Tech Giants' Secret Hiring Agreement Kept Salaries Low, Ripped Off Workers: Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Others Settle for $324 Million

Photo by Tyler.

By JONNY BONNER
Tech giants including Apple and Google have agreed to pay disgruntled tech workers as much as $324 million to settle a contentious wage dispute, weeks before the class action headed to trial.

Software engineers in 2010 claimed Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel and Intuit, and Walt Disney subsidiaries LucasFilm and Pixar, made illegal "no cold-call agreements" to restrict or eliminate competition for high-tech employees, which "disrupted the normal price-setting mechanism that apply in the labor setting."

The poaching ban maintained internal salary structures at the companies from 2005 to 2009, workers in the class action claimed, and involved "gentleman's agreements" via CEO-to-CEO emails between the late Steve Jobs and other leading Silicon Valley CEOs.

RELATED STORY: Apple and Google Are Part of a 'Wage Fixing' Cartel That Conspired to Keep Workers' Wages Low As Possible — Over 1 Million Workers Affected

The conspiracy violated the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts and was revealed by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2010...

"Defendants' joint course of conduct included a web of bilateral agreements not to compete for each other's employees. The agreements all prohibited the companies' solicitation of any of their employees, regardless of geography, job description, or time period," according to a 2012 motion for class certification.

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