Too Many Workers Are Trapped By Non-Competes (bloomberg.com) 216
Why have wages been so slow to rise at a time when demand for workers has pushed the U.S. unemployment rate to its lowest point in nearly half a century? One answer: contracts that tie millions of unspecialized workers to their jobs. Bloomberg reports: In far too many cases, these so-called noncompetes are an unwarranted restriction on freedom to transact and a drag on growth. If Congress won't act to narrow their scope, states should take the lead. The desire to keep workers from defecting to rival employers is as old as employment itself. As far back as the 15th century, English masters, such as dyers or blacksmiths, made apprentices promise not to set up shop nearby. Courts often refused to uphold such agreements, viewing them as coercive. As a House of Lords decision put it in 1893, "There is obviously more freedom of contract between buyer and seller than between master and servant or between an employer and a person seeking employment."
More than a century later, the idea is back in vogue, as companies exploit the power that comes with increasing size and market concentration. In the U.S., new employees are commonly required to sign contracts that forbid them to work in the same industry for a given period. The practice makes sense for highly paid jobs involving big investments in training, and for staff with valuable proprietary knowledge. But it isn't being limited to those kinds of employees. A 2014 survey found that about two in five workers were or had at some point been bound in this way, including workers such as security guards and camp counselors. Some 12 percent of employees without a bachelor's degree and earning less than $40,000 a year were tied down.
More than a century later, the idea is back in vogue, as companies exploit the power that comes with increasing size and market concentration. In the U.S., new employees are commonly required to sign contracts that forbid them to work in the same industry for a given period. The practice makes sense for highly paid jobs involving big investments in training, and for staff with valuable proprietary knowledge. But it isn't being limited to those kinds of employees. A 2014 survey found that about two in five workers were or had at some point been bound in this way, including workers such as security guards and camp counselors. Some 12 percent of employees without a bachelor's degree and earning less than $40,000 a year were tied down.
Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies should be forced to pay the full salary + benefits + average bonuses for the non-compete period. So if they don't want you working for a competitor for 12 months, then they should give you a full salary for 12 months while you are on gardening leave.
Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Informative)
That is actually how it is done in Europe ...
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Sadly it's not, at least not everywhere in Europe.
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And California! Non-competes were critical to the development of silicon valley, making California one of the largest economic powerhouses in the world.
This isn't bullshit. It's been studied.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/10/27/california-got-it-right-ban-the-non-compete-agreements/#4f3900243538
Massachusetts strangled it's fledgling tech industry in the cradle with noncompetes.
https://law.stanford.edu/index.php?webauth-document=publication/256234/doc/slspublic/NYULawReview-74-3-Gilson.pdf
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
And California! Non-competes were critical to the development of silicon valley, making California one of the largest economic powerhouses in the world.
This should be modded up. Non-competes are mostly illegal in California, which means people and ideas flow between companies. This has led to the most successful tech industry in the world, the highest salaries, and the biggest profits.
Non-competes are bad for employees, bad for companies (in aggregate they are a prisoner's dilemma), bad for the economy, and by retarding progress, bad for humanity.
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And California! Non-competes were critical to the development of silicon valley, making California one of the largest economic powerhouses in the world.
This should be modded up. Non-competes are mostly illegal in California, which means people and ideas flow between companies. This has led to the most successful tech industry in the world, the highest salaries, and the biggest profits.
Non-competes are bad for employees, bad for companies (in aggregate they are a prisoner's dilemma), bad for the economy, and by retarding progress, bad for humanity.
You are correct. Its also true that its an aspect of civil code and the CA civil code is huge and most companies have only the vaguest ideas of what the "rules of the road" are. Probably 50% of the CA employment contracts I've reviewed have at least 1 thing in them that violates CA civil code. I've also seen employment contracts without severance clauses which contain mistakes. What does this mean? The contract isn't worth the paper its printed on and even a layperson could get it thrown out of court a
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Non-competes were critical to the development of silicon valley,
I htink you mean "not having non-competes" here?
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I tend to agree, the idea that the startup industry here is anything but thriving is pretty dumb. It is worth noting, however, that not long ago Mass did away with non competes (or rather require them to be compensated).
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Well, these days anyway. And mostly because Silicon Valley has gotten dumbed down and nothing to do with silicon or engineering, intead focusing on social media and advertising. In the past though, Silicon Valley actually innovated with technology instead of just using it.
