US Lawmakers Could Restrict the Use of Non-Compete Agreements (protocol.com) 119
Politico's technology site Protocol reports that some U.S. lawmakers are getting angry about an unpopular but widespread corporate policy -- the non-compete agreement:
Non-compete agreements prohibit employees who leave their jobs from taking similar positions with potential competitors for a certain period of time. In the U.S., somewhere between 27.8% and 46.5% of private-sector workers are subject to non-compete agreements, according to a 2019 Economic Policy Institute study.
Such agreements are unenforceable in California and limited in nearby Washington, but they can still have adverse effects on employees nationwide. That's why a current piece of legislation, the Workforce Mobility Act, seeks at the federal level to restrict the use of non-compete agreements in most situations. Sens. Chris Murphy and Todd Young introduced the bill, which would only allow non-competes in certain "necessary" situations... Non-compete legislation also has the support of President Joe Biden, who said during his campaign he would support such a bill. John Lettieri, president and CEO of the Economic Innovation Group, is a proponent of the Workforce Mobility Act and suggested the bill should enjoy broad support. "We believe we're in a position where it's possible for this to become law," Lettieri told Protocol.
"Whether you're a free market conservative or whether you're a pro-worker progressive, you can come from either of those ends of the spectrum and end up in the same place. And this is a special issue for that reason... Competition is generally good and for workers, competition among businesses for your labor is the most fundamental bargaining power you've got," he said. But if companies hinder that with non-compete agreements, they create "a downstream series of consequences that really are bad for the worker, they're bad for the broader labor market and it's increasingly clear they're bad for the broader economy as well...."
Companies such as Amazon and Microsoft — both headquartered in Seattle, Washington — and New York-headquartered IBM have all sued employees for breaking the terms of their non-compete agreements.
Such agreements are unenforceable in California and limited in nearby Washington, but they can still have adverse effects on employees nationwide. That's why a current piece of legislation, the Workforce Mobility Act, seeks at the federal level to restrict the use of non-compete agreements in most situations. Sens. Chris Murphy and Todd Young introduced the bill, which would only allow non-competes in certain "necessary" situations... Non-compete legislation also has the support of President Joe Biden, who said during his campaign he would support such a bill. John Lettieri, president and CEO of the Economic Innovation Group, is a proponent of the Workforce Mobility Act and suggested the bill should enjoy broad support. "We believe we're in a position where it's possible for this to become law," Lettieri told Protocol.
"Whether you're a free market conservative or whether you're a pro-worker progressive, you can come from either of those ends of the spectrum and end up in the same place. And this is a special issue for that reason... Competition is generally good and for workers, competition among businesses for your labor is the most fundamental bargaining power you've got," he said. But if companies hinder that with non-compete agreements, they create "a downstream series of consequences that really are bad for the worker, they're bad for the broader labor market and it's increasingly clear they're bad for the broader economy as well...."
Companies such as Amazon and Microsoft — both headquartered in Seattle, Washington — and New York-headquartered IBM have all sued employees for breaking the terms of their non-compete agreements.
Unlawful (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
This. Maybe employers will be less likely to cut and run on employees if they know someone else will snap them up.
Re:Unlawful (Score:5, Insightful)
The first exception is that the seller of the entirety of a business interest may enter an agreement to refrain from engaging in a similar business in the geographic areas where the business being sold has conducted business prior to the agreement. This exception extends to agreements by senior executive officials who have a severance agreement as part of the conditions of sale (i.e., a buyout provision). Second, a partner of an enterprise, in anticipation of the dissolution of the partnership or disassociation of a partner, may enter an agreement to refrain from engaging in a similar business in the geographic areas where the partnership has conducted business prior to the agreement.
Frankly it's about damn time and I hope this passes. Non-competes should never have been allowed to be legal in the first place. I will not, however, be holding my breath. I expect a lot of corporate push-back and we both know at the end of the day, both parties are beholden to their corporate masters.
Re:Unlawful (Score:5, Interesting)
I accepted non-competes in certain professional instances in the 1990s and into the 2000s. But then they expanded to people making sandwiches for Jimmy John's and to hairdressers. At that point, I realized the the concept (even after Jimmy John's dropped theirs) had become irrevocably corrupted and were no longer about secrets but instead about restricting competition. I mean, I could wear a body cam a half-dozen times into a sandwich shop and replicate the basic idea literally next door for 50 cents less, but the minimum-wage employees had to drive ever farther to work.
I get protecting trade secrets and preventing working with existing or prospective clients, but restricting much beyond that is ludicrous.
