When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause • Hacker News Board

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#41

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:34 PM UTC

johnward wrote: post #35

jakozaur wrote: post #32

Two models that make sense: - California, non-competes are not enforceable - Poland, you can make non-compete for the time you pay full salary (e.g. if company wants you to restrict employment for 3 months after leaving it, you will get your salary during that period)

My understanding of the CA model was that they are unenforceable except for when an employee has a controlling interest in the company. For example you could enforce a non-compete on a co-owner who tried to create a competing service. At least that's the way I interpreted it.

[deleted]

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#42

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #21

drivingmenuts wrote: post #2

Their food is disappointing and now their business practices are, too? I'm really wishing the NYT had tried to get a comment from Jimmy John's corporate before publication. I'd love to hear their justification for that.

I'm guessing they don't want to spend time training people only to have them leave for another shop. I wonder if there is a limit on this clause?

Maybe I'm a clueless jackass, but I've made sandwiches before, and I've seen sandwiches made in sandwich shops before, and I can't imagine this "training" taking longer than a shift. The training that isn't directly related to sandwiches, e.g. how to stock the cooler and where the dumpster is located, is likely to vary from shop to shop. Most hiring shop managers are going to look more closely at how long one has held jobs than whether those jobs were with a competing sandwich chain.

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#43

Post by jackmaney » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

bsbechtel wrote: post #18

pyrocat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It costs much less to start a small business" Ok, I'll bite. In what way does starting a small business "cost less"? Less than what? Have you ever tried to get a loan to start a retail restaurant? It's incredibly difficult to get the funding necessary, especially in an industry with such low margins.

Retail fast food restaurant - All these businesses can be started with either 1) personal savings, 2) a family and friends loan, or 3) credit cards. They all also have the advantage of generating cash from day 1, vs a tech startup which can have substantial development time.

Yes, I'm sure there are just TONS of barely-higher-paid-than-minimum-wage workers out there with an extra $5,000 just sitting around.

Idiot.

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#44

Post by johnward » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

bsbechtel wrote: post #34

benjohnson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's Advocate: It's certain that Jimmy John's line-worker can't start a 2,000 store chain, but they could run off with some of the catering business.

Jimmy John's competes with every local restaurant in every local market where it operates. Someone can easily start a local business that cuts into the market share of one of its local stores, although yes, it's very unlikely that restaurant is going to overtake Jimmy John's nationally. And yes, many local businesses, especially restaurant businesses, are started by former employees who enter a field to get training,…

I didn't up or downvote you but from my perspective I don't feel that employers deserve more protections. If I want to run off with the secret recipe it's already protected by IP laws. I think it should be illegal for an employer to limit your future employment in any way. I'm not saying the restaurant industry isn't competitive, it's probably one of the most competitive I can think of, but limiting employees rights is not the right way to handle that.

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#45

Post by x0x0 » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

bsbechtel wrote: post #6

The article has a pretty obvious slant in one direction. A lot of times small businesses will require this of their entry level workers not because they are afraid of their workers going to a competitor, but don't want their employees to go and start a competing business, which in the small business world is a very real risk. It costs much less to start a small business, and in the local market many of these small bu…

If you think a contract keeping a fast food worker from working for another fast food chain for a year is reasonable, you're a tool. Hell, a side benefit for many (most?) of the posters on this site is CA doesn't allow this for software engineers, who make a hell of a lot more money and have far more insight into a business than someone making a sandwich. (What's the proprietary business practice -- fucking toasting the bread?) I'd recommend discovering why you think shitting down is a valid way to treat people less fortunate than you in life.

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#46

Post by Terretta » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:38 PM UTC

bsbechtel wrote: post #18

pyrocat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It costs much less to start a small business" Ok, I'll bite. In what way does starting a small business "cost less"? Less than what? Have you ever tried to get a loan to start a retail restaurant? It's incredibly difficult to get the funding necessary, especially in an industry with such low margins.