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Nope, it isn't.
Firstly, Europe is not a single entity.
Secondly, even the European Union, which is a large subset of Europe, doesn't have standardised employment law.
Thirdly, none of the the three European countries I have worked in has worked that way for non-competes.
Re: Simple solution (Score:2)
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That's basically how it works in New York. You get paid the full salary during the non-compete period but not necessarily bonuses depending on the particular non-compete agreement.
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Actually, this is pretty much required. You'd need to have some pretty special cases for a judge to enforce a non-compete that lacks compensation.
As such, non-competes are actually very good for the employees -- they are golden handcuffs.
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, this is pretty much required. You'd need to have some pretty special cases for a judge to enforce a non-compete that lacks compensation.
As such, non-competes are actually very good for the employees -- they are golden handcuffs.
Um.. Depends on the local jurisdiction's stance on non-competes. All that is required in some jurisdictions is that you be compensated to sign the agreement and "continued employment" can be sufficient compensation in some cases. I know it is in Kansas.
How do I know this? I got sued over a supposed non-compete violation by a past employer. Even though I didn't do what they claimed, had no money they could collect AND the agreement was significantly flawed, it's a painful and expensive experience to deal with civil law suits like this. Take my advice, don't go there if you can help it.
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How do I know this? I got sued over a supposed non-compete violation by a past employer. Even though I didn't do what they claimed, had no money they could collect AND the agreement was significantly flawed, it's a painful and expensive experience to deal with civil law suits like this. Take my advice, don't go there if you can help it.
Out of curiosity if you don't mind me asking, what was the company requesting from the court if you were found in violation? Just a financial compensation or was there more to it?
Was the current employer at the time willing to help you in any way, or was it the type you believe would fire you instantly if requested? Presuming you were employed at the time that lawsuit happened.
Only asking as I've managed to never work for a company using non-competes, and of the small handful I applied to with them I was
Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Informative)
Non-competes have nothing to do with "right to work" laws. Right to work simply makes employer/employee relationships "at will" for both sides. It also means that the employee cannot be forced to be a union member as a condition of employment. Non-compete agreements are not affected by any right to work laws that I know of.
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Your language shows your lack of the legal framework. Local is a muicipality, like a city or town. You apparently mean at the state level.
My advice is don't take legal advice from the internet, hire a lawyer. Google isn't good enough here, you actually need a licensed attorney to determine what the law says where you live.
Also, "local jurisdiction" obviously means "The laws in effect where you are" which include city, county, state, and federal regulations. So yes, not just city laws, but the city's laws, the county's laws, the state's laws and the federal laws all can govern non-compete enforcement. A local Lawyer will (or should) know h
Re: Simple solution (Score:2)
Re: Simple solution (Score:5, Informative)
Am I "one appointed by another to act in his place"? No. Well, I've appointed myself to read, write, and enforce contracts between my business, it's suppliers, and it's clients.
Ask a legal litigator (like my beloved), and they'll tell you that most of my contracts would never hold up in a courtroom.
Ask any small business owner, and you'll learn that business agreements aren't required to hold up in a courtroom. They'll never see a courtroom because fighting in a courtroom is more expensive than anything the other side wants. Instead, such agreements are meant to formalize what the two parties have already agreed.
I've been in-business for 25 years. I've written close to 100 agreements, and signed well over 100. I've never seen a courtroom. Only two relationships have gone sour, for a total of ~$3'000 that I've refunded. That's factored under close to three million dollars of revenue. So that's 0.1%.
I, and you too, would call that incredibly successful.
Incidentally, one of my tricks is to write such agreements in as much past-tense as is possible to make true. The more of the responsibilities that you can enact ahead of signing the agreement, the most stable the agreement is.
Granted, and certainly caveats, I'm not in an industry where lives can be lost, gross sums of money can vanish, or clients engage in criminal behaviour. Obviously those kinds of liabilities might depend on a legal system to contain them. I'm also not a large company responsible for a large number of employees.
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I believe this is the case in Massachusetts now after the most recent law was passed on Non-Competes.
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That's the only condition under which I sign non-competes. The job market is prime for job seekers, with the most qualified ones being snatched up in a matter of days, there is no reason to agree to a non-compete.
If you're already under a non-compete, quit or have the agreement rescinded. If you're valuable, your employer will agree to bend the rules.
