Top Class Actions  |  September 19, 2014

Category: Labor & Employment

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wage theft class action lawsuitThe alleged collusion between tech giants and extended to animation houses has spurred an all-new independent contractor wage class action lawsuit that places a special emphasis on those workers who are not considered full-time employees.

Both in Silicon Valley and down the Highway 101 in Los Angeles, the use of independent contractors is widespread because companies do not need to pay benefits or taxes for this class of worker. One of them, Georgia Cano, does not allege that she was illegally classified, rather that companies like Sony Pictures Imageworks, DreamWorks and others created a conspiracy to depress wages.

The claims are similar to those alleged by plaintiffs in other class action lawsuits regarding the cartel, according to a Department of Justice investigation that found that the companies “had also engaged in per se violations of the Sherman Act by entering into anti-poaching and wage-fixing” activities. Cano alleges that she worked for more than 20 years for these companies and her wages were depressed by a combination of activities, according to the woman’s class action lawyers:

1) No cold-calling by recruiters or hiring managers to companies involved in these activities
2) The right to match the contract offer made by the new firm, similar to a restricted free agent in sports where the player’s current team has the right to match the terms
3) Consistent communication regarding current salaries of employees of various types, including lighting technical directors like Cano.

The practice reportedly began between “Lucasfilm Founder George Lucas, Pixar President Ed Catmull and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs in the mid-1980s” but soon extended to significant swaths of the corporate landscape in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley. The efforts worked when Catmull sent Jobs an email in 2004, noting “Sony has approached all of our producers trying to hire them. They all just ignored Sony. We don’t have a no raid arrangement with Sony.”

The class action lawsuit alleges that the results of the purported Sherman Antitrust Act violations created wage-fixing because it decreased the competitiveness of the job market that otherwise would have existed. If employees did not hear of competing offers, they might not know that better opportunities existed and the effort to create salary ceilings had similar chilling effects on compensation.

In addition to Sony Pictures and Dreamworks, Pixar, Lucasfilm, the Walt Disney Company, Digital Domain 3.0 Inc., Imagemovers LLC and Blue Sky Studios Inc. are also named as defendants in Cano’s wage class action lawsuit.

Cano is represented by class action lawyers by Steven Sklaver, Kalpana Srinivasan and Matthew Berry of Susman Godfrey LLP.

The Hollywood Contractor Wage Class Action Lawsuit is Georgia Cano v. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., et al., Case No. 14-cv-04203, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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