[sf-lug] Sysadmin work hourly rates?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Reilly (paul at astropaul.com):

> I'm just wondering what is the hourly going rate for sysadmin work?

One reason you won't see much discussion of this subject online is that
it risks directly contravening the laws against price-fixing.

Quoting the Wikipedia article, on same:

  Under American law, exchanging prices among competitors can also
  violate the antitrust laws. This includes exchanging prices with
  either the intent to fix prices or if the exchange affects the prices
  individual competitors set. Proof that competitors have shared prices
  can be used as part of the evidence of an illegal price fixing
  agreement. Experts generally advise that competitors avoid even the
  appearance of agreeing on price.

  Under U.S. law, price fixing is illegal only if it is intentional and
  comes about via communication or agreement between firms or individuals.
  It is not illegal for a firm to copy the price movements of a de facto
  market leader called price leadership, which has been seen to be the
  case in markets for breakfast cereals and cigarettes. But informal
  agreements or unspoken agreements to fix price also can violate the
  antitrust laws.

The Linux User Group HOWTO, at
http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-7.html includes this warning:

  7.2 Other legal issues 
  [...]
  Antitrust

  It's healthy to discuss the consulting business in general in user
  group forums, but for antitrust legal reasons it's a bad idea to get
  into "How much do you charge to do [foo]?" discussions, there.

-- 
Cheers,                   "Of course, NIMBYism is perfectly fine for other
Rick Moen                 places, but we certainly shouldn't allow it in
rick at linuxmafia.com       _our_ town."   -- Rick M., going meta on his $SPOUSE