Suit alleges tech giants fixed wages

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In Silicon Valley's white-hot competition for tech talent, programmers can face a daily barrage of calls from recruiters seeking to woo them to rival companies with offers of better pay and perks.

But workers for some of the biggest names in the business claim their phones fell silent because of a conspiracy among their employers. And they claim the world's biggest tech icon was at the center.

A lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose claims senior executives at Google Inc., Intel Corp., Adobe Systems Inc., Intuit Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd., Pixar and Apple Inc. violated antitrust laws by entering into secret anti-poaching agreements not to hire each other's best workers. In doing so, the suit contends the companies were able to keep wages artificially low by preventing bidding wars for the best employees.

The plaintiffs also claim that company emails show Steve Jobs himself sought and orchestrated at least some of the "gentlemen's agreements" while Apple's chief executive.

"I believe we have a policy of no recruiting from Apple," then-Google chief executive Eric Schmidt wrote in a 2007 email cited by the plaintiffs. The same email included a forwarded message from Jobs complaining that Google was trying to lure away an Apple engineer.

"Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening?" Schmidt wrote. Google's director of staffing replied that the recruiter "will be terminated within the hour."

The companies' attorneys said the plaintiffs' case showed no evidence of a conspiracy.

Rather, they said in court filings that some companies had separate one-to-one pacts among themselves as they worked together on various business ventures.

Adobe said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Other companies named in the suit did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.