Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages • Hacker News Board

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#221

Post by cperciva » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 8:24 PM UTC

deogeo wrote: post #220

cperciva wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should laws say employers can't voluntarily sign a union security agreement? Because (at least pre-Hobby-Lobby) laws have historically prioritized the rights of individuals over the rights of corporations. An employer which compels their employees to join a union is signing away the rights of those employees, while an employee who signs a non-compete is only signing away their own rights.

The compulsion in both cases is exactly the same - pay union dues/sign non-compete, or find a new job.

You can negotiate with an employer over the terms of the non-compete you sign.

If the employer has a mandatory unionization agreement, you can't negotiate with them to change the terms of that.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#222

Post by jeffdavis » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 8:41 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #219

jeffdavis wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point: it is a ban. When poliicians pass laws though, there are often unintended consequences. Good politicians will intentionally create loopholes out of humility, realizing that they don't understand the entire issue and how it will affect everyone. If the loopholes are too big, then thr policy will be ineffective and they will either need to tighten the loophole later, or scrap the whole…

>it is a ban It literally is not a ban since it is allowed, and for less than the full compensation the employee would receive by working. I am not discussing the efficacy as I haven't seen any numbers on how many non-competes are in effect in Germany. I am discussing the ethics of it

I am making a practical argument and you are making an ethical/moral argument of it.

But for your argument to be complete I think you need at least some example of someone doing something unethical or wrong because of the policy. The policy exists today so hypothetical arguments fall a bit flat.

To illistrate my point, consider that it is legal (as far as I can tell -- not a lawyer) to walk around in California with a sword as long as it's neither concealed nor being brandished. But it doesn't make sense to argue that the lack of a law against carrying a sword is unethical because of what people might do. Theoretically people might do horrible things while carrying a sword; but empirically they do not, because few people even have swords, fewer still walk around with them, and approximately zero deaths result from it.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#223

Post by deogeo » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #221

deogeo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The compulsion in both cases is exactly the same - pay union dues/sign non-compete, or find a new job.

You can negotiate with an employer over the terms of the non-compete you sign. If the employer has a mandatory unionization agreement, you can't negotiate with them to change the terms of that.

Sure you can - just invite the union to the negotiating table. Any contract can be changed if all parties agree. Or even simpler - ask for a pay raise in the exact amount of the union dues.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#224

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:58 PM UTC

ascar wrote: post #214

logfromblammo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that any good one would advise you not to agree to anything you haven't read first. This is why you show contracts to lawyers before signing. You have to avoid unnecessary warranties, contingent agreements, hidden addendums, and other traps for the unwary. The contract should be the whole agreement, and ideally should also say that it is the whole agreement. Just cross that clau…

Not sure why you jumped to trickery. I got them handed at the same time, actually in the same DocuSign pdf. They were basically an addendum mentioned in the contract that required a separate signature, even though the signing was required by the main work contract and non-optional. I guess it's just a way to create a better overview like we split stuff in multiple files in programming. The thing is you don't have muc…

Trickery is negotiation by other means.

These would not be an issue in the first place if we had a union, or a state legislature that cared about workers, or business managers with strong ethics. So many things already have to be going wrong for uncompensated non-competes to be common, that it hardly even matters what you do with them. If you really want/need the job, you just sign what they put in front of you, and then hope they don't find out when you inevitably reneg.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#225

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:04 PM UTC

grigjd3 wrote: post #216

logfromblammo wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever tell a judge that the company refused to let you negotiate terms, review the documents with professional legal counsel, or make a copy for your own reference, I'm sure that will go over well in court for the company trying to pretend that they represent contracts~ Then you can discuss whether you actually received anything of value specifically for signing any particular document. Smartass or not, if you…

I recognize the ideal there, but as stated, I had to support my family and I needed the income. I was not exactly in a place where I could argue. I realize this would likely get thrown out in court, but that people get put in this position at all is ridiculous.

So many things already have to be going wrong for these to exist, that no single individual can possibly fight them.

- The legislature has to not care about laborers.

- The laborers can have no effective means of cartelizing amongst themselves.

- The businesses have to employ people who think it is okay to require uncompensated non-competes.

