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Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

nytimes.com

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Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#331

Post by lotharbot »

thecrazyone wrote: post #322
lotharbot wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your next company is getting your prior experience, which becomes more out-of-date every day, not your up-to-the-minute experience on what might be an actively competing project.

doesn't negate the problem stated as whatever the experience is, it's value is non-zero. Hence the benefit to later employers is also non-zero (could be argued) at the cost of earlier employers

the problem is more specific than the second employer getting non-zero value. It's getting ongoing value, under the table, direct from a present competitor -- harming the relative competitiveness of the first employer.

The value of this, of course, depends very much on the specific industry and project. It doesn't really matter if your guy who builds generic websites for your clients also builds generic websites for a competitor's clients. That doesn't materially hurt the first employer. But it can matter a lot if your guy who you are paying to develop cutting-edge algorithms is deploying those algorithms to the competitor you're trying to beat. Instead of gaining an edge worth $X per year, your company instead gains only part of that advantage because at least one competitor is cutting into it.

Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#332

Post by solidsnack9000 »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #271
rhapsodic wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is a kind of feudalism, where the peasants need to rely on the strength of lords and their knights (lawyers) to enjoy basic freedoms. Actually, I think it's a hallmark of a free society where consenting adults are able to enter into, or not, any agreements they choose. The problem is that some people make bad choices in the agreements they commit to, or they enter them in bad faith, not intending to honor them,…

You realize of course then that surfs (and their descendants) became surfs via an oath of bandage. Of course you do.

I suspect they usually became serfs by way of a great warlord saying to a lesser one: here is your territory and these people are your serfs.

Whatever oath there was, was purely pro forma, and the alternative was death or banishment.

Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#333

Post by eli_gottlieb »

supremesaboteur wrote: post #273
ue_ wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some would compare it to a form of slavery, and I think such comparisons are reasonable . "The only difference as compared with the old, outspoken slavery is this, that the worker of today seems to be free because he is not sold once for all, but piecemeal by the day, the week, the year, and because no one owner sells him to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this way instead, being the slave of no particul…

Disagree. Slavery requires lack of consent. If you were taken by force and sold to a master who is entitled to your labour by law, that is an oppressive situation to be in and it must be abolished. This is not the same thing as someone voluntarily exchanging their brains or brawns for a limited period of time for money. > An extreme example of this logic utterly failing is in those developing nations with sweatshops…

>Disagree. Slavery requires lack of consent.

Rape is a thing, so I don't think this is a very good moral standard. Informed, active assent is the usual standard.

Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#334

Post by steelframe »

ryandrake wrote: post #299
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. And naive. Most people (and also myself, for most of my career) are very weak when confronted with these things. The world doesn't work the way you describe it. Imagine you are getting your dream job at Amazon.com and someone is telling you to negotiate or discuss this part. Large companies are much less willing to accept anything like this. However, in your defense, I am pretty sure that negotiating…

Most companies are indeed not willing to discuss these things. If your stance is "be able to negotiate these standard contracts or walk away" you will be doing a lot of walking away. In a world where employees have even an ounce of power, this might change, but we don't live in that world. Even in the software world, what new hire has any power whatsoever to negotiate their employment agreement? You're at your weakes…

This is a good reason to start your career in California, where the government protects you until you get enough professional experience to negotiate.

Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#335

Post by rhapsodic »

huehehue wrote: post #321
rhapsodic wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No, the problem is that sometimes, people are not able to refuse a work agreement. That statement has absolutely no basis in reality. It gets trotted out time and time again, however. >There are plenty of cases where a potential employee essentially has a choice between signing and starving. Again, that is pure BS. No one starves in the US. The number one health problem is obesity. >If I put a gun to your head, and…

>Again, that is pure BS. No one starves in the US. The number one health problem is obesity. As someone who has been starving in the US and signed a suffocating work agreement to feed myself and keep my apartment, I don't think you know what you're talking about. Plenty of people starve in the US. I don't think I'm an edge case, either -- I have many friends in similar (or worse) situations. If you've never had to st…

>Plenty of people starve in the US.

That statement is laughably ridiculous. Can you provide examples, aside from people with eating disorders?

Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#336

Post by acjohnson55 »

mamon wrote: post #147
bmmayer1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Americans work. Work work work work[1]. Americans love work and elect politicians who love work. Europeans hate work. Hate hate hate hate[2]. They hate work and elect politicians who also hate work. That major (cultural? economic? social? political?) difference between American and European attitudes towards work might explain these statistics: American vs EU unemployment rate: 4.7% vs 8.2% American vs EU…

One thing about EU vs US comparisons: EU is not a monolith, it is an organization with 28 different member countries. Some of EU members are on the same level as US (e.g. GDP per capita is $51k for Netherlands, $48k Germany), and then there are poor, post-communist countries like Romania and Bulgaria which have GDP of $20k, which brings EU average down. Same goes for unemployment: Germany -> 3.9%, Netherlands -> 5.1%…

The USA is likewise not that monolithic. More so than Europe, for sure. But still.

Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#337

Post by supremesaboteur »

ue_ wrote: post #326
supremesaboteur wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they don't have to work for someone else who extracts surplus This surplus is profit, which is the motivation for setting up businesses. Take that away and there is no good reason for taking the risk > They can organise themselves and work themselves, voluntarily. This is already allowed in a capitalist society > They then own the products they make and decide how and if to distribute them Disagree. The laboure…

>Take that away and there is no good reason for taking the risk I'm not arguing for businesses, I'm arguing for the destruction of capitalism. I hope that businesses currently around fail. >This is already allowed in a capitalist society Any organisation which attempts to do so will fail very quickly, due to the fact that (i) workers must be kept employed, not disposed of when machinery that does a better job becomes…

> Any organisation which attempts to do so will fail very quickly, due to the fact that (i) workers must be kept employed, not disposed of when machinery that does a better job becomes available (ii) workers would have to be paid much higher than in those firms that do not operate as co-operatives. These two facts mean that such an organisation cannot compete. A good analysis is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAxajtiRatg

If it is true that communist societies are superior they should not be bombable by capitalist societies. But if you are claiming that capitalist societies are inherently more unjust to favor people with capital, communist socieities as inherently more unjust in a way that favor people with political power

> Labourers sell their labour-time to the capitalist, and that commodity has the use value of creating labour, which is transferred to the products. The labour is crystallised inside the products which are made, and those are appropriated by the capitalist at the end of production. If the worker owned his labour, the products at the end of production which the capitalist re-possesses in order to sell would have no more value than when they entered the factory as raw materials and machinery. Therefore the capitalist could not make any profit.

This is pure nonsense on many levels.

What about the value derived from the risk taken by the enterpreneur ? What about the value derived from the work done by the enterpreneur ?

Also value is subjective. A hungry person will pay more for a piece of bread than a satiatated human being. This again is a source of profit ( and no, its not oppressive if there is competition to establish a fair price )

> Capitalism requires land and property owners; if those land and property owners cease to exist, capitalism must also cease to exist. As such, the system which creates the force for people to choose between starving and wage labour is perpetuated by the whole class of property owners, i.e the capitalists.

The difference, again, is that the wages paid can be used to climb out of this position. This option is not available in slavery. Employee-Employer relationship is mutually beneficial, not oppressive

> Why is work unenviable?

Do you work for Google ?

> There are various motivations for wanting to work, too; the desire for credit,

> wanting to improve the conditions of the society you live in

> the desire to help other people in your community, out of necessity for something you want to see finished, for mastery, as a hobby, etc

This does not ensure that the important and necessary work will get done. Also it does not ensure that the work which contributes maximum to the society is preferred over other useless work. I prefer to live in a world where important work gets priority even if it means I have to perform unenviable tasks for limited periods of time

Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#338

Post by grecy »

ryanSrich wrote: post #303
grecy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Healthcare is a racket limiting not just healthcare but freedom The fact that Healthcare is tied to employment is downright shocking to virtually all developed countries.

Healthcare is absolutely available to those without employment. Where have you heard otherwise? In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the healthcare burden in the US is from patients without employment. Medicare and Medicaid are some of the largest funds out there.

Oh, I'm not saying it's not available to those without employment, I'm saying it's sickening that it is very often tied to employment, for those that have employment.

Ones employment and ones health should not be linked in anyway whatsoever, lest bad things happen.

Re: Noncompete Clauses: Signing Away the Right to Get a New Job

#339

Post by hamstergene »

Joeri wrote: post #253
lotharbot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "When I'm off the clock, my time is my own, up to and including doing paid work for anyone else I want." At least one of the reasons for a non-compete clause is to make sure you're not doing stuff on the clock for your employer, and then getting double-paid by a competitor for essentially the same end result but without the competitor having to pay for the whole process of getting that result. Like, if they're payi…

However, many software firms have no issue with selling the development of a feature to customer A, and then selling a license for said feature to customer B. This is the same situation as selling the skills acquired at employer A to employer B. Why is it ok for employers to do this, but not for employees?

It is much more than that. An employee sells not skills, but time of his life, the only one he's got. A company can make million sales, an employee can't work a million jobs.
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