Re: (Score:2)
I get protecting trade secrets and preventing working with existing or prospective clients
Except non-competes don't accomplish either of those. The first is covered by an NDA and the second is covered by a non-solicitation agreement. I will gladly sign either of those if they are correctly crafted, but I will never again sign a non-compete unless it covers 100% of my salary and benefits for the duration of the agreement. Having been screwed by an overly broad agreement and a petty former boss once I will ne
Re: (Score:2)
You should also demand that your salary and bonuses, during the "forced to be on the beach", time are at least the corporate average and be sure that any merger or acquisition of the employer will preserve those.
The salary, bonus, benefits and increases in those must also continue for the stated time even if you get other employment that is outside the area covered by the non-compete portion of the contract. Sitting out of employment for two years in a field in which you are a specialist reduces your value
Re: (Score:2)
I should have added, the employer should have the unilateral option to release you of the non-compete terms (and,of course, their requirement to pay you for the agreed upon term) at the time of your voluntary or involuntary termination or within 10 business days after. This way, if you haven't ended up working on anything competitively sensitive perhaps because you got fired four weeks into employment because you are a complete jerk or incompetent, the employer need to pay you for an extended period of time
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, if you're a specialist benched with full pay for 2 years then you absolutely should be keeping up/learning/training in your industry. That's on you and part of the trade of getting paid not to work. I'd gladly take that trade.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. But it's very hard to keep up in some industries unless you're "commercially" active -- hearing what customers are really griping about etc. It's not just languages, frameworks, and technologies - there is a certain "feel" one gets working in the trenches on real products which customers are paying big $ for vs., for example, almost all FOSS volunteer work.
Re: (Score:2)
"covers 100% of my salary and benefits for the duration of the agreement"
This. This should be a basic, mandatory inalienable requirement for any non-compete. That alone will eliminate most of them on the spot.
Instead of a complex law with tons of weird exceptions just make the minimum allowable monthly pay for a non-compete equal to the average of your last 12 months total comp plus full health benefits. Ban them entirely for employment under 12 months or under some median income (say... 60-80k). Make t
Re: (Score:1)
https://www.legis.nd.gov/cenco... [nd.gov]
9-08-06. In restraint of business void - Exceptions.
A contract by which anyone is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade, or
business of any kind is to that extent void, except:
1. A person that sells the goodwill of a business and the person's partners, members, or
shareholders may agree with the buyer to refrain from carrying on a similar business
within a reasonable geographic area and for a reasonable length of time, if the buyer
or any person deriving title to
Re:Unlawful (Score:5, Interesting)
I would rather it be something like non-compete clauses only being legal if they are paid perhaps 75% of their salary during the entire non-compete period. Or some form of severance pay (golden parachute) of equal amount. Non-compete clauses make perfect sense for your VP of Product Management, but if you want someone to give up their ability to use skills and connections built at your company to advance their career (like any other employee) you better pay them handsomely.
Add some kind of $500k minimum total compensation for any role to qualify for a non-compete clause too. This shouldn't be used on your senior developers or middle managers.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
At first I thought your suggestion was interesting but then I realized it's still flawed in at least one major respect. The more time you aren't doing the work that you're qualified for, the harder it is to get a perspective employer to take you seriously. After all, you've let your skills deteriorate by not using them constantly.
I think in this instance, the only winning move is to favor the worker and force businesses to accept the potential consequences of letting going/firing employees.
Re: (Score:3)
The more time you aren't doing the work that you're qualified for, the harder it is to get a perspective employer to take you seriously. After all, you've let your skills deteriorate by not using them constantly.
This is why the extra pay is necessary. The assumption isn't that you are sitting at home for the non-compete period. The assumption is you are working in another industry or role where you took significantly reduced pay compared to if you fully utilized your current skillsets. During that period you are building new expertise and new skills, so after your non-compete period is over you likely even more marketable. And if you took a 25%-50% pay cut over that period, you still made out well.
This is why havin
Re: Unlawful (Score:3)
Re:Unlawful (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's reasonable to use it on senior developers too, under certain conditions.
1: They keep paying 100% salary. Including average bonus and benefits of the last few years.
2: It's not so broad that it prevents *any* work.
E.g. If you are a programmer at Google that works on GMail front end. Then it can only prevent you from working on another email web-client. All other programming jobs are unrestricted.
If they are willing to pay for it, and it is so limited that it can't really be used to punish the employee, then it seems like a legit case of protecting their IP.
