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U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#41

Post by ElevenLathe »

tristor wrote: post #32
ElevenLathe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good to let agencies make laws if they make good laws. It's bad to let agencies make laws if they make bad laws. The liberal obsession with process is what lets the far right make inroads everywhere, since they don't share it.

What is good law and what is bad law? This is subjective, and likely shifts with the context of the surrounding society. Law is not morality, even though it may derive from social mores. For this reason, process is crucially important to prevent tyranny.

Yes, it's subjective. The ones I like are good. The ones that help my allies are good. The ones that punish my enemies are good. Pretending that things are any other way is madness.

Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#42

Post by Zigurd »

It's a way of establishing an "intellectual property" claim inside your skull. I put that in quotes because a limited term government grant of monopoly, which is what patents and copyrights actually are, are not "property." There is no property right in that grant of a monopoly. Congress could reset the term of patents and copyrights at any moment, on any terms. That's a much weaker thing than actual property rights.

Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#43

Post by Kalium »

anon291 wrote: post #30
lambdasquirrel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's already illegal in many states

CA, ND, OK, and DC seem to be the ones of note. A slew of other states have thresholds under which non-competes are invalid, but above which they are. Washington's, as an example, are here: https://lni.wa.gov/workers-rights/workplace-policies/non-com...

Those thresholds mean most software engineers are subject to non-competes.

Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#44

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Zigurd wrote: post #42

It's a way of establishing an "intellectual property" claim inside your skull. I put that in quotes because a limited term government grant of monopoly, which is what patents and copyrights actually are, are not "property." There is no property right in that grant of a monopoly. Congress could reset the term of patents and copyrights at any moment, on any terms. That's a much weaker thing than actual property rights.

> Congress could reset the term of patents and copyrights at any moment, on any terms. That's not how actual property rights work.

Isn’t it?

Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#45

Post by idiotsecant »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #26
LanceH wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the hostility of the current Supreme Court to federal agencies Maybe it's overreach by federal agencies when they create their own law. There is a distinction between authorizing an agency to figure out how to get something done and letting one make new law. Dramatically limiting the power of agencies to make up their own new laws seems like a good thing.

It's good to let agencies make laws if they make good laws. It's bad to let agencies make laws if they make bad laws. The liberal obsession with process is what lets the far right make inroads everywhere, since they don't share it.

So this sounds like a monarchy with extra steps.

Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#46

Post by mschuster91 »

Arrath wrote: post #12
bpodgursky wrote: post #7

I agree that noncompetes are bad, but the FTC declaring it without a congressional mandate seems deeply questionable.

Is such a move not one of the purposes of these agencies staffed by (supposedly) experts and run by appointees? Legislature is so dysfunctional that the House can't elect a speaker at this very moment, and who knows if such a measure would even see the light of day in committee let alone get to the floor if the lobbyists got wind of it. If the lawmakers take issue with the ruling they can issue a mandate to roll it b…

The problem is, the courts may decide to kill it off before Congress gets out of its gridlock and approve or deny it, as many other regulations have been. Executive decrees or questionably legal actions of government agencies are fundamentally bad - but have become commonplace and a necessity of life since Congress is fundamentally broken.

And at the core, the problem is that the US' political system unlike everyone else's system does not enforce that the executive has a parliamentary backing. That provides a lot of perverse incentives that historically were only prevented by a basic code of ethics and conduct - but since the Obama days, open obstructionism has become acceptable and a target in itself in politics.

Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#47

Post by TSiege »

cataphract wrote: post #34
TSiege wrote: post #3

This is a bigger deal then the title suggests since it appears it would be retroactive and nullify existing non competes > The commission’s proposal appears to address this issue by requiring employers to withdraw existing noncompetes and to inform workers that they no longer apply. The proposal would also make it illegal for an employer to enter into a noncompete with a worker or to try to do so, or to suggest that…

> Given the hostility of the current Supreme Court to federal agencies, the pessimist in me says that this would be challenged by an employer go all the way to the supreme court and be used by them to dramatically limit the power of FTC More likely, in the short term it will be challenged in individual arbitration and we'll never hear about it.

I'm not sure that would not be possible given what the article describes. This regulation would retroactively nullify them and bar companies from trying to enact anything like a non compete period

Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#49

Post by lolinder »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #26
LanceH wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the hostility of the current Supreme Court to federal agencies Maybe it's overreach by federal agencies when they create their own law. There is a distinction between authorizing an agency to figure out how to get something done and letting one make new law. Dramatically limiting the power of agencies to make up their own new laws seems like a good thing.

It's good to let agencies make laws if they make good laws. It's bad to let agencies make laws if they make bad laws. The liberal obsession with process is what lets the far right make inroads everywhere, since they don't share it.

My conservative dad said the exact same thing—almost word for word, just reversed—about liberals and process in 2009. I'm inclined to believe that there are groups of every political persuasion who believe the end justifies the means.

EDIT: To clarify, I mean that my dad said that liberals will do anything to accomplish their goals while conservatives play nice. The same idea but in reverse. This is why I think that what is actually happening is that there's a small group of people in any movement that believe the end justifies the means, but it's hard to see the ones in your own movement because you agree with them.

Re: U.S. moves to bar noncompete agreements in labor contracts

#50

Post by donatj »

simplotek wrote: post #6

Noncompete clauses for workers is the most anti-american, anti-free-market policy anyone could pull. If workers aren't free to switch to better jobs and at the same time are left to fend off for themselves them the economic system starts to resemble feudalism.

> anti-free-market policy

I go back and forth on that. It seems like the free market ideal would be to allow them and if people didn't like them they wouldn't sign them. No one telling anyone what to do.

It certainly hasn't panned out that way though.

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