I think it's reasonable to prevent your employee from working for your competitor at the same time they are working for you. Or even an employee creating a startup themselves with AI and then mailing all of your clients.
New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
81–90 of 129 posts
Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially when WA’s ruling party regularly uses false ‘emergency’ declarations to make new laws become effective immediately and because this lets them make new legislation immune to voter referendums (yes they abuse this loophole all the time). They could do the same here. If they don’t, it’s a choice made on purpose.
Washington has a 2/3 threshold in both houses of the legislature to pass emergency legislation, and the majority party is short of a 2/3 supermajority in both houses, so it is actually impossible for them to unilaterally pass emergency bills. Also, emergency laws in Washington are not immune to initiative (repeal or amendment by subsequent laws passed by the voters), but are immune to referendum (popular veto by the…
Where are you seeing that emergency clauses need a 2/3 majority in each house? I thought they require a simple majority.
Regardless, the ruling party has pretty close to a supermajority - over 60% in each house. And also keep in mind, some of the members of the other party are opposition in name only due to the districts where they compete. The share doesn’t really matter - the main issue is that it is overused. There shouldn’t be a hundred emergency clauses in each legislative session.
As for the voters’ constitutional right to repeal - I’ve updated the terminology. From https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/time-to...
> Despite the name, the real reason for these supposed emergencies is not that the state faces some immediate threat. Legislation that includes an emergency clause can only be repealed using an initiative, which requires twice as many signatures as a referendum to put on the ballot for the voters to keep or reject. Referenda also face fewer legal challenges because they consist of a simple up or down vote on a piece of legislation.
It doesn’t change the fact that the abuse of these emergency clauses is anti democratic and an abuse of power
Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#83If you had asked me in 1995 what was the one thing[1] that Boston could change in order to compete with Silicon Valley I would have told you "Make non-compete agreements illegal" Companies in the Bay Area whined about it all the time but it kept the ecosystem vibrant and a lot of technology exists because of that. In the late 90's early '00s a big reason for a lot of 'high profile' people quitting their cushy job and…
Wait, I'm confused. Do you mean Boston should have made non-compete agreements illegal?
Yes. At the time, non-compete agreements were legal (and commonplace) in Massachusetts. I haven't followed the Boston tech news for a decade so they may have changed that. But I had this exact conversation with Senator Ed Markey who was a congressman at the time. He was in the Bay Area and I was one of the people who were invited to a dinner he held on "Technology and Innovation."
Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#84The only time I see non-competes as reasonable is when someone sells a business. It seems fair to put a territory restriction on a seller so the new owner doesn't have to immediately start competing against the person they bought out.
I also see these as reasonable since they are part of the negotiation of selling the business. Non-competes as it relates to most ordinary employees in the US is typically a contract of adhesion: a surprise take it or leave it clause while signing an employment agreement, well after a job offer and salary negotiation.
Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those sorts of agreements are generally still allowed with these anti non-compete laws. If there is a specific non-compete contract that is signed, with money being paid for it directly, that is fine. That is a normal contract where both sides trade something of value. The types that are banned are ones that set the restriction as a part of a normal employment contract, where there is no specific compensation given f…
Yeah, those contracts are not valid here as the right to livelihood will trump that contract. So even if you sign that clause you are not bound by it.
Right, the way it would work is that you are getting some sort of payment every month for not competing. If you choose to start competing, those payments stop. You can choose to stop the non-compete at any time, you are just giving up that income stream.
Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, I'm confused. Do you mean Boston should have made non-compete agreements illegal?
Yes. At the time, non-compete agreements were legal (and commonplace) in Massachusetts. I haven't followed the Boston tech news for a decade so they may have changed that. But I had this exact conversation with Senator Ed Markey who was a congressman at the time. He was in the Bay Area and I was one of the people who were invited to a dinner he held on "Technology and Innovation."
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Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Besides, competing would have meant doing exactly the same thing over again. What's the fun in that? All of the baggage and tech debt gone! THIS TIME WE'LL DO IT RIGHT
It is not unheard of that employees leave a company to start their own precisely because the company is not addressing something specific leaving a gap in services. The startup begins to gain traction to the point the company the employees left buys the startup. It's like this is the only way for the company to "do it right", yet it would have been cheaper if they'd just let the employees do the thing as employees in…
PeopleSoft -> Workday
Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#88The only time I see non-competes as reasonable is when someone sells a business. It seems fair to put a territory restriction on a seller so the new owner doesn't have to immediately start competing against the person they bought out.
Non-competes are restrictions on employees by their current employer. A non-compete agreement between a seller and buyer is perfectly fine.
> A non-compete agreement between a seller and buyer is perfectly fine.
Well, it's up to market protection agencies to look at the specifics.
Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#89It always baffles me how much resistance there is to banning noncompetes every time this is proposed, and how that resistance lives right alongside “we want to be the next Silicon Valley”, even though pretty much every analysis of “what’s Silicon Valley’s secret sauce” cites the unenforceability of noncompetes as one of the most important factors. But maybe the ship is turning very slowly.
What's the actual steel man argument for why noncompetes are good? I've never really encountered one, just seen the corporate advocacy that they don't want to deal with high employee turnover. Best I can do: Non-competes are (possibly) unenforceable anyway, so signing one maybe acts as a value signal for the employee? "I'd have to violate my non-compete, so in order to do that and permanently burn the bridge with my…
In theory, something like a technical job that requires extensive training. I always see reports about a lack of training for high tech trade / manufacturing jobs, as they require up to 2 years of training, but training slots are limited. You might get companies to pay the training if they could be assured the person would not run to a competitor. But even that should be agreed up front, with a limited term (eg we will train your two years, then pay you $X, and you will be subject to a noncompete for four years)
Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those sorts of agreements are generally still allowed with these anti non-compete laws. If there is a specific non-compete contract that is signed, with money being paid for it directly, that is fine. That is a normal contract where both sides trade something of value. The types that are banned are ones that set the restriction as a part of a normal employment contract, where there is no specific compensation given f…
Yeah, those contracts are not valid here as the right to livelihood will trump that contract. So even if you sign that clause you are not bound by it.
The problem is allowing companies to do contracts that their lawyers know are null and void (like the above) but the employee may not know.
Employees thinking they are subject to legal penalties/fight due to a non-enforceable non-compete gets the company 90% of what they want, anyway, and so to prevent that they should be strongly punished.