Re: (Score:1)
If they are willing to pay for it, and it is so limited that it can't really be used to punish the employee, then it seems like a legit case of protecting their IP.
Fuck them in the center of their brown-eye with a jumbo-sized lawn dart.
The first thing these companies tell when you’re hired is that you live in a “right to work” state, and they can fire you at any time for any reason or no reason at all.
Okay, fine, you cherish that fucking legislation so much, then I have a right to work, t
Re: (Score:3)
But how they are allowed to fire me is an independent problem from how they are allowed to prevent me from working afterwards.
You can view the non-compete period as a "notice-of-termination period", where you don't have to be in the office.
If they pay for it and there are strict limitations for what it applies to, then I think it's fair.
In fact, getting fired and being paid my regular salary to not work for 12 months is kind of a dream scenario to be honest.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no gap. Being in a non-compete period is essentially being employed in this case.
In fact being so good that the previous employer is willing to pay to keep you away from the competition is as green as a flag can possibly be.
If someone sees this as a red flag, then I do not want to work there anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
They won't need to ask about the gap.
On your resume you'd simply put
Date X - Date Y - Under non-compete meanwhile...
Completed training and certification 123
Attended seminar 987
Volunteered at ABC
Why is it no one realizes a non-compete doesn't mean you have to sit home and play video games? Give me 6-12 months paid to work on self development/training/mental health? Where do I sign? I'll very gladly explain that to a future employer.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, my EU country has the 50% of the average of the last 3 paychecks, until either the time stated in the contract passes or the ex-employer decides to forfeit the NC clause.
Although, it's rarely enforced, as small companies rarely have any extra cash, while big companies don't care.
Monopolies (Score:2)
Let our big corp overlords keep their monopolies !
Re: Unlawful (Score:1)
They are largely unenforceable unless they include compensation. I donâ(TM)t see the problem having them, as long as every party consents and understands their âoegolden parachuteâ partially pays for their unemployment some time.
Re: (Score:2)
They are largely unenforceable unless they include compensation. I donâ(TM)t see the problem having them, as long as every party consents and understands their âoegolden parachuteâ partially pays for their unemployment some time.
Two problems
- Largely unenforceable doesn't mean Big Corp can't threaten you and your Future Employer with a lawsuit. FE is likely to walk away and, at best, you're still stuck defending a lawsuit even FE fights with you AND you win.
- Companies consider gracing you with employment to be compensation for the non-compete. But yes, they're still routinely tossed...IF they make it to court. The vast majority of civil suits are settled out of court...such as by the defendant giving in to the demands.
Re: (Score:2)
As should all binding arbitration between parties of non-equal standing (e.g.: companies and individuals).
They should be, but won't (Score:1)
The devil is in the fine print... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is what led to Cali's Tech Boom (Score:1)
Re: This is what led to Cali's Tech Boom (Score:2)
Yes and no.
Massachusetts doesn't outlaw noncompetes (or at least didn't last time I checked...about a decade ago) but also has a reasonably robust tech and startup scene. Not nowhere like SF or LA but not bad. That said, the sector is a few big guys and a sizable but not huge number of mid-sized outfits, not a swarm of two-man operations.
The consensus among management types here is that it's too hard to retain good talent in Cali because the culture there is to job hop but the culture here isn't.
On the thir
Re: (Score:2)
Massachusetts doesn't outlaw noncompetes (or at least didn't last time I checked...about a decade ago) but also has a reasonably robust tech and startup scene. Not nowhere like SF or LA but not bad.
Massachusetts used to have a much bigger tech and startup scene than SF.
It's only natural... (Score:5, Insightful)
If a company can fire and replace a worker at any time, workers should be able to leave and replace their job at any time.
Hopefully this passes. California has gotten along fine with them being unenforceable; time to make it so nationwide.
Should be illegal except in limited cases (Score:5, Insightful)
A non-compete clause makes sense if you're the founder of a company and you sell it, or you're some very important key person in the organization. But for regular employees, they should be illegal.
In Canada (where I live) non-compete clauses are legal, but courts are reluctant to enforce them if they are over-broad. To be enforceable, they have to be limited in geographic scope, limited in time, and limited to the specific business of the company. Any non-compete clause that makes it hard for a person to find employment in their field is likely to be tossed out by the courts.
Re: Should be illegal except in limited cases (Score:2)
I completely agree. It should also come with significant compensation. If a person is going to not be able to work in their chosen profession and itâ(TM)s that important to the company then I think 50% of their previous pay for the duration of the non-compete seems reasonable.
