New court filing shows stunning new evidence of wage-fixing by major Hollywood animation studios

[srican69]

http://pando.com/2014/12/02/new-court-filing-shows-stunning-new-evidence-of-wage-fixing-by-major-hollywood-animation-studios/


It is totally fine for corporation to collude with one another to fix wages - but employee unions - NOOO!! that is pinko communist !!

The wage-fixing conspiracy spread across the VFX industry earlier than previously reported.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, the heads of the top VFX human resources departments and their recruiters met yearly in secret to compare notes and discuss an industry compensation survey. According to the complaint, citing newly disclosed evidence, the studios being sued “understood that the [compensation] survey was used by each to ‘confirm or adjust our salary ranges.’” By 2007, the relationships between the competing animation studios’ HR heads were so tight that Pixar’s VP of Human Resources mass-emailed the other defendants to tell them “[c]hatting with all of you each day is really becoming a fun habit,” while her counterpart at Walt Disney Animation Studios wrote that she “hear[s] from you all on a daily basis.”

DreamWorks Animation’s role in the wage-fixing conspiracy was more far-reaching than first reported.

For example, in 2005, DreamWorks Animation asked Disney to provide “[a]ny salary information you have” on three positions. Disney reportedly responded the same day with pay ranges for the positions. In 2006, DreamWorks reportedly asked for Pixar’s “range of pay” for various employee positions, telling Pixar that DreamWorks “will be happy to share ours too.” DreamWorks contacted their HR counterpart at Disney that same year to collect detailed salary information from its competitors; “Disney responded by providing an exact salary range and offered to ‘get further into the details’ over the phone.” In a 2007 email, DreamWorks’ head of compensation wrote: “We do sometimes share general comp information (ranges, practices) in order to maintain the relationships with other studios and to be able to ask for that kind of information ourselves when we need it.”

[BrotherIvan]

1. Or they just outsource it

which they do whenever they can.

[abelenkpe]

2. K&R

Surely the government will come down big on these studios for screwing over workers for years and then offshoring as many of these jobs as possible chasing subsidies offered by other countries, right?



Do I have to add this:

[taught_me_patience]

3. It's not fine. The studios involved are getting sued.

Why is it not surprising that Pixar is involved in this? After all, Pixar was owned by Steve Jobs, a notorious wage colluder while at Apple. Yep, it's ironic how DU screams and moans about Wal-mart while Apple does heinous shit with wage collusion. The selective outrage is pretty tiresome.