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In CA, courts have found that when companies use this strategy, they are usually trying to skirt the non-compete law on technicalities. Better to just make it illegal. It really should just fall under the same legal interpretation that forbids you from signing a contract of indentured servitude or slavery.
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They're also banned in CA.
Under the California Business and Professions Code Section 16600 “every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void.”
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It's nothing to do with stealing trade secrets. That's actionable whether there's a non-compete or not.
Invalid contracts. (Score:2)
Those, along with arbitration agreements, should be considered abjectly invalid agreements in terms of being asked to give up important fundamental rights to important freedoms in any society.
Rather, going forward, groups that demand you sign such invalid contracts should be considered to be committing an act of fraud by pressuring you with 'agreements' involving you giving up such important access to important rights and freedoms.
The focus should rather be on making the justice system itself more accessibl
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Not about training, but often about customers (Score:3)
1) These kinds of contracts that are completely one sided toward the employer are unethical business practice and should be limited.
2) In many cases, it's not really about training, it's about poaching. Take, for example, service techs. Service techs are very often the front lines of a company's sales. They have the client's ear better than anyone else, and often clients like working with a company specifically because they like working with a particular service tech who is reliable and efficient and they trust. If Company B can poach that service tech, then they can often also poach a lot of potential clients. In reality, that's the primary reason why these contracts exist, companies don't want to lose employee investment to competitors, but the REALLY don't want to lose clients.
3) Rather than enslavement contracts, companies should handle this problem by making sure their employees are happy in their current jobs and are very difficult to poach.
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Re:Not about training, but often about customers (Score:5, Informative)
And that, friends, is a very good example of why you should not get legal advice from /..
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They are forcing you sign the NC contract under duress and that won't hold up in courts.
Perhaps, but even if it doesn't hold up in court, that's still likely thousands of dollars in legal fees that you're going to have to spend to find that out. You may or may not be able to recover it. To me, it's better to just not agree to it to begin with. If the employer wants me bad enough, they'll buckle. If not, without a separate sizable non-compete bonus to compensate for the headaches, it's not worth the ris
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Want to find out if these Non-Compete contracts will hold up in court? Just ask if you can take the NC contract to a lawyer for evaluation. If the company says, "No, you have to sign it now", the contract is not enforceable. They are forcing you sign the NC contract under duress and that won't hold up in courts. It the company says, "Yes, you can have a lawyer check it", you may have an enforceable contract. I asked at many places and was always told "No" so I signed the NC contract (if I wanted the job) knowing that it meant nothing.
A lot depends on local laws. When I left a company that had a non compete, my attorney basically said most are unenforceable because labor laws change a lot as court cases get decided and most are used simply to scare employees by making them think they cannot go to a competitor. It turned out mine was a not a non compete, although it was called one, and simply said I could not solicit work from any clients. He pointed out if they called me or someone else did the solicitation then I could do the work. He
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And some Service techs are 1099's / subcontracted.
But in other cases they can use the non-competes to cheap out and hold tech in's place you can keep working with no more toll or parking reimbursement or not work in field at for 2 years.
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You must be a service tech to hold such an unreasonably high opinion of their work.
Not the cause of wage stagnation (Score:5, Insightful)
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The main problem is that companies no longer value experience (except perhaps at hiring time but often not even then) ...
That's nothing new. Wage compression has been around forever.
What's keeping wages from growing faster than inflation today is the huge pool of people who have been out of the workforce for the past several years. Labor participation rate was extremely low during the Obama years due to generous unemployment benefits and ease of collecting disability. Those people are now starting to flow back into the labor market so even though the unemployment rate looks low there are still plenty of people becoming availa
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Except that wage stagnation is a 40-year-old phenomena. It is not an effect of the last recession (though that certainly didn't help). It has persisted through several economic boom-bust cycles. The excuses change but the result is the same; "You're lucky to have a job in this dip.", "We're just starting to recover from the dip.", "Bad timing, there's ano
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Please elaborate on your alleged connection.
Do a bit of reading here [bloomberg.com]
The participation rate is a wild card for the U.S. labor market outlook. Employers could unlock a massive pool of untapped labor if they can pull currently disenfranchised workers back into the game. If that’s the case, the job market isn’t as tight as the current 4 percent unemployment rate would suggest and today’s still-slow wage growth makes more sense.
Experience != performance (Score:2)
Non-competes are a problem, yes, but not the cause of wage stagnation.