Re: Should be illegal except in limited cases (Score:4, Informative)
If they don't want you to work in the field they can pay you market rate not to.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is the 50-50 Senate (Score:3, Informative)
and also Senator Joe Manchin. They won't let this pass b/c of lobbyists, yada yada..
Re: The problem is the 50-50 Senate (Score:5, Insightful)
"Geographic consensus" is a problem when different population densities mean a person's vote is effectively weighted by how many square feet of vacant land is around them. With enough nutjobs in sparsely populated states, that can become a destabilizing force - they could, theoretically, elect an anti-democratic wannabe-strongman even if an opponent got more human votes, and that strongman could bring their democracy to the brink of destruction and even enforce the will of a minority of ethno-nationalists in an attempt to reduce the country's diversity. Theoretically.
Re: The problem is the 50-50 Senate (Score:5, Insightful)
Our current system doesn't require consensus of any sort, geographic or otherwise. It just requires a majority vote. But it applies a bizarre weighting so now an arrogant and gullible minority can pass laws that force their will on the out of sight and out of mind majority. That's even worse.
It's indefensible that less than 600,000 people in Wyoming get as much power in the Senate as 40 million people in California. Their votes for president also count almost four times as much. The House is supposed to reflect population, but gerrymandering has mostly killed that idea. A party that controls 51% of a state legislature can capture 80% of the seats in the House.
It's interesting that all your examples were about people in cities hurting people in rural areas. Have you thought about the ways people in rural areas hurt people in cities? (There are a lot of them. If you can't think of any, that proves you really need to step outside your bubble and learn to see from other perspectives.)
Re: (Score:2)
Please list several. I live in the country, and all I see is city people trying to damage the rural economy, whether by banning mining and logging, tear out irrigation dams, inflicting wolves and grizzly bears on us, and declaring every damp piece of ground a wetland.
So in the interests of better communication, which we really do need, what are the country people preventing you from doing?
Re: (Score:2)
I have a lot of examples, but the most recent one I saw was a bunch of rural representatives blocking a law banning non-compete agreements. I can see why they care so much, a lot of farmhands really need that freedom to not bring milking secrets a few miles down the road. It couldn't be just because it makes people in city's lives worse.
Re: (Score:2)
"Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and in the U.S. House of Representatives by Scott Peters (D-Cal.)."
I didn't find anything about Representatives against the bill, but this list of Senators in favor of it popped right up, and it looks like Senators from the rural states back it too.
Do you have a better example?
Re: (Score:2)
FTFS: "Proponents of the bill did not expect it to make much progress in last year's congressional session, which had a Republican-controlled Senate". I didn't see this quote you pulled.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, I found it on the congress.gov site that listed them as cosponsors.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, so turn that around. Why should a bunch of rural people have a say in how heavily urbanized people can live their lives in CA?
Oh, and wolves are good for the environment. You should welcome them. Just look at how the introduction of wolves has improved Yellowst
Re: (Score:2)
See my reply at https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org], which addresses this question (in response to someone else's post though).
Re: (Score:2)
Large and populous places like California or New York State will naturally amass all the economic and/or cultural power there is to be had. Small and sparse places will have less of it
It's almost like you're saying that New Yorkers count for less because they live close to each other.
Re: (Score:2)
It's almost like you're saying that New Yorkers count for less because they live close to each other.
Yep. New Yorkers and Californians live mostly in cities*, which is more efficient, and have more population per government which is also more efficient, then we're penalized for our efficiency by a law designed to enshrine the power of slave states.
* California is a big, spread out state, but most of our residents live in or near major cities. Los Angeles and surroundings accounts for the bulk of population on its own.
Re: (Score:1)
It might be news to you, but the rest of NY *state* tends to hate NY *city* but there's not much they can do about their influence fucking everyone else over, no matter how red your county is. Citation: me, because I live about 400 miles from NYC. That's 400 miles too close.
Re: (Score:2)
I live in NY state.
I like that NYC exists here since they generally pay for other places.
Similar to poor states and rich ones.
I live on the other side, you must not even be in here; where Maine or Ohio?
Re: (Score:2)
Where and when, cause I saw nothing like that.
Re: The problem is the 50-50 Senate (Score:1)
Here's a choice quote
https://www.azquotes.com/quote... [azquotes.com]
I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.
From a letter to Benjamin Rush.
There are more similar sentiments scattered throughout his writings and correspondence.
