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Top tech companies investigated for employee-poaching ban

January 30, 2012, 5:17 AM PST

Takeaway: This week, a federal judge ordered Google, Apple, and five other high-tech companies to court.

A couple of years ago I wrote about the U.S. Justice Department turning up the heat on allegations that some Silicon Valley companies were acting monopolistically in their hiring practices. This week, a federal judge ordered Google, Apple, and five other high-tech companies to court over accusations that they violated anti-trust laws by conspiring not to poach each other’s employees.

CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan looks at this development.

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9 Votes

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Poaching

sboverie 30th Jan

I followed the link to get more information, the problem was that by having an agreement to not poach employees from each other served the companies but not the employees. One of the complaints was that this agreement caused the employees to get paid at a lower salary than they could get if they were able to move on. The telling part came at the end with an email response to Steve Jobs fom the CEO of Palm stating that that the agreement to to not hire employees from another company was wrong and probably illegal.

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7 Votes

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Contributr

Every time things like this come up...

dcolbert@... Updated - 30th Jan

... I eventually get another check in the mail from Intel as part of a settlement from a class-action lawsuit. The last one was for them not paying right for on-call responsibilities for salaried employees.

Who needs a pension-plan when the management at large corporations continuously practice unethical, short-sighted policies? Just think of the abuses you're suffering today as a forced long-term savings plan for your retirement fund.

(Maybe I'll cash this check when it arrives and buy an ARM or AMD based system, just to add insult to injury).

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6 Votes

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I Wish Someone Would Poach Me

Computer Dave 31st Jan

I've been scrambled too many times.

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1 Vote

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poaching

bubbledog 9th Feb

This do not poach policy happens all over the globe and dammages a lot of potentially promising careers,say for instance a boss does not agree with you on a number of key issues and you make your reports at board meetings that contradicts his assesments on a particular issue, he definately sees a conflict of interest here. Instead of allowing you to ply your skills if an opportunity comes around he does his homework and tells your potential employers in the same industry,people he knows, that you are a bad egg and should not be considered for hiring in their company because you are a liability, when in truth and in fact things are the other way around.

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6 Votes

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I Wish Someone Would Poach Me

Computer Dave 31st Jan

I've been scrambled too many times.

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1 Vote

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Contributr

Do Not Hire Lists

dcolbert@... 31st Jan

Are internal within a single organization - and I wonder how many large organizations actually enforce them - being that they must realize that they're abused. It seems like a well oiled corporation realizes that these lists are just as likely to exclude workers who would be an asset as to exclude workers who would genuinely be a problem for the org. Maybe I'm wrong though.

The problem with THIS case is it spans different corporations and industries. If Intel (a component manufacturer) is in an agreement with Apple (a software vendor and hardware design firm) to not poach employees - you've got a very real problem for the free-market employment pool.

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