I'm in this pickle right now. It's a scare tactic. New employer would not take a bet, and that's understandable. Current employer responds with the most vague legalese possible to my straight up question "are you going to enforce?". The choices are: a) take a gamble against an entity that has so much more to fund their legal team than I will ever dream of or b) suck it up. Take a guess what most people pick, even if "most likely outcome" of enforcing non-compete is very slim. It's in UK btw.
The case for banning non-competes
41–50 of 338 posts
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#42You don’t exactly need to ban them, but the employees should be compensated during the non-compete period and limit the lenght of the non-compete contract. In Denmark my employeer can’t make non-compete contract for more that 12 month, during which I’m entitled to 60% of my salery. It’s also only valid within the same field. That is: You can’t jump from Microsoft, developing Windows, to Apple and work on macOS, but y…
In Norway it's 100% pay up to some relative high amount. And the non-compete has to be very specifically towards me and my role at the company, not some generic "we do a little bit of x, y and z, therefore everything is considered a competitor".
Actually my union, Tekna, was a big player in getting the laws much better in 2016. Unions work, and can be useful even for us techies even if in high demand.
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#43EDIT: I have completely went off on the wrong thought path. As noted, despite reading the article and comments, somehow my mind got latched onto NDAs instead of NCAs. Sorry. ---- I will be the contrarian. For those who insist on no NDA , what prevents ex-employees from spilling secrets to be hired at a competitor? I understand the concerns with NDAs. I was under one which limited my work in a radius, and within a ver…
the topic is NCA, not NDA.
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#44There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems. First, there's the really nasty ones saying "If you ever work here, you can't work for any competitor for X years", and they're clearly abusing of employees, labor, etc. I hope there is a straight up ban on that. The second kind is "You can't compete with us while you work here". And that is a much more complex beast. Obviously, if I work as a developer mak…
> And that's ignoring the who-knows-how-many secret un-released projects that might relate.
Most software businesses exist on a tenuous information asymmetry turbocharged by capital (dumping, to reduce prices). The noncompete is about protecting well-capitalized customers from doing the stuff they're buying from Amazon themselves - not because they poach an employee who knows how, but because they find out that a piece of free, open source software is the secret to it all.
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#45My state has severely limited non-compete agreements to the point that they’re only narrowly enforceable, if at all. That didn’t stop one of my previous employers from using non-compete scare tactics against employees. Many of us left in a large exodus when benefits and bonuses were cut and management made a number of other bad decisions. The company responded by sending remaining employees an e-mail with a list of c…
What state is this?
California, in all likelihood.
California Business and Professions Code Section 16600, “every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void.”
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#46EDIT: I have completely went off on the wrong thought path. As noted, despite reading the article and comments, somehow my mind got latched onto NDAs instead of NCAs. Sorry. ---- I will be the contrarian. For those who insist on no NDA , what prevents ex-employees from spilling secrets to be hired at a competitor? I understand the concerns with NDAs. I was under one which limited my work in a radius, and within a ver…
the topic is NCA, not NDA.
well... That was painful. :D
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#47My feeling has always been that non-competes are ok as long as it is an entirely separate agreement from employment. For example, you can sign a contract for $100,000 that you won’t work in field x for 2 years. If you decide to work in the field, you give up that money. The unfair thing is making it just a part of the standard employment contract.
I'd like to over you a job. It pays $50K/yr with an optional $100K/yr for a noncompete agreement. My competitor is offering $140K/yr.
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#48There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems. First, there's the really nasty ones saying "If you ever work here, you can't work for any competitor for X years", and they're clearly abusing of employees, labor, etc. I hope there is a straight up ban on that. The second kind is "You can't compete with us while you work here". And that is a much more complex beast. Obviously, if I work as a developer mak…
> There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems.
There are more kinds of non-competes. Neither of the kinds you're listing is blanket-legal anywhere in Europe, as far as I can tell, but there are still NCC/NCAs.
Generally speaking, in Europe, NCC/NCAs must:
* show a reasonable business interest, mere competition does not ever qualify
* be geographically limited
* be temporally limited (rarely more than two years)
* be financially compensated (significantly, usually on the order of 50% gross salary for the entire period)
> Obviously, if I work as a developer making a stock trading app, I shouldn't be making a competing stock trading app after hours.
No it's not obvious at all. In fact I'd say that on its face it's obviously not true.
Unless the employer can justify of a super secret sauce which would be endangered by this there's no reason why you could not. You could work as a dev of a stock trading app, be passionate about stock trading applications, disagree with the company's ideas on the subject, and want to realise your own ideas.
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people might think that was a good deal to travel the world but not everyone. So you're at the peak of your career and you need to take a couple years off at significantly lower total comp (because no bonus/equity).
Start a new career, start an unrelated company, do non profit work, do research, etc... I imagine these people have money, so what's making potentially an extra 200k? You make that in a year.
You live in a serious bubble if you think the typical person can shrug, say "what's $200K," and casually leave or take a break from the field they've been earning a living in.
Re: The case for banning non-competes
#50I believe non-competes and claiming the IP of what employees do in their own time is ridiculous and way out of line. Employers do not own the people who work for them.
No one owns anyone. IP assignment is contractual agreement in exchange for money. Just remember that when imputing your hourly pay and passive income opportunity.