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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

#61

Post by greglindahl »

jomamaxx wrote: post #60
aikah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in a world of IP ... it's a different story. If the employee violates the IP then sue him for that. No need for non-compete agreements. If you're worried the employee will steal your clients then you're not giving your clients a good deal at first place, and the employee shouldn't be prevented from working with your clients. This is a free market. Non compete agreements are completely anti-freedom of both enter…

"It doesn't matter how much R&D was created. That's the role of patents to deal with that thing." I'm beginning to think none of you have ever worked in companies that actually produce IP. First off - that's not what patents are for. Patents protect publicly known information - not trade secrets. And they don't do it very well. There are very few things you can defend with a patent. What companies are concerned with…

Companies protect their IP via NDAs and patents and such, not non-competes.

And yes, I have a lot of patents and trade-secrets to my name.

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

#62

Post by nickff »

unscaled wrote: post #55
nickff wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why is it fair that an employer can force an employee to kill kittens and then fire the employee and prevent them from ever working when they refuse? Do you realize that what you just said has nothing to do with Non-compete clauses?

I am sorry, but you've lost me. What do kittens have to do with intellectual property? I am also unsure of how a non-compete can stop someone from "ever working", as I cannot imagine a non-compete that would cover all other corporations (this would seem to be indentured servitude).

In any case, I created a hypothetical to further the discussion; please address that one instead of changing the subject.

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

#63

Post by greglindahl »

nickff wrote: post #46
taneq wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can imagine many things, but can you point to any evidence? Many people write blog postings about non-competes; I can't recall a single one where extra money was attached.

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

#64

Post by codeonfire »

greglindahl wrote: post #56
sjg007 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Non-competes are successfully enforced (outside CA) all of the time. Just take a look at the tech press, there are quite a few articles about it.

Non-compete lawsuits are typically only worth it for VP level people who have strategic secrets. No one cares about or sues 99.9% of workers who go work somewhere else.

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

#65

Post by oxide »

nickff wrote: post #21
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.

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

Isn't that what the Non-Disclosure Agreement is for? I don't understand how a non-compete keeps trade secrets safe, it's not like you can't transfer a trade secret a year later, or however long the non-compete lasts.

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

#66

Post by greglindahl »

telefonica wrote: post #24
aikah wrote: post #16

I don't understand how these clauses are even legal at first place. It violates the basic right of freedom of work. You can't have on one end freedom of enterprise but on the other hand no freedom of work for employees. the worst thing is the fact that these agreements usually come with 0 compensation.

Completely agree. In the UK it's called garden leave: the employer pays you to drink tea in your garden. It's too easy for companies to claim losses from competing employees. They need to put their $$$ where their mouth is

I believe that this is basically allowed in California, too, but the employee can still quit.

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

#67

Post by Cidan »

Animats wrote: post #4

Note that this is being proposed as something states should do. Federal legislation is not being proposed. Worst case would be Federal legislation which was weak and pre-empted state legislation, weakening California's ban. California employment law prohibits non-compete agreements for employees, and has since 1872. California also prohibits any employee agreement which claims employer ownership of intellectual prope…

Federal legislation can not weaken state legislation in most situations where a state legislation is stricter. A good example of this is minimum wage at the federal and state level.

If legislation at the federal level were to apply a weaker standard for who can not be covered by a non-compete clause, a state can still expand coverage to all jobs.

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

#68

Post by nickff »

drawkbox wrote: post #33
nickff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that non-competes can be inconvenient for some, depending on their business model or career plans, but I am not sure how they are anti-innovation or anti-worker. Is there some evidence that they reduce overall productivity, or any other quantifiable metric? I am not particularly in favor of or against non-competes as a whole, (though I would be reluctant to sign one,) but they strike me as less invasive than…

I know this, when I get a non-compete it makes me not want to work on that project. It is like a reverse market regulation against workers that are bringing the productivity and skills to the company. Company: "Hey come here and build us this thing that makes us capable in this area, and when you are done you can't go on building things for other people". It almost seems like a fatal attraction or overly obsessed/att…

You are speaking to emotions, which means I have no way of addressing your concerns, but I will try to highlight why I do not share your conclusions:

>"makes me not want"

I do not want to agree to many terms, so I do not agree to them; this does not make me want to ban those terms.

>"It is like a reverse market regulation"

Non-competes are 'like' any other business agreement to me. In any case, I am not sure what a 'reverse market regulation' is.

>"seems like a fatal attraction or overly obsessed/attached owner/girlfriend"

If you were analogizing an employer/employee relationship to a sexual one, they would seem most similar to a pimp or john; I do not think this is a useful analogy.

>"are a kick in the nuts... You'll know the feeling"

Many agreements feel unpleasant; I dislike any deal which obligates me to pay a large sum of money. This is interesting, but not very important to anyone else.

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

#69

Post by bryanlarsen »

nickff wrote: post #32
bryanlarsen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

In my understanding, you can't unilaterally quit the severance to terminate your non-compete.

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

#70

Post by greglindahl »

Cidan wrote: post #67
Animats wrote: post #4

Note that this is being proposed as something states should do. Federal legislation is not being proposed. Worst case would be Federal legislation which was weak and pre-empted state legislation, weakening California's ban. California employment law prohibits non-compete agreements for employees, and has since 1872. California also prohibits any employee agreement which claims employer ownership of intellectual prope…

Federal legislation can not weaken state legislation in most situations where a state legislation is stricter. A good example of this is minimum wage at the federal and state level. If legislation at the federal level were to apply a weaker standard for who can not be covered by a non-compete clause, a state can still expand coverage to all jobs.

Federal laws frequently explicitly preempt state laws. When CAN-SPAM was passed, it invalidated California's stricter spam law.

California has stricter auto emissions because Federal law allows it. Other states are allowed to follow the California standard, because Federal law allows that.

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