As a general proposition this is correct. Most people aren't asked to sign non-competes.
Job mobility is higher than it's ever been, despite the rash of non-compete contracts.
Recent data [bls.gov] seems to dispute your assertion. Non-competes are an issue in some places but they aren't a systemic problem because most people never sign one.
The main problem is that companies no longer value experience (except perhaps at hiring time but often not even then) and believe every employee with similar education is interchangeable.
They value it but experience does have limits to its value. Some companies perhaps don't adequately value experience like they should - usually to their long term detriment. On the other hand some workers think their experience is worth more than it really is.
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Even if the company does give raises it's hard to get them to keep up with market rate for your skills. You might pick something up that lets you get 10k more with it on your CV, but convincing your boss to give you that is difficult.
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Non-competes are a problem, yes, but not the cause of wage stagnation. Job mobility is higher than it's ever been, despite the rash of non-compete contracts. Changing jobs (or threatening to) is often the only way to get a raise now, but it wasn't always this way. The main problem is that companies no longer value experience (except perhaps at hiring time but often not even then) and believe every employee with similar education is interchangeable.
Supply and demand is very much still in effect. Want to drive wages down or stagnate them? Simply import masses of people and outsource the rest. The part that economists who preach free trade don't tell you is that wages reach an equilibrium where higher wage countries go down while lower wage countries go up. We've sacrificed two generations and counting on the alter of free trade and mass immigration.
Thank you, Comboman (Score:2)
Thanx ag
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Seconded, never accept a counteroffer. Never. Just go.
jimmy johns had an non compete for min wage works (Score:2)
jimmy johns had an non compete for min wage works and they dropped it after an lawsuit.
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Comment removed (Score:3)
check your state laws (Score:2)
Even if it's enforceable, unless you're taking a couple million worth of accounts or technology with you to a competitor the legal costs of enforcing a non-compete doesn't make it worth the trouble.
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The way my old boss put it: "I have a lawyer on retainer, it doesn't cost me anything." He was known to *threaten* to enforce a non-compete and cause an ex-employee to lose the chance at a job. The hiring company didn't want to mess with it. Just because it isn't legally enforceable doesn't mean it isn't practicably enforceable.
That's the main point, it's often just a scare tactic and effective. Until an employee says FU, you may have a retainer but that will only cove a fraction of your fees and you will lose your boss will continue to use that threat. As with anything, you can tell someone they must do X, even if they don't, and if they believe you you win.
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And this is why I don't sign them in the first place, even if they're clearly unenforceable. The ex-employee would have a pretty good case for a tortious interference suit against the first employer if he could prove that happened and the non-compete was unenforceable, but that costs money, and in legal matters especially, proving yourself right can involve bankrupting yourself in the process. Even if he could afford the suit, it's easy to get a judgment, but often a lot harder to collect on it.
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Why would you tell that asshole where you're going?
Get the new job, stop going to his job. Done.
Retainers don't work that way. He has prepaid for some hours, but the hours still cost.
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I.E. Take my advice, get a lawyer to give you legal advice before you sign any contract and certainly before you choose to break such a contract. Defending yourself from civil lawsuits is an expensive and time consuming process. You may win, of course, but ask yourself if it's worth the trouble.
States are going in the opposite direction (Score:5, Interesting)
10 years ago, non-competes were invalid under Georgia law. Then we had a referendum on a ballot to put them in. You'd think that normal people would vote against this, right? But here's how it was worded (from ballotpedia.org) on the November 2, 2010 ballot:
And 68% of the idiot voters fell for it.
Perhaps that's a little unfair to the voters. The wording was clearly insanely misleading; to the point where if I were challenging a non-compete in court, I'd probably start with attacking the validity of the ballot referendum as fraudulent (probably a hopeless avenue, I know).
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Unless you have an electorate that's researched the ballot measure extensively ahead of time, that language is going to fool anyone. Maybe there's a small group that were voting for it because they do want such laws as it benefits them, but that particular wording appears to have been crafted by the devil himself.
Welcome to ballot initiatives. They are written to get passed, and often do just the opposite of what was intended.
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That's not the real reason these days (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't agree that non-competes are what is currently stopping employees from jumping ships. I know plenty of friends not under any contractual loyalty, that could easily switch companies for higher salaries, but never will.
We live in a much different world than 25 years ago.