- They also have to be willing to sue ex-employees.

- The court/arbitration system has to side with the employer in some of the cases.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#226

Post by perfunctory » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:20 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #85

I’m not convinced NCs are always bad for workers. There are lots of junior SWEs out there who can’t get jobs because no company wants to hire them and pay to train them just to watch them leave for more money once they become productive. There was once a time when I would have happily signed an NC since the alternative was unemployment.

There was once a time when I would have happily become a slave, since the alternative was starvation.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#227

Post by lovich » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 12:40 AM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #222

lovich wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it is a ban It literally is not a ban since it is allowed, and for less than the full compensation the employee would receive by working. I am not discussing the efficacy as I haven't seen any numbers on how many non-competes are in effect in Germany. I am discussing the ethics of it

I am making a practical argument and you are making an ethical/moral argument of it. But for your argument to be complete I think you need at least some example of someone doing something unethical or wrong because of the policy. The policy exists today so hypothetical arguments fall a bit flat. To illistrate my point, consider that it is legal (as far as I can tell -- not a lawyer) to walk around in California with…

There are people on non competes that are not being compensated with the full salary they would have been getting. To me that is unethical.

It is not a hypothetical situation, unless you are trying to claim that no company anywhere is using a non compete, in which case I just need to pull up the associated paperwork for pretty much every offer letter I've gotten. Alternatively I can go and poll just my social circle and compile the list of non competes.

Anything less than the full salary is unethical to me, and I'm partial to arguments that it should be more as the employee under the non compete is losing out on career growth and raises

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#228

Post by cperciva » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:08 AM UTC

deogeo wrote: post #223

cperciva wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can negotiate with an employer over the terms of the non-compete you sign. If the employer has a mandatory unionization agreement, you can't negotiate with them to change the terms of that.

Sure you can - just invite the union to the negotiating table. Any contract can be changed if all parties agree. Or even simpler - ask for a pay raise in the exact amount of the union dues.

Asking for a pay raise to cover the union dues is a red herring -- unions do far more than merely collect dues from their members.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#229

Post by tlavoie » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 6:16 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #109

luckydata wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most non-competes are usually imposed on very specialized professions like market analysts and accountants at global firms for example. If you're barred from working for another financial firm for 2 years, what are you going to do? I'm surprised to see such a narrow view about this issue on this forum.

One area of non-competes I'm somewhat familiar with is consultants/analysts for a particular market. If they leave, sure, they can go work for a vendor or other participant in a different side of the market. Which is a very different job. But they basically can't do their role with another firm or independently. And my understanding is that these non-competes are regularly enforced.

A company I worked for had something like this, basically along the lines of, "you can't poach customers or other employees for a year." You likely could still work on your own as a consultant in the same field, but what it appeared to disallow was trying to take your clients with you.

The company was acquired, (and that in turn), when the new parent tried rolling out new contracts per employee, with a short turnaround to sign. Among other things, the new version basically would have prevented me from working in my field for a year.

I told them I needed time to have it reviewed by my lawyer, and I did too. Sure, the backlash had them rolling back the demand forthwith, but it convinced me that the ideal time to leave was immediately, under my old contract.

Re: Send Noncompete Agreements Back to the Middle Ages

#230

Post by TheCoelacanth » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 7:11 AM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #184

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right to Work laws say that workers can't be forced to join a union. They say no such thing. They say that companies can't form agreements to exclusively hire union workers. They outlaw essentially non-competes in the opposite direction. A non-compete agreement binds a worker to exclusivity with a company. The agreements outlawed by right-to-work laws bind companies to exclusivity with a union.

I'm confused about the distinction. How can a worker be forced to join a union in the absence of an agreement between the company and the union to only hire union workers? If you are thinking of "closed shops", companies where the union has a security agreement with the company and the union is free to deny membership to a person (thereby denying them employment), those were deemed illegal everywhere under US federal…

> I'm confused about the distinction. How can a worker be forced to join a union in the absence of an agreement between the company and the union to only hire union workers?

A worker can't be forced to join a union even in the presence of such an agreement. The company simply agreed not to hire them if they don't join.