Retail fast food restaurant - All these businesses can be started with either 1) personal savings, 2) a family and friends loan, or 3) credit cards. They all also have the advantage of generating cash from day 1, vs a tech startup which can have substantial development time.

So your hypothetical minimum wage worker is going to start a retail restaurant that costs typically $350,000 - $500,000 to open?

"A 2009 survey by "Restaurant Startup and Growth Magazine" found that the average owner spent $451,966 to get his restaurant up and running -- not including the acquisition of real estate. With a land purchase, the average total cost went to just over $700,00. Even those with starting costs in the lowest quartile of respondents spent $125,000."

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/startup-cost-opening-restaura...

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#47

Post by johnward » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:39 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #41

johnward wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the CA model was that they are unenforceable except for when an employee has a controlling interest in the company. For example you could enforce a non-compete on a co-owner who tried to create a competing service. At least that's the way I interpreted it.

[deleted]

I'm not in CA but there does appear to be cases where they can be enforced per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#Exceptions_-...

"Non-compete agreements are automatically void as a matter of law in California, except for a small set of specific situations expressly authorized by statute. They were outlawed by the original California Civil Code in 1872."

"here are limited situations where a reasonable non-compete agreement may be valid in California.

(1)Where the owner of a business is selling the entire business, or is selling the goodwill in the business, the seller may be bound by a non-compete clause.

(2)When there is a dissolution or disassociation of a partnership.

(3)Where there is a dissolution of a limited liability company."

So #1 says "you cannot sell your business with the intention of competing in the same space after the sale". Which seems reasonable.

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#48

Post by x0x0 » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:39 PM UTC

eggoa wrote: post #31

notacoward wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems with being poor is that you might not be able to afford lawyers to contest a suit over a non-compete. Therefore, we can't rely on post hoc legal remedies. Companies need to be proactively prevented, via regulation, from trying to pull this kind of stuff.

As VLM notes elswhere in this thread, being poor also means you're usually "judgment proof" (i.e. too poor to be worth suing).

But it's often the next employer that is intimidated into not hiring you. So the poor person gets fucked.

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#49

Post by tptacek » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:41 PM UTC

bsbechtel wrote: post #34

benjohnson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's Advocate: It's certain that Jimmy John's line-worker can't start a 2,000 store chain, but they could run off with some of the catering business.

Jimmy John's competes with every local restaurant in every local market where it operates. Someone can easily start a local business that cuts into the market share of one of its local stores, although yes, it's very unlikely that restaurant is going to overtake Jimmy John's nationally. And yes, many local businesses, especially restaurant businesses, are started by former employees who enter a field to get training,…

I work in a fiercely competitive space in which the modal vector for company formation is employees of competing companies leaving to start them.

The idea that Jimmy Johns could expect the right to bind minimum-wage-earning food service workers with a noncompete is verkakte. Even in circumstances where employees are given access to trade secrets and client rolodexes, noncompete agreements are difficult to enforce and almost invariably slashed to bits by courts when they survive at all.

Obviously, Jimmy Johns will not prevail in enforcing a noncompete on a minimum-wage employee. What they're doing is simply intimidating their own workers, probably based on some simple calculation about the impact their bogus noncompete will have on employee turnover, which is a metric every at-scale retail business optimizes for.

It is easy to devise logically-consistent reasons Jimmy Johns would want to bind their employees with anti-competitive contracts. Such arguments more or less beg the question.

Re: When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

#50

Post by VLM » Tue, Oct 14, 2014, 8:41 PM UTC

bsbechtel wrote: post #29

[deleted] wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-intelligen...

The story from the flight attendant in your link reminds me of my time in the Army Reserves. A true cross section of humanity, from my staff sgt with a degree in philosophy and my civil engineer sgt to some total meatheads, and everything in between, in a big bell curve.

Variation in general is immensely higher in blue collar, or the pressure to aggressively conform is much higher in white collar, however you want to phrase it. Blue collar people are just people, but the white collar folks have a peculiar aspiration requiring quite a bit of faking and leads to impostor syndrome and things like that.