I remember reading something like this, maybe this exact quote, in my leftie-authored AP US History textbook some 20 years ago. It was cited as an example of "look at how silly and unenlightened people were back then."
It took me the better part of two decades to appreciate it.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you have so much prejudice against people in cities? I don't mean that rhetorically. It's an honest question. And I don't mean to point fingers: we all have issues we need to work on. But I try to be aware of my prejudices and work to overcome them, while you seem to embrace yours. That's the line where prejudice crosses over into bigotry.
Do you truly believe people in cities are somehow "different" from people in the country? That antisocial behaviors are more common in urban communities than
Re: (Score:2)
Geographic consensus is not a bug. It is a feature that prevents a bunch of arrogant and/or gullible people in Location A from being able to make laws that *do things to people* who are out of sight and out of mind in Location B.
And you think this is some sort of one-way street with specific values for A and B? This should be entertaining.
One city-dweller's protected wetland or nature preserve is another person's livelihood.
One person's crime-against-the-planet oil well or pipeline or mine or highway is another person's way to feed his family.
Yeah who needs an ecosystem when a few largely replaceable jobs are at stake? Meanwhile whole cities full of people get to suffer from environmental, economic, civil rights, and gun violence problems because of Jebediah's cultural and vaguely religious convictions that have survived scarcely touched by any sort of intellectual advancement since the 1800s, the sort of thing that can only happen whe
Re: The problem is the 50-50 Senate (Score:1)
A healthy democracy rests on voluntary relationships. If there is coercion, that it is a sign of poor health. It can also be a cause of the poor health.
Re: (Score:2)
Demonocracy is the means by which much of the coercion takes place.
It may sound wonderful in theory, but in practice, it means that those who can best manipulate the masses end up with all the power.
Voluntary self-government would be better achieved by the highly limited and decentralized form of government that the framers of the U.S. tried to set up. But they warned that it would work only for a moral and religious people, which we no longer are.
Re: (Score:2)
With enough nutjobs in sparsely populated states, that can become a destabilizing force - they could, theoretically, elect an anti-democratic wannabe-strongman even if an opponent got more human votes
So enough nuts on one side produces the same fucking result as enough fake votes on the other.
Clearly profundity doesn't elude you, even when you're trying. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
As far as anyone can tell, the fake votes only exist in the minds of the nuts.
Re: (Score:3)
Who said we have a problem with popular and geographic consensus? There's huge consensus amongst American's on all sorts of things - it just has almost no impact on what the "representatives" actually do
What we have a problem with is politicians that are more interested in party loyalty and keeping the support of their campaign donors than representing their constituents. Consider, most every race in the US is split 60-40 or closer. That 40% is still the politician's constituents, even though they voted
Will this divide on party lines? (Score:2)
This unites progressives and free market radicals against corporate greed rather than being a partisan issue. It will be interesting to see if the lobby / buying power of the corporates is enough to prevent the passage of this, or whether ideology wins.
I'm not betting on ideology...
It's really easy to get around noncompetes (Score:4, Informative)
I've had to sign a few during my career, and each time I landed the exact same job (or very close) somewhere else and left, my new employer and I arranged to give me a job title and description that was far enough removed from what I did previously to avoid triggering the non-compete agreement. For instance, if I was doing development, my new employer would field me as software QA engineer. Good luck proving I was in fact working the same job at my new employer's. Even if my previous employer somehow managed to get close enough to the truth, all my new employer had to do is state that employees are required to be flexible and take on roles as needed on occasions if they have the skills. And then, good luck proving that "on occasions" was 100% of the time.
This trick is as old as dirt. Those who don't use it aren't very imaginative.
Re: (Score:2)
Is Rosco P. Coltrane a pseudonym or did you forget to tick post anonymously?
Re: (Score:2)
Is Rosco P. Coltrane a pseudonym or did you forget to tick post anonymously?
He was a Sheriff in the Dukes of Hazard, an American TV show from the 80's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Jimmy John’s had them for low wage staff (Score:2)
Jimmy John’s had them for low wage staff
Re: (Score:1)
Or at least have the balls to post this whiny crap using your own name so we can mod you down for polluting every story with such drivel.
One egregious example (Score:2, Insightful)
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compete-clauses-following-settlement.html
No hourly and/or temp employee should be bound by a Non-Compete clause. They serve a purpose when an employee is actually creating IP, but those employees must be compensated adequately for their contributions.
stop mixing shit up (Score:3)
Good. They're Effectively Non-Existant in Canada (Score:2)
Re:Law of Unintended consequences. (Score:4, Interesting)
Law of Unintended Consequences, pt. 2: non-compete agreements make it difficult for companies to get employees in the first place if enforced. That same company that doesn't want it's IP walking down the road to its competitors was sure willing to accept employees with skills learned at their previous employers. What position would the company be in if those previous employers had prevented those employees from "walking down the road" with all those skills they'd learned on the previous employer's dime?
Frankly most IP these days isn't really that special. Copyrights and patents provide means for insuring that competitors don't simply carbon-copy things. Non-disclosure agreements also provide protection without unilaterally foreclosing employment opportunities. Non-competes should be limited to a relatively few very special employees and should always come with compensation to the employee in exchange for the restriction (the fact a non-compete would be needed is prima facie evidence the employee has value to the company after their employment ends, if the company wants control over that they ought to expect to pay for it (and regular salary during employment doesn't count, that was in exchange for the work done and the non-compete applies to a further time-frame when the ex-employee isn't being paid)).
Re: (Score:2)
() What position would the company be in if those previous employers had prevented those employees from "walking down the road" with all those skills they'd learned on the previous employer's dime?
There is a big difference in hiring for skills ("Hey, you're a great salesman!") and hiring for knowledge internal to a business ("Hey, you're a great salesman. All that knowledge of your former employer's current bids and offers will serve us well when you start here tomorrow!") - just to give one obvious example.
Re: (Score:2)
Gardening leave is the solution to preventing someone from using current knowledge against an employer. Just ask them to stay at home and pay them through the period. No need for a non-compete - just pay them their full salary to not compete.
Re: (Score:2)
Gardening leave is the solution to preventing someone from using current knowledge against an employer. Just ask them to stay at home and pay them through the period. No need for a non-compete - just pay them their full salary to not compete.
This is what a good non-compete is - just that instead of "asking to stay at home", the employee has to. As long as the law enforces that it is fully paid and is for a limited period of time (e.g. up to a year) I think non-competes are OK.
Re: (Score:2)
Using an H1-B for this purpose would be illegal. An H1-B is only supposed to be granted if no domestic employee can be found at the going market rate. It's not supposed to be used to depress wages, bust unions, or obtain an indentured servant.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't need a non-compete for that, all you need is an NDA that specifically covers the trade secrets and protected IP of the company.
Someone can then leave and go to a new company but if they use any of the old companies secrets, they can be sued for NDA violations and IP theft.
Make them pay (Score:3)
Here's another take on it. Say that non-compete clause is allowed for up to 12mo, but you have to pay your ex-employee twice their final salary for the duration.
Isn't non-compete just a form of monopolism? (Score:1)
To me it has the same smell as imaginary property or lock-in, walled gardens, etc. As in: Anticompetitive behavior through the backdoor, with the false believe one could claim it's "not monopolism", because there is a false, purely theoretical "choice".
The word you are looking for is Monopsony (Score:2)
Really bad idea to allow non-competes (Score:2)
Should be implemented for politicians instead (Score:1)
outrage and blocked in 'right to work' states (Score:1)
Interests must be balanced (Score:2)
For some people, in some cases, a non-compete makes a lot of sense. They have knowledge critical to their employer - either business processes, technology, customer contacts etc - and e.g. preventing letting a competitor just snatch them up for their intimate knowledge rather than their skills makes sense.
HOWEVER, this must be limited to key people, it must have a time limit, and it must come at a cost to the employer electing to enforce a non-compete agreement. In Norway [idiproject.com], the maximum duration of a non-
Back when I was a copier technician (Score:2)
The individual companies honoured them. Even though the non-compete could not be enforced, the individual companies could refuse to hire a person in the non-compete period. This was in the interest of the companies as, due to the relative immobility of the technicians, it kept labour cost lower.
One can say that it harmed the companies, as honouruiing suc
will not happen (Score:2)
Any discussion about this is kind of like when CEOs talk about "greening" their company. Pure PR talk. Intended to soothe people while no
"could" (Score:2)
Could.. but won't.
A reasonable suggestion (Score:2)
If they dump someone who's had to sign a NDA, then while the former employee is looking for a new job, the company PAYS HIS FULL SALARY until he finds one, up to the length of the NDA. And if that's one or three or five years, they keep paying.
One unintended consequence (Score:2)
There's going to be at least one unintended consequence here. Employees will be severely compartmentalized. They will never see the full scope of a given project. Any engineer worth his salt is going to want to understand the full scope in order to make a good implementation of their part of the project.