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New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

seattletimes.com

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Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#121

Post by BadBadJellyBean »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #14

The 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.

Is it reasonable? You clearly have the advantage since you bought a running business where as the other person has to build a new company from scratch. I fail to see how it is reasonable to tell a person what they can or can't do after the transaction is over. Also from a consumer standpoint competition is good.

Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#122

Post by 93po »

nickff wrote: post #117
hx8 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a buyout clause used while consulting before. The company was ending their relationship with the contracting company and wanted to keep a handful of individuals.

From what I understand, the contracting firms don't like (reasonably-priced) buyouts because it allows clients to cherry-pick the best 'talent', and basically use the contractor as a 'farm team'.

yes, it's unfortunately common for employers to abuse their workers by keeping their pay and work conditions as awful as possible and using any means possible to prevent them from leaving to better conditions and pay

Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#123

Post by bluGill »

throwaway85825 wrote: post #116
bluGill wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers will take this for a share of winnings. The goal is to make it expensive for companies to say anything like that.

Only for slam dunk cases where damages are statutory or assured.

There are several low risk angles. It would be worth the price of an initial consultation / demand letter at minimun

Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#124

Post by kccqzy »

smnrchrds wrote: post #114
kccqzy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just means your start date is delayed. No different from interviewing a student whose graduation date is a year away or interviewing a foreigner who might require a few months of paperwork to get a work visa.

Most non-competes are at least 6 months but usually more than a year, and I have never worked in a company that was open to hiring someone with a start date that far in the future. Plus, the clock wouldn't even start running until they leave their job, so if you hire them for a start day in 12 months, they have to quit now and spend their savings. I have never met someone who was open to doing that. I am sure it coul…

That’s not at all my experience. I remember back in the college days every single company on campus was willing to interview students in fall knowing that they would graduate next summer. That’s at least 9 or 10 months of waiting. Because if a company waits until spring, all the best students already have offers and aren’t on the market any more.

> they have to quit now and spend their savings

Every single job offer I’ve seen with a non-compete is a paid non-compete. You get 100% of your base salary and zero bonus. In industries where non-competes are common, people know this. They have savings to deal with reduced income due to zero bonus. There’s a reason why the non-compete period is colloquially known as garden leave. You have enough savings so that you can literally work on your garden. Companies know they need to be patient and plan for hiring needs far in advance. It’s super predictable.

Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#125

Post by sir0010010 »

kccqzy wrote: post #124
smnrchrds wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most non-competes are at least 6 months but usually more than a year, and I have never worked in a company that was open to hiring someone with a start date that far in the future. Plus, the clock wouldn't even start running until they leave their job, so if you hire them for a start day in 12 months, they have to quit now and spend their savings. I have never met someone who was open to doing that. I am sure it coul…

That’s not at all my experience. I remember back in the college days every single company on campus was willing to interview students in fall knowing that they would graduate next summer. That’s at least 9 or 10 months of waiting. Because if a company waits until spring, all the best students already have offers and aren’t on the market any more. > they have to quit now and spend their savings Every single job offer…

For most tech jobs with non-competes in the US, the non-compete is unpaid. Which is different than other industries such as finance.

Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#126

Post by smnrchrds »

sir0010010 wrote: post #125
kccqzy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not at all my experience. I remember back in the college days every single company on campus was willing to interview students in fall knowing that they would graduate next summer. That’s at least 9 or 10 months of waiting. Because if a company waits until spring, all the best students already have offers and aren’t on the market any more. > they have to quit now and spend their savings Every single job offer…

For most tech jobs with non-competes in the US, the non-compete is unpaid. Which is different than other industries such as finance.

Same here in Canada. I have had three non-competes in my career, none of which were paid. All of them were probably unenforceable if it went to trial, but I would have never gotten that far in the hiring pipeline. I instead opted to switch industries and move to a jurisdiction that doesn't allow non-competes.

Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#127

Post by marcosdumay »

Beestie wrote: post #98
marcosdumay wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not really. Individuals who can build a company are under no obligation to sell it to anyone placing unreasonable conditions on the sale. If I'm buying your company, I have a concern that you might pull of of the customers back (having started a new company) but the price I'm willing to offer you compensates you for the book of business you are selling to me. That's where non-solicitation clauses come in. I think the…

You are not always free to sell your business in any way you want. Some times, there are restrictions or you may not be allowed to sell at all.

Anyway, that's not related to the employees contracts.

Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#128

Post by silexia »

I am moving my business out of state because of this. Already had a problem with this, I had an employee stealing clients and he even said on a recording he made for his roommate and the roommate made me that he stole them. You can not run a business in Democrat states anymore.

Re: New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements

#129

Post by toomuchtodo »

Aurornis wrote: post #17
Analemma_ wrote: post #5

It 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.

Is there actually substantial resistance to this? Or just a few manufactured counter-arguments from news outlets trying to do a both-sides take on this? Non-competes have been heavily limited or outright voided in California. That's an easy and obvious rebuttal to the Silicon Valley argument.

Additional citation:

https://www.governance.fyi/i/192862936/who-pulled-the-ladder... ("Who Pulled the Ladder Away") from Marc Andreessen Is Right That AI Isn't Killing Entry-Level Jobs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613752 - April 2026

> The noncompete story is more galling. Legal experts describe the period from 1990 to roughly 2010 as the golden age of noncompete enforcement in America. What started as a tool for protecting senior executives’ trade secrets metastasized into a blanket restriction applied to hourly workers, sandwich shop employees, pet cremation technicians. An estimated 30 million Americans, nearly one in five workers, are bound by a noncompete agreement. These agreements directly suppress the mechanism through which the job ladder operates: they prevent employed workers from accepting better offers.

> The FTC, under the Biden administration, attempted a nationwide ban. The estimated effects were large and specific: $400 to $488 billion in increased wages over the next decade, $524 per worker per year in additional earnings, 8,500 new businesses annually, and 17,000 to 29,000 additional patents per year. The rule was struck down in federal court. The Trump administration formally vacated it in September 2025. The FTC has shifted to case-by-case enforcement, including a February 2026 consent order against a pet cremation company that had imposed blanket noncompetes on 1,780 employees, including hourly laborers and drivers. The bipartisan Workforce Mobility Act, reintroduced in June 2025 by Senators Murphy, Young, Cramer, and Kaine, would ban most noncompetes nationwide. It has been referred to committee. No further action has been taken. Over 150 bills have been introduced in more than 35 states, creating a patchwork that varies by jurisdiction. The patchwork is the opposite of the clear nationwide signal that would restore competitive dynamics.

> The graduate scrolling LinkedIn is not competing against chatbots. She is competing against four decades of eroded mobility, in a labor market where the companies that might hire her face less pressure to do so than at any point since the data began. We all spent two years worrying that AI will trap young workers in obsolete careers, if they every get a career in the first place. Meanwhile, noncompete agreements have been legally trapping workers in underpaying jobs for decades, and we barely noticed.

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