In the past, when you wanted more money out of your career, you wanted that more money for something real. Maybe you wanted to pay for a boat. Or a car. Or a wife. Or a child.
But these days, most of what people want in their l life is pretty cheap. Watch movies from home. Music collections cost nothing. Good speakers cost little. Cars are way cheaper, and alternative transportation is too -- zipcars, scooters, bike rentals, ride-sharing. Houses are cheaper in that mortgage interest rates are a tenth of what they used to be. Air travel is way cheaper and more accessible. Vacations are cheaper, especially with airbnb options.
In short, going through the effort to change jobs, and the risk that the salary won't actually be higher, and the risk that there might be a week without pay between jobs, isn't worth the actual pay increase at the end of the day -- no one with an existing job is missing out on any popular cultural opportunity.
If you already have all the music in the world, all the movies you want, all the knowledge on the internet you want, all the transportation that you need, and can afford your mortgage payments, well then who really cares to put in the work to get more money? What you want is more time to enjoy your stuff.
Hey, I'm in that position in a very different way. I've owned and operated my own small business for those same 25 years. I've amassed enough hobbies to fill a full year. I'm not looking for more work to make more money. I'm not even working full-time on the work that I have now. I'm desperately searching for more time to enjoy the hobbies that I have waiting for me -- most of which cost nearly zero dollars at this point -- I already own the toys/cars/instruments/hammocks/gardens/tvisions/computers/games, and it costs almost nothing to play with them all; but it costs a lot of time to play with any of them.
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Your realm is very different than mine, Sir.
My mortgage rate was 2.19% until last month, when it jumped to 3.33%. Thirty years ago, my parents were paying 22%. That's a factor of more than ten. Also, I rounded up to ten from eight.
Averages are meaningless when we're talking about individuals and multiple-causes. Math doesn't work outside of the lab. That's why we have statistics, scientific precision, threshold effects, and english.
Dude, cars are way way way cheaper. You can buy a used car today for u
Come to California (Score:4, Informative)
Come to California, where it's always sunny, and non-competes are laughed at by the courts.
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If your competitor does that, then drive them out of business by outcompeting them with higher-quality American workers. If you know someone who works in engineering, you will hear of a night-and-day difference between U.S.-educated engineers (at the top of their game, leaders in their field) and a lot of foreign engineers (need constant supervision, prone to mistakes).
If you are not working for an employer doing this already, then start up your own!
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Thank God for that, too. I think this year (by which I mean the 2018-2019 rainy season) will average out to average rainfall year, rather than being a very dry year that early- to mid-fall was shaping up to be.
I'm an American (Score:4, Informative)
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COBRA coverage has been a thing since 1985, well before ACA was established. With ACA being cut down, the job market is flourishing with record unemployment. In the tech world, we have big shortages all around, people are snatching up the best candidates everywhere.
Nice troll though.
COBRA isn't just unaffordable (Score:3)
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You used it wrong.
If you get sick, you buy the COBRA retroactively. If you don't get sick, you pay nothing.
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In both cases the company pays out $(x+y), and you receive $(x+y) in compensation. But for some reason prospective employees consider $y in health insurance benefit as better than $y in additional salary, and
Makes sense? (Score:2)
The practice makes sense for highly paid jobs involving big investments in training, and for staff with valuable proprietary knowledge.
No it doesn't. Here in the Netherlands, non compete clauses can only be enforced in a few very specific cases. Pay doesn't (and shouldn't have) anything to do with it. Neither does training: if a company invests a lot of money in your training, they usually add a clause that you have to partly refund the cost of training if you leave within x number of years, the cost being written off during that period. For proprietary knowledge there are things like NDAs. And in most cases a judge will invalidate ov
How are they enforceable? (Score:2)
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They employ the services of tracking companies who will report the employment status of recently departed employees.
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How would they know unless you borrowed money and it appears on your credit report?
IRS W-2s, 1099s, etc. You've got to pay taxes some time.
web development (Score:2)
Hard to think of any job for which this is justified (someone with access to the classic Coke formulas maybe?), but it's super silly for web dev jobs.
I've been asked to sign contracts that assert that the employer would be irreparably damaged if I walked away to a competitor with their super secret proprietary knowledge ... of what? It didn't specify, but what the heck could it be? PHP? JavaScript? C#? You've got to be kidding me.
