Comment I worked for HP in Silicon valley in the early 90s (Score 2) 137
They used to actually tell employees in big meetings of engineers where they announced the annual pay raises. First they'd give a powerpoint presentation on their benefits packages, etc., and explain that their HR people had met with HR people from other big engineering employers in Silicon Valley and elsewhere to agree upon job titles and descriptions and pay scales. Finally they'd announce the annual raise and everyone would cheer except me, who didn't like being told "don't bother looking for a better deal, we've seen to it that you won't get one".
I ultimately left HP and went to Fujitsu, a company that wasn't part of the "cartel" and got a pay raise of 50% and kept all my hard earned vacation time to boot. I haven't seen any mention of HP in any of the articles about this yet.