61–70 of 138 posts
The headline kind of has the valence of government activity backwards, though I agree with its policy proposal. Other states don't restrict job-hopping, they just stand by and don't interfere as the free market ends up having the effect of restricting job-hopping. Employees end up signing restrictive employment contracts, and states don't prohibit them from doing so. California has made a conscious decision that the…
The headline kind of has the valence of government activity backwards, though I agree with its policy proposal. Other states don't restrict job-hopping, they just stand by and don't interfere as the free market ends up having the effect of restricting job-hopping. Employees end up signing restrictive employment contracts, and states don't prohibit them from doing so. California has made a conscious decision that the…
You say "free market" but the only reason other states work that way is because the courts enforce non-compete agreements. The state has a monopoly on court judgments, after all. In the same way we can say that the 19th century US didn't "restrict" freedoms, it merely "allowed people to own slaves". I'm not saying the comparison is apt, but it's easy to flip around words and say that "California prevents companies fr…
End of the day, it's "freedom fighters" vs "insurgents".
> The best argument against noncompetes is about freedom > [...] there should be a presumption in favor of preserving people's freedom to join a new company or start one of their own. Alas, as nice as it is to cloth an issue we care about in the language of moral superiority, banning noncompete agreements does in fact impact the freedom of contract. (In the same way, but to a lesser extent, than the ban on being able…
Agreed, these laws are more like anti-trust laws. Free market economics, according to its primary academic proponents (academic economists) is not the same as, nor is it even consistent with, the government enforcing arbitrary contracts.
After all, wouldn't the university operate more efficiently with underpaid adjuncts?
What would happen if an employer in Massachusetts offered me a job and asked me to sign a non-compete clause, and I said I wouldn't take the job if I had to sign a non-compete? Do you think they would back down? Or do you think they would say "too bad" and withdraw the offer? My gut says that most of the time, they'll back down and take that off the table. But I guess it depends on whether you have a huge legal team…
What California used have was worse than non-competes. They had secret covenants between manor tech companies not to hire each others employees. I don't know if that has been completely eliminated. As for other states, you could ask why they have lots of stupid laws. As for California, you could ask why they have that stupid Proposition 13.
The only good thing I can say about that era was that Google had their ass handed to them by Facebook, which was one of the few non-participants in the collusion. Google employees had few options but to go to Facebook in droves.
Proposition 13 has nothing to do with tech employment directly. It was created because politicians just couldn't help themselves from raising real estate taxes voluntarily.
> The best argument against noncompetes is about freedom > [...] there should be a presumption in favor of preserving people's freedom to join a new company or start one of their own. Alas, as nice as it is to cloth an issue we care about in the language of moral superiority, banning noncompete agreements does in fact