As others have noted, the real goal is to keep me from walking off with th
Just take the German law (Score:2)
You can force me to work at McDonalds for a year, but you pay the difference between McDonald's annual pay and the annual pay I could have received. Plus some on top for me to keep up-to-date in my real profession. And the way
Non compete I signed.. (Score:2)
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Reliance on Government (Score:2)
If Congress won't act to narrow their scope, states should take the lead.
This is a huge issue. When you refuse to act, take a stand, whatever, on your own, or collectively through, oh I dunno, that odd foreign concept called unionization... anyway, yeah.. stop leaning on Government to solve all your problems.
Unionize. Stop accepting these NDA's/Non-compete agreements. You all made this bed, you get to lay in it until you decide otherwise. Government shouldn't be expected to rescue you from yourselves.
I thought the Supreme Court declared this illegal (Score:2)
I thought that the US Supreme Court - back in ~1998 ruled these are not valid. They CAN keep you from sharing trade secrets, but they CANNOT prevent you from seeking work in the same job sector.
I vaguely remember this because I was exiting a company at that time. The company lawyer was also the HR manager (or at least the guy who made you sign all of the "we talked about this" papers). The court ruling had been made about that time. Vaguely -- I think it was a guy at Intel who had sued, he went to wor
It's the threat that matters (Score:2)
t might be a legal battle if you are a CEO that ran off with trade secrets to start a new company, but a guy making 40k? Please, no one gives a fuck what you do, they only wrote it in the contract because people fall for it.
While it's true that usually companies don't much care, the terms are in there to give them the option to act if they decide they have a reason to care. And someone making 40K isn't going to be able to afford the lawyers to fight that fight so the threat alone tends to be enough to have the desired effect that most companies want. Plus, it's fairly unusual for someone making low wages who isn't doing anything involving trade secrets or sales relationships to be asked to sign a non-compete.
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Non competes are hardly enforceable. It might be a legal battle if you are a CEO that ran off with trade secrets to start a new company, but a guy making 40k? Please, no one gives a fuck what you do, they only wrote it in the contract because people fall for it.
Not always.. I was making $43K when I quit an employer back in 2000... They sued me over some supposed non-compete violation, even though I had no money (I was unemployed and had no assets other than my home and car) and didn't actually DO what they claimed. Yea, they where being stupid and didn't collect one red cent from me, but I had to cough up a pile of money to retain the lawyer I needed to defend myself.
My one bit of advice is to GET A LAWYER to look before you sign any agreement, and don't be stup
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It can be used to make the Employee and their Competitors lives miserable.
This is a general problem with the legal system. The process itself causes more injury then the violation being convicted of, especially if you are trying to go against someone with more money.
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Non competes are hardly enforceable. It might be a legal battle if you are a CEO that ran off with trade secrets to start a new company, but a guy making 40k? Please, no one gives a fuck what you do, they only wrote it in the contract because people fall for it.
Whether or not they are enforceable is usually a matter of compensation more than anything.
If your employer pays you for your non-compete period, it most likely is enforceable, otherwise, it most likely isn't.
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It is generally left in the contract for the rare instances where they actually want to try to enforce it. It's one thing to go work for some other snow cone company, it is quite another to steal every aspect of a snow cone franchise and start a competitor on the same boardwalk with the same flavors. It is one thing to take the skills you developed in one tech company's support infrastructure and work for another, it is quite another to take exactly how the first company operated its support infrastructure
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Besides, the general idea is that poor negotiators and rule followers in other words passive people, get and deserve less in life.
I fully agree. The same is true for small, fat, black, mexican, women. Merit.
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"Employees have one power in salary negotiations, the power to quit. If you aren't willing to exercise that power, why should your employer pay more? And if you are willing to exercise it (or your employer thinks you are), why shouldn't your employer just get rid of you and find someone who won't?"
That is the only power employers have as well. They just have the many to one ratio. And depending on job role you might not be so easy to replace.
"It's why leaving for a new job is the only way to ensure higher p
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A lot of times these issues arise in sales. For instance, it's very bad form to take a list of sales contacts with you to a new company. The old and new company both will frown heavily on this. For people doing actual work, most companies aren't so concerned about this stuff, and certainly the investors don't care.
They do care about trade secrets, but that's a separate issue from non-compete.
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"By your logic, if you are unable to defend yourself against a murderer, you deserved to die."
