Revealed Emails/Court Documents regarding Pixar/Steve Jobs Wage Fixing

[Landguy]

mornelithe said:

Landguy said:

Again, I didn't make my point clear.  Sony bought Columbia pictures back in 1989.  When they decided to start Sony Animation Studios(a division of Columbia which was owned by its parent Sony), that is how this whole thing came to light.  The same can be said for Dreamworks.  The small company inside of Dreamworks, was Dreamworks Animation.  Pixar was also made up of lots of small companies.  Most large companies are this way.

When it comes to quoting $267 million for Shrek, that was the revenue generate by the movie, not the profit.  Dreamworks Animation itself would have only seen a small percentage (probably only 20-30%)of the actual profit($30-40 million) as they distributed all of their movies through movie studios(Paramount at the time I think) with distribution arms.

My point was that many of these companies worked togther on many projects through various deals in place by them or their parent companies.  Because of that, they may have had an understanding that they would not harm themselves through cut throat business practices.  By harming thm, they would in fact be harming themselves.

I don't disagree, that this may have impacted the earnings potential of these employees in the short term.  But it could just as easily proven to hurt their ability to be employed later by other studios.  That was my point in bringing up the demise of Sony's animation studio.  They burned the bridges(partnerships) with other studios and eventually failed.  Not sure how that helped anyone else out.  It probabaly damaged the careers of those who got involved to a degree.

Remeber, these "agreements" may have stopped companies from directly approaching employees without consent, but proabably couldn't stop these employees from seeking employment on their own.  That is what the Law was about(or at least its apllication here).

Bolded 1: Shrek 2 would go on to double that revenue (Over 400 million), in 2004.  Just so ya know.  Again, we're not talking about small time companies/studios.

Bolded 2: Why is that exactly?  Provided you give 2 weeks notice, and handle the departure like a professional, there really should be no bad blood if an employee goes from one job to another.   If they didn't give 2 weeks and just walked, yeah, that's terrible professionalism, and certainly wouldn't warrant a rehire.  But, if they went through the whole process professionally?  It would merely be petty for the previous employer not to consider it, simply because they took a better opportunity elsewhere.

Companies do not have to request permission, to offer a job to someone (I would imagine certain jobs in intelligence etc.., may have different rules).  That's why this law exists, so that the market chooses the value of the job.  If your current employer doesn't value you as much as someone else does, why wouldn't you go somewhere else?  Are you just supposed to be used by your company in perpetuity, taking well below market value...just out of loyalty?  That's ridiculous.  If something you do at work costs your company money, bad press, etc... they typically won't bat an eyelash to dump you.  I mean, take a look at some of the individuals who've been fired for saying dumb shit on their twitter/facebook accounts. 

And if the problem is businesses calling during work hours, the employee should have enough intelligence to request the caller call them during non-work hours.  I've had that exact conversation myself..  It's...just how things work these days.

As far as the agreements are concerned, we'd have to see the actual 'agreements' in writing, but since they weren't exactly iterated and people have 'conveniently' forgotten the context of discussions based upon those agreements...yeah, it doesn't exactly sound like a harmless situation.  But, we shall see.

1.  You are speaking of the future of those companies in relation to the time of this occuring.  Yes, these companies all exploded as digital animation really took off and they had success in the field.  Most of these allegations refer to a completly different time in the industry.  It's easy to look at it with todays eyes and not like it.  I don't disagree that these practices probably limited the incomes of many of the employees in the short term.  But it probably saved many jobs in the long run.  Companies and investors require that a certain amount profit is made regardless.  So, if a company has 50 employees that cost $2,000,000 in salaries a year, and a few employees get extremely large pay increases, and now the total is $2,200,000.  Do you think that the company just says "oh well".  No, they fire 3-4 employees to get it back down to $2,000,000.  What's your plan for those 3-4 people?   Screw them because some company drove up the price of a select few employees?  The reality is that is what happens.  THose few people closer to the top make even larger sums of money and the people on the bottom rungs get screwed.  I am not talking socialism or anything, but businesses trying to keep employees and reduce turn over to stay in business at all.  In the entertainment industry, profits come and go very quickly some times.  So do companies.

2. When industries are as small as this one was, there are few options.  Unlike most job fields that you just go somewhere else or another city and you are off again.  But in small job fields, it only takes one time to ruin all of your future job opportunities.  I worked in a specialty job field for 4 years.  There were only about 200 people in the whole country that did my job.  In the first year I worked in this job, I watched a couple of people jump to other start up companies for the salry and job title boost.  A year later, those startups were failing and those same people couldn't get a job back at our company.  Even though they were good at their jobs, they had burned that bridge. 

 

I don't disagree that a company shouldn't hold it against you for taking another job at another company, especially if you asked for more opportunity or pay and they said no.  Especially if you gave them proper notice.  The problem is that people at the top are human and take employees leaving very personal.

THis court case won't resolve anything or prove anything.  It won't even change the way people do business.  It will change the way that people percieve companies going forward.