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Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

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Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#71

Post by tathougies »

chris_engel wrote: post #30

Thank god the german law requires a NC clause to have a compensation directly mentioned in the contract that is not allowed to be less than 60% the person earned in the company in the last year she worked there. If the compensation is missing or too low, the NC is against the law. In other words: if a company wants me to not compete, they need to pay me for the time the NC is active. Its also limited to a maximum of…

I don't see how it's good for society that smart people are being paid to do nothing. The article pointed out that the danger of NCAs is a lack of innovation and thus economic growth. It made no point about the individual incomes of the workers.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#73

Post by BonesJustice »

chii wrote: post #48
BonesJustice wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60%? Forget that. Why should anyone give up their right to work for a little over half of their market value? There is no excuse for allowing less than 100% compensation, and that should include not just salary, but projected bonuses.

It's not like the specific job is the only thing you can do - there are other jobs that don't break the NC. 100% is too high, and 50% is too low. But the amount should be negotiable for each person.

You are most valuable in a position that leverages your existing skills and expertise. Those positions are the most likely to be covered by NCAs.

Not only is 100% not too much, but it’s the minimum that should be required. The cost of requiring a NCA should be high; that ensures they are only used when they are really worth it to the employer.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#74

Post by mindslight »

ghaff wrote: post #60
mindslight wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In states that presently discourage non-competes, employers could easily offer parting employees a "stay at home" wage of say one third salary, yet they do not. Which implies they do not value non-competition anywhere near what the employee does. In general it's impossible to put a price on an unworkable concept. Attempting to do so just adds token compensation as a fictional justification for the existing problems.

Massachusetts now has 50% garden leave. But it’s not a panacea. Some see that and go where can I sign up. But the reality is that, for a lot of people, hanging out and maybe doing some side stuff for a year for half their former base pay isn’t a great or even practical option.

I threw out one third as some middle of the road attempt, but yeah in reality that number is going to be much closer to the full salary [0] and that's precisely my point.

Market based incentives only work if there's a clearing price.

[0] Or even higher if a new position would be a significant raise!

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#75

Post by deogeo »

cperciva wrote: post #68
deogeo wrote: post #14

Odd that Right to Work laws don't ban non-competes. Edit: Added tags, just in case.

I don't see the connection. Right to Work laws say that workers can't be forced to join a union. They don't say that workers can't voluntarily join a union; so why should they say that workers can't voluntarily sign a non-compete?

Why should laws say employers can't voluntarily sign a union security agreement [0]?

There's no force involved in either case - workers can choose not to work at a union shop, just like they can choose* not to work under a non-compete.

*Until it becomes impossible to find a place without a non-compete.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#76

Post by logfromblammo »

dunpeal wrote: post #36
sidlls wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you use the pejorative "smartass" and imply the demand is unreasonable. This couldn't be a clearer example of the low social status engineers have.

I'm actually an engineer :-) I used "smartass" because it's a move that superficially seems clever, but is actually completely futile when you look at the broad picture - as my comment shows. I don't know if us engineers have "low social status", but we certainly don't have as much negotiating power as some of us may fancy, certainly not against a huge mega-corporation.

All other things being equal, businesses will hire the candidate that they can potentially abuse before the one that may righteously push back. So if you are one who would negotiate the terms of a non-compete, you will not even get the opportunity until all those who will just blindly sign it have been given the chance to do so.

The smart-ass part is signaling that you're less-abusable before the decision is made on hiring you.

The devious move would be to play dumb in the domain of HR paperwork, and delay signing anything. Just say you need to review it in private and make a copy, pocket the paper, and never give it back, or even bring it up again. Or mark up the document to completely pull its teeth, sign that, and turn it in with a stack of other paperwork. HR will probably just file it and tick their checkbox for it, without even flagging it for review by legal.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#77

Post by dmurray »

munk-a wrote: post #15
dawhizkid wrote: post #5

If I work for an employer based outside of CA but work out of a CA-satellite office, am I still subject to any non-compete?

Also, if complying with the non-compete would introduce a hardship there is usually a way to just ignore it entirely. So, let's say you're a database specialist picked up to tune someone's DB, part of the contract you sign (probably unwisely) states that you can't work tuning DBs for the next 6 months after signing. If, after two weeks at the job, layoffs happen and you're let go then it's likely that a judge would d…

> there's a thousandth of a percent chance that some company is going to try to ruin your life over it, and if they try there's another thousandth of a percent chance they'll succeed. But if they do, it is _terrible_.

Perhaps you're exaggerating for effect, or perhaps you really don't understand the probabilities involved. But this is many orders of magnitude less likely than you getting killed by a meteor strike. E.g. something like [0] estimates a 10km meteor strike every 10 million years. That has (optimistically) a 50% survival rate for humans and you will live 50 more years, so 1 in 400,000 chance it gets you.

If you don't like the meteor calculation, you can look at the odds of, say, a murder in your area and both the judge and all the members of the jury are convinced you did it despite your alibi to the contrary. Maybe a million to one. Or, you know, something a thousand times more likely, like you get diagnosed with a rare untreatable form of cancer and have a year to live. Maybe 1000 to 1.

Either way, if that's what you think of your non-compete it's not worth worrying about.

[0] http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/Natural_Disasters/impacts.ht...

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#78

Post by gshulegaard »

BonesJustice wrote: post #73
chii wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like the specific job is the only thing you can do - there are other jobs that don't break the NC. 100% is too high, and 50% is too low. But the amount should be negotiable for each person.

You are most valuable in a position that leverages your existing skills and expertise. Those positions are the most likely to be covered by NCAs. Not only is 100% not too much, but it’s the minimum that should be required. The cost of requiring a NCA should be high; that ensures they are only used when they are really worth it to the employer.

> You are most valuable in a position that leverages your existing skills and expertise.

For me the key word here is "most". I interpreted the previous comment as implying that previous employers should pay for the opportunity cost of you not maximizing your value.

Unless you are prevented from getting job that leverages _any_ of your previous experience...such as requiring a new career shift. In that case 100% compensation could be merited. Otherwise 100% is not likely to equal the opportunity cost to the employee.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#79

Post by londons_explore »

> They also determined that patenting rates -- a useful proxy for innovation -- dropped after the change.

In a place where non-compete agreements are not allowed, patenting ideas is a neat way to prevent your employees leaving and then doing the exact same thing for a competitor.

Where non-competes are allowed, patenting things is far less important, since employees won't be able to jump ship with your ideas easily.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#80

Post by akoncius »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #66
luckydata wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's disingenuous, it's very hard to find a job that doesn't look exactly like the 5 last jobs you had. If you want to fix that you gotta fix the labor market and hiring practices first, which is wishful thinking. 60% is low.

> it's very hard to find a job that doesn't look exactly like the 5 last jobs you had That's funny, I've never had a job that was exactly like any of the other jobs I've had. Depending on how picky you are, I've never had a job that was even particularly similar to any of my previous ones.

I was thinking the same because I am a programmer and it’s quite easy to find programming job in another area. But then I thought about other industries, dor example if I’m researcher about LED lights for 20 years, then my other options for another non-LED related job is very limited. So I’m confident that there are many example as this which can prove your logic (and my initial thinking too) wrong.
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