Not by my logic but rather by natural law. Your death and his survival means a next generation which is more likely to survive whatever struggles and adversity a cold and uncaring natural world throws at them thus helping to ensure the survival of our species. Preventing that from happening at best allows you to continue as a burden and at worst allows you to propagate your weakness both in interaction with others
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You can often take it out of the contract. I've gotten a few non-competes and 'all your code past, current and future belong to us'; refused to sign, got threatened with "you can't work here if you don't" by some HR goon and then let the bosses fight it out, if you're a qualified candidate or good worker, they'll bend to hire/keep you. I've similarly gotten "our HR wage standards for this job are between this value and this value, you're asking for 20% more than the highest value for your category" - same t
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It's called intimidation, Bud. I never blink an eye at signing them. I've never once considered they might have an impact on future employment, and they haven't.
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You can still be sued. If it goes to court you will win. But the difficulty is being able to afford to get to court in the first place.
Re:No, they aren't. (Score:4, Informative)
In general, non-competes for non-executive employees are not enforceable. I can't think of a single case where a noncompete against a developer has been upheld in court.
Oh, how wrong. I got sued over a non-compete and where it never went to court, just paying the legal fees alone about bankrupted me. They ARE enforceable in some jurisdictions if they are properly written and even if you think it would be stupid to sue over, that doesn't mean your former employer sees it the same way. My advice to you is to pay a LAWYER for advice if you intend to break a non-compete, no matter where you live or how bad the agreement seems. Understand what you are risking in your jurisdiction and don't take legal advice from Google or Slashdot posts, get a lawyer and pay them, then follow their advice.
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Oh, how wrong. I got sued over a non-compete and where it never went to court
You realize you didn't actually test its enforceability then, right? The phony IRS scam phone calls aren't enforceable, either, but that doesn't really matter when people hand over the money willingly.
Re:I have rarely (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest problem is how broad a non-compete can cover.
I can see the problems they can have if I worked for Microsoft on the Windows 10 Kernel team, and I went over to Apple to work on OS X Kernel. However If I Worked on Windows 10 Kernel, and went to Apple iOS Kernel development, the non-compete shouldn't be in play. Because Windows 10 doesn't directly compete against iOS because Microsoft has stopped their mobile device development. And Windows 10 primary market is Desktop.
A Non-Compete shouldn't be broad, but very particular.
I changed my non-compete (Score:5, Insightful)
I had changes made to my non-compete clause when I was hired at my current job.
It said I couldn't work for or own another security company *while* working for my new employer. It just so happens that the company I worked for two companies prior, I still owned. I hadn't worked for the company in years, but I still owned it. We struck the ownership clause and put in a clause limiting my involvement in the old company to an advisory role.
The point of this being, it is a negotiation. Read the clauses and if something needs to be adjusted, perhaps be made more specific, bring it up and maybe propose some new wording. The company has a legitimate interest in you not taking their proprietary technology directly to their closest direct competitor, and you have a legitimate interest in being able to work in your field. Find some wording that protects both. Ideally, you can think about what kind of company you want to be working for in 5-10 years and what kind of worknyou want to be doing. You can keep that in mind while adjusting the contract as needed.
Re:I changed my non-compete (Score:5, Informative)
I have seen legal departments refuse to accept any changes in contracts or agreements. When a company reaches a certain size then it takes on a life of its own and it becomes too difficult to get approval to modify a boilerplate agreement. Even when approval is granted it requires going to up to the most senior management.
Gotta be worth it by grepping the want ads (Score:2)
Yeah it took some layers of approvals for me.
A while back I started looking at want ads for jobs I'd like to qualify for in a few years. I made tick marks for the keywords that often appeared in ads for jobs I wanted, mainly at companies I wanted to work for. After gaining exactly the skills and credentials that employers were asking for, I was worth the hassle to them.
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I know this means sending up the mgmt chain for approvals. That's at least a month gone. Then I have to actually submit it to legal. 2 months, if you're lucky. Then, send back the new version to the candidate, who realistically has gone on to find a new job by then.
Corporate bureaucracy FTW
Re:I have rarely (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew a contractor that refused an "updated" contract that changed the non-compete agreements. It essentially covered anything to do with software or devices that used software. And the company wasn't even in the software business. Since he worked on multiple contracts he couldn't afford to agree to it. It was a boilerplate agreement and HR wouldn't budge, and legal wouldn't allow any changes to the boilerplate, even after the VP of R&D claimed that it was essential that they retain this contractor.