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New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

fortune.com

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Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#41

Post by Xelbair »

gmerc wrote: post #30
vgatherps wrote: post #26

Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Actual code + NDAs banning literal reimplementations of stuff aren't that valuable, the knowledge and ideas will stay in the head of the employees. The tw…

Why does it make sense. Pay employees for their work and they’ll stick around.

exactly this. Pay them well, and treat them well and they will stay. This is just another tool that employers use to nickel and dime their employees.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#42

Post by js8 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #32
gmerc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it make sense. Pay employees for their work and they’ll stick around.

To your point, it's ironic that firms who push a free market ethos don't actually want to compete. Instead, they want a thumb on the scale that tilts the advantages in their direction. Welcome to Crony Capitalism (which should not be confused with traditional capitalism).

The absence of "traditional capitalism" from history makes it really hard not to confuse it with "crony capitalism".

Perhaps you mean liberalism, as an ideology of capitalism.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#43

Post by Xelbair »

cj wrote: post #29
ajb wrote: post #9

After noncompetes, they should go after non-solicitation. Entire teams that work well together should be able to defect from shitty employers. It kind of happens anyway but on the quiet, inefficiently - I'd love to see a job website where you can list an entire team.

Non-solicits also include not soliciting customers. Which is particularly relevant at consultancies where the product is a service. If you join a consultancy group, and 2 months later quit with the client roster... is it really OK to poach all their clients to start your own consultancy? All of these contracts are time limited, FWIW. E.g. non-solicitation doesn't mean you can never work your your colleagues again. It…

>If you join a consultancy group, and 2 months later quit with the client roster... is it really OK to poach all their clients to start your own consultancy?

If your company didn't pay you enough to keep you, nor did provide good environment ans support? absolutely yes.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#45

Post by Paul-Craft »

cj wrote: post #40
Paul-Craft wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. What I'm saying is "take a job with a non-compete or starve" is not a situation in which a worker can make a voluntary choice, "enforceable in court" be damned. Not to mention, such agreements are often not stated up front as part of the job description.

I hear what you’re saying, but it’s hyperbole. I think there’s zero percent of you starving over your unwillingness to sign a non-compete. Pretending like the situation is that extreme isn’t helping anyone.

Why should I believe you? You don't offer an argument. It is entirely plausible that one could be faced with a situation of losing one's home, health insurance, ability to exist in modern life, and, oh, one's actual life due to unemployment. I know this because it happens. Non-competes, by definition, make this problem worse by reducing the number of jobs available to a person. What's your justification?

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#46

Post by marcus0x62 »

eru wrote: post #6
fkarg wrote: post #4

Non-competes shouldn't be a thing for most employees.

Unemployment in eg the US is fairly low. So you can pick companies which have less stringent non-competes (or non at all).

Or we could not allow unconscionable contract terms.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#47

Post by ajb »

cj wrote: post #29
ajb wrote: post #9

After noncompetes, they should go after non-solicitation. Entire teams that work well together should be able to defect from shitty employers. It kind of happens anyway but on the quiet, inefficiently - I'd love to see a job website where you can list an entire team.

Non-solicits also include not soliciting customers. Which is particularly relevant at consultancies where the product is a service. If you join a consultancy group, and 2 months later quit with the client roster... is it really OK to poach all their clients to start your own consultancy? All of these contracts are time limited, FWIW. E.g. non-solicitation doesn't mean you can never work your your colleagues again. It…

I'm talking only about soliciting co-workers. It should be within the ability of legislators to ban only that - they are clearly distinguishable, as they have different contractual relationships. I don't really have an opinion about soliciting clients.

It's true that multiple people can quit at the same time, but non-solicitation clauses significantly impedes the process otherwise companies wouldn't bother to write the them. If you have worked for a shitty company, what delays quitting? Often team loyalty is a big part of that. I think it would massively speed up the decomposition of bad workplaces if entire teams could move in one go. It would be highly efficient for the acquiring company as they get a complete team that already works together, for only slightly more effort than hiring a single employee. It would also be huge disincentive to tolerating bad managers.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#48

Post by infairverona »

bachmeier wrote: post #39
vgatherps wrote: post #26

Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Actual code + NDAs banning literal reimplementations of stuff aren't that valuable, the knowledge and ideas will stay in the head of the employees. The tw…

> Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. So the solution is that employees should only be able to work for one employer in their career? I wouldn't disagree with this argument if the noncompete…

I feel like the solution is to force the company to pay full TC (average of previous years + inflation or something?) for the duration of the noncompete.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#49

Post by toomuchtodo »

eru wrote: post #6
fkarg wrote: post #4

Non-competes shouldn't be a thing for most employees.

Unemployment in eg the US is fairly low. So you can pick companies which have less stringent non-competes (or non at all).

Labor rights shouldn’t be governed by employment metrics.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#50

Post by arrrg »

infairverona wrote: post #48
bachmeier wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. So the solution is that employees should only be able to work for one employer in their career? I wouldn't disagree with this argument if the noncompete…

I feel like the solution is to force the company to pay full TC (average of previous years + inflation or something?) for the duration of the noncompete.

In Germany non-competes have a max duration of two years and compensation has to be at least 50%.
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