wait 2 weeks... then HP picked her up. Risky indeed if HP couldn't make good on their promise, but it worked that time.

[jhart3333]

You mean everyone quit together? That's called a strike.

[huxley]

A strike involves work stoppage, it's a very different tactic than mass resignation.

In 1999, Major League Umpires Association (MLUA) were not able to legally go strike so they opted to use mass resignation as their negotiation strategy. It backfired, cost 22 umpires their careers and led to decertification of the union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Major_League_Umpires_Assoc...

[jhart3333]

I'm sticking with strike. "mass resignation and everyone loses their jobs" just doesn't have the same ring.

[ScottBurson]

Ring or not, they're utterly different. Striking employees expect they will still have their jobs when the strike is over.

[walshemj]

Better is suddenly all get sick on the same day - sorry boss must have been that dodgy curry i had last night ;-)

BA Cabin staff I believe did this in the UK

[smsm42]

Sickouts are commonly illegal. Though it is usually impossible to punish the individuals for calling in sick, an organization that promotes it - such as union - may suffer consequences, and organizing such thing may be a firing offense.

[walshemj]

Proving it might be hard though and any organizing woudl be probably done by the full timers ie Union officers not activists.

[dlitz]

That's sometimes hard to do. For example, if you're here on an H-1B visa.