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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

#231

Post by cmdrfred »

dllthomas wrote: post #196
masklinn wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that it's rarely enforced it's that it's rare at all, there's no point in putting one in the contract when there's 95% chance you'll get big fat middle finger in whatever labor court has jurisdiction if you try to activate it, and inane contractual obligations are a risky bet for the contract itself.

> there's no point in putting one in the contract when there's 95% chance you'll get big fat middle finger in whatever labor court has jurisdiction if you try to activate it. There's potentially plenty of point if you don't expect your employees to understand that (or be able to count on it)

That's how it works in the US, most of the time a non-compete is entirely unenforceable.

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

#232

Post by brightball »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #219
brightball wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See whenever I've seen a noncompete like that it's specifically said "within 5 miles of this location, up to 2 years, cannot contact any clients of this business" I'm in a right to work state though and that means that noncompetes don't hold up at all unless they have a reasonable and non excessive scope. In a right to work state nobody can prevent you from earning a living so in order for a noncompete to hold it has…

Non-competes are enforceable in all fifty states except California, Oklahoma and North Dakota [1]. "Right to work" means you have the right to work without being required to join a union, i.e. it bans union shops where one must pay union dues or lose their job [2]. It is a response by 26 states to federal collective-bargaining laws. [1] http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/understanding-noncomp... [2] https://en.m.…

Interesting. I'd always heard it was due to right to work, but after researching it a little bit more it's just how non-competes are handled in my state (South Carolina).

http://www.scnoncompetelawyer.com/

"A covenant not to compete will be upheld only if it is:

(1) necessary for the protection of the legitimate interest of the employer;

(2) reasonably limited in its operation with respect to time and place;

(3) not unduly harsh and oppressive in curtailing the legitimate efforts of the employee to earn a livelihood;

(4) reasonable from the standpoint of sound public policy; and

(5) supported by a valuable consideration.

* * * *

If a covenant not to compete is defective in one of the above referenced areas, it is totally defective and cannot be saved."

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

#233

Post by Avshalom »

tjic wrote: post #146
tristor wrote: post #139

I don't understand why there's so many people in the comments defending non-competes. They have literally no value to society, or to individual employees. They are a tool of restrictive coercion to stifle an employees freedom of movement in the job market. Trade secrets, IP, secret sauce: covered by NDA and IP assignment agreements Client lists, contract terms, sales strategies, reported metrics, financials: covered…

> I don't understand why there's so many people in the comments defending non-competes. They have literally no value to society, or to individual employees. To go meta for a moment: I think that this sort of statement exposes a flaw that many of us have in debates. It's related to the "argument from ignorance" fallacy, but is not exactly the same thing. I take it as one of my priors that people at news.yc are intelli…

In addition to every one else:

>I have local knowledge regarding both my costs and my benefits from signing a non-compete contract.

No, you don't. The non-competes don't cost you anything until an uncertain time in the future. Unless you can predict the labor market that will exist when/if you leave the company (and you can't) you can't actually know what the cost will be.

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

#235

Post by HarryHirsch »

RodericDay wrote: post #209
tjic wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why there's so many people in the comments defending non-competes. They have literally no value to society, or to individual employees. To go meta for a moment: I think that this sort of statement exposes a flaw that many of us have in debates. It's related to the "argument from ignorance" fallacy, but is not exactly the same thing. I take it as one of my priors that people at news.yc are intelli…

The "flaw" you talk about here has an exact opposite, which is a reactionary knee-jerk defense of the status quo just because it must have been arrived to optimally. Often called "Panglossianism" as per Voltaire's character in Candide: > Dr. Pangloss was the pedantic old tutor in Voltaire's satirical novel Candide. Pangloss was an incurable, albeit misguided, optimist who claimed that "all is for the best in this bes…

The alternative way of looking at it is that there is a good reason for many of the societal practices we observe - it's just that it's not you who profits. Considering the number of defenders of non-competes, it seems that the propaganda works very nicely.

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

#237

Post by Cabal »

hammock wrote: post #205

This comes one week after - and in contrast to - Donald Trump promising in his first 100 days in office a five-year ban on White House officials and Congressman from becoming lobbyists, and a lifetime ban on White House lobbyists from lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...

Which is a good idea. If you showed someone from 30 years ago how lobbying worked today, they'd declare it was straight-up bribery.

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

#238

Post by Spooky23 »

tristor wrote: post #139

I don't understand why there's so many people in the comments defending non-competes. They have literally no value to society, or to individual employees. They are a tool of restrictive coercion to stifle an employees freedom of movement in the job market. Trade secrets, IP, secret sauce: covered by NDA and IP assignment agreements Client lists, contract terms, sales strategies, reported metrics, financials: covered…

Business owners have widely varying interpretations of what trade secrets consist of. For example, a local Jimmy John's was successfully sued for it's non compete with sandwich makers.

https://consumerist.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-to-stop-using...

"Employee covenants and agrees that, during his or her employment with the Employer and for a period of two (2) years after … he or she will not have any direct or indirect interest in or perform services for … any business which derives more than ten percent (10%) of its revenue from selling submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches and which is located with three (3) miles of either [the Jimmy John’s location in question] or any such other Jimmy John’s Sandwich Shop."

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

#239

Post by acdha »

fmavituna wrote: post #171
tristor wrote: post #139

I don't understand why there's so many people in the comments defending non-competes. They have literally no value to society, or to individual employees. They are a tool of restrictive coercion to stifle an employees freedom of movement in the job market. Trade secrets, IP, secret sauce: covered by NDA and IP assignment agreements Client lists, contract terms, sales strategies, reported metrics, financials: covered…

> Trade secrets, IP, secret sauce: covered by NDA and IP assignment agreements As a developer pretty much none of these matter or protects anything. Imagine this scenario; - John has no idea about video encoding but a good developer. - John joins to a video encoding startup - This startup encodes videos 3 times faster than the competitor - After working on the core product for 2 years, John knows a lot about video en…

a) any shrewd company would simply pay key people more – and, indeed, good pay and retention bonuses are common for people who are truly valued by most companies (senior management, top sales people, etc.) but that very rarely includes developers. The fact that many developers self-identify politically with the CEO doesn't mean their boss shares that belief.

b) that company's value is based on a mix of value which they created and where they benefited from prior art. In the former case, copyright law would prevent John from taking source code and patents would prevent him from taking novel work. In the latter, passing on a trained employee is no more unreasonable than it was for them to benefit from the long history of work which they also benefited from without having to pay for it.

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

#240

Post by savanaly »

tristor wrote: post #139

I don't understand why there's so many people in the comments defending non-competes. They have literally no value to society, or to individual employees. They are a tool of restrictive coercion to stifle an employees freedom of movement in the job market. Trade secrets, IP, secret sauce: covered by NDA and IP assignment agreements Client lists, contract terms, sales strategies, reported metrics, financials: covered…

>The only thing a non-compete does is say that Employee A cannot work in their chosen field for some period of time after they are fired or quit. In doing so it offers no consideration or compensation typically in the contract.

I know you probably know this, but it doesn't have to be laid out explicitly to be compensated. The compensation would be present silently through higher wages, better perks, higher vacation etc. Workers evaluate the sum total of the costs and benefits of a job when deciding to work somewhere. It can be argued that workers don't always make the best decisions for themselves, so we should restrict their options, although to do that you have to show that the government makes better decisions for them which is sort of difficult.

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