What the Apple wage collusion case says about Silicon Valley’s labor economy

[Commentary] Tens of thousands of software engineers are currently suing Apple, Google and a host of other companies for a shot at reclaiming wages they say the tech firms stole from them.

How? The engineers say Apple's Steve Jobs, Google's Eric Schmidt and other top Silicon Valley executives secretly agreed not to hire away valuable employees from each other. The resulting industry-wide moratorium on talent poaching allegedly resulted in suppressed wages as people who would've been offered higher salaries to work elsewhere never got the opportunity.

The particulars of the case are rather well-trodden at this point, but a settlement is said to be near; going to trial would mean the tech companies could face as much as a $9 billion penalty.

It's interesting to think about Apple and its rivals secretly colluding to keep the price of labor down. But the case is also taking place against the backdrop of several other economic trends. And in some respects, this class-action suit over wage theft actually cuts against the grain.

• Inequality. Silicon Valley is beset by a reputation -- earned or otherwise -- for egotism, a growing wealth gap and a lack of self-awareness that the rest of the country mistrusts. Software engineers tend to be extremely well-compensated -- particularly the highest performers -- compared to the rest of us. Driving their wages up even higher would likely have made places such as San Francisco even less livable.
• Youth. Silicon Valley has an obsession with youthfulness. The fascination with youth is also somewhat cultural. Thanks to Facebook and Google -- two of what might be dozens of tech companies with compelling coming-of-age stories -- we now find it normal, if not desirable, that college kids build the next great economic empire with a few lines of code.
• Immigration. The informal agreement not to poach each other's workers artificially restricts the labor pool and "forces" companies to look elsewhere for talent.