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White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

reuters.com

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Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#41

Post by [deleted] »

nickff wrote: post #28
aikah wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that the idea behind such employee agreements is that they encourage the sharing of new ideas within companies, as employees will not 'hold the ideas back' to use when they go off and start their own companies. It's up to the company to provide incentive for workers to "share new ideas" by rewarding innovation within the company, not limiting where the employee can work. Of course, most companies don't do t…

The company thinks it is providing incentive for the employees to share the new ideas by paying their wages; their argument would be that if a prospective employee disagrees with the assessment of the value of the work and ideas, that individual should not accept the agreement.

[deleted]

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#42

Post by nickff »

throw_away_777 wrote: post #40
nickff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the company should keep paying an employee's full salary without any guarantee that the employee won't 'quit' the severance to work for a competitor? This is basically guaranteeing that nobody who has valuable knowledge can be fired for cause or laid off. NDAs are nice, but there is no way to know whether a trade secret has been transferred to a competitor (if the competitor keeps their secrets secret). The other…

No, the point is the non-compete keeps the employee from working for a competitor, so the employer pays the salary to prevent the employee from working for a competitor. The employer chooses to either pay the salary of the employee or free them to find work elsewhere. Why is it fair that an employer can fire someone or lay someone off and keep that person from working for a year?

Why is it fair that an employee can stop working at their job or commit fraud, then immediately sell all the non-public information they have to a competitor?

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#43

Post by taneq »

nickff wrote: post #34
dredmorbius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that stands in the way of a worker finding and securing their best employment, in terms of both productivity and play, is both anti-competitive and anti-worker. The fact that noncompetes also prevent effective technology transfer between companies (which is how innovation happens) means they're also anti-innovation. On the last point, see generally J. Doyne Farmer and John C. Holland who've done significant…

What if the prospective employee is presented with two offers: 1) No non-compete, long hours, and low salary 2) Non-compete agreement, short and flexible hours, and high salary If this is a possible scenario, would the ban on non-competes be anti-worker?

Non-sequitur, unless banning non-competes would make the hours longer and less flexible or the salary lower on the second job.

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#44

Post by [deleted] »

nickff wrote: post #28
aikah wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that the idea behind such employee agreements is that they encourage the sharing of new ideas within companies, as employees will not 'hold the ideas back' to use when they go off and start their own companies. It's up to the company to provide incentive for workers to "share new ideas" by rewarding innovation within the company, not limiting where the employee can work. Of course, most companies don't do t…

The company thinks it is providing incentive for the employees to share the new ideas by paying their wages; their argument would be that if a prospective employee disagrees with the assessment of the value of the work and ideas, that individual should not accept the agreement.

[deleted]

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#45

Post by throw_away_777 »

jomamaxx wrote: post #20
throw_away_777 wrote: post #5

Why can't congress do something about this? Non-competes are clearly terrible for workers, and should at the least be illegal without a severance agreement. If a company wants to keep me from working they should pay for the privilege. Workers also need to start refusing to sign egregiously bad non-compete agreements.

"If a company wants to keep me from working they should pay for the privilege." They are paying you. You join the company on those terms. If you don't want to join, then don't join. What they don't want you dong is taking all their IP, walking off and passing it onto a competitor. It would be extremely naive to not understand that this happens all the time. It's a tricky and nuanced problem, but it's real.

Companies aren't paying you for the duration of the non-compete, they only pay you when you are working there. If a company really wants non-competes to prevent you from working for a competitor, they could afford to pay for that. Instead companies are using non-competes as a form of control, to coerce workers into keeping working for that company.

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#46

Post by nickff »

taneq wrote: post #43
nickff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the prospective employee is presented with two offers: 1) No non-compete, long hours, and low salary 2) Non-compete agreement, short and flexible hours, and high salary If this is a possible scenario, would the ban on non-competes be anti-worker?

Non-sequitur, unless banning non-competes would make the hours longer and less flexible or the salary lower on the second job.

You are assuming that no employer would ever pay more and be more flexible in exchange for a non-compete; I can imagine many employers in highly competitive industries who would.

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#47

Post by taneq »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #27
nickff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a company "pay for the privilege" of preventing you from transferring their trade secrets without being able to enforce non-competes?

With a severance package. Non-competes should not be allowed to last any longer than the severance package. P.S. Non-competes should have nothing to do with trade secrets; those should be covered by an NDA.

The thing is, they're used by companies as a way of trying to stop their competitors from getting access to insider information even when it wouldn't qualify as a trade secret and would be difficult to protect with an NDA. Which is insane, because they only hire you for your experience and skills, which came from doing similar jobs for other employers, and yet they somehow expect to own any new experience you gain while working for them.

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#48

Post by greglindahl »

elmigranto wrote: post #30
jomamaxx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comments I gather you might not understand the problem. Were Soft Engs simply to do 'work' then you would be absolutely right. But in a world of IP ... it's a different story. Company ABC brings you in, trains you on their know-how and core IP, which took a lot of struggle, $, and R&D to create - then you leave, go to a competitor, and effectively communicate and give away ABC Corps. most valuable asset. No…

On the other hand, you work at a company for most of your professional life, and become an expert in a field you love. One day you are no longer employed for some reason, but due to non-compete there is no way to get a job you want, since your expertise is somewhat niche. So you are forced to build websites or sell coffee for two years. Or drop your life in US and work some other place. If the person from your quantu…

Well, the counter-example is that the tech industry in California completely collapsed because... oh, wait, we're doing OK.

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#49

Post by sjg007 »

elmigranto wrote: post #30
jomamaxx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comments I gather you might not understand the problem. Were Soft Engs simply to do 'work' then you would be absolutely right. But in a world of IP ... it's a different story. Company ABC brings you in, trains you on their know-how and core IP, which took a lot of struggle, $, and R&D to create - then you leave, go to a competitor, and effectively communicate and give away ABC Corps. most valuable asset. No…

On the other hand, you work at a company for most of your professional life, and become an expert in a field you love. One day you are no longer employed for some reason, but due to non-compete there is no way to get a job you want, since your expertise is somewhat niche. So you are forced to build websites or sell coffee for two years. Or drop your life in US and work some other place. If the person from your quantu…

Take the job and let them sue. Scotus won't enforce a noncompete.

Re: White House urges ban on non-compete agreements for many workers

#50

Post by aikah »

jomamaxx wrote: post #20
throw_away_777 wrote: post #5

Why can't congress do something about this? Non-competes are clearly terrible for workers, and should at the least be illegal without a severance agreement. If a company wants to keep me from working they should pay for the privilege. Workers also need to start refusing to sign egregiously bad non-compete agreements.

"If a company wants to keep me from working they should pay for the privilege." They are paying you. You join the company on those terms. If you don't want to join, then don't join. What they don't want you dong is taking all their IP, walking off and passing it onto a competitor. It would be extremely naive to not understand that this happens all the time. It's a tricky and nuanced problem, but it's real.

> What they don't want you dong is taking all their IP, walking off and passing it onto a competitor.

Bullshit, that's what NDAs are for.

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