No-Poach Pacts

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(Sriram, Danely, Alvin, Xeon)


A no-poaching agreement, or a no-poach pact, is an agreement between multiple companies to not recruit from each other, and is currently illegal under U.S. antitrust laws. One main issue resulting from no-poach pacts is the decrease in the availability of jobs in the market, giving companies leverage to offer below-market wages and reducing the abilities for workers to collectively bargain. Despite the clear unethicality of the pact, companies discreetly collude, placing workers in a large, unfair disadvantage.

In September 2015, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe will pay $415 million to approximately 64,466 workers for their role in creating a no-poach pact “involving senior executives … creating ‘no-poach’ lists” that were “part of a scheme whereby companies agreed not to recruit each others’ employees” (Roberts 1). This unethical act have severely limited the potentials of many of the companies’ employees, as the lack of competition have caused a decrease in advancement within the company.  

These pacts hurt the employees of companies and are clearly not in their best interest. As part of their personal career growth, an employee may desire to work on a particular product in a different company, or they may want to switch careers in order to relocate for personal reasons. Although these offers would otherwise be available to them, because of these not disclosed pacts, their options are taken away from them, simply for the profit of the company. A company has the ethical obligation of providing the freedom to employees to choose their own careers and life decisions, as well as to notify them of actions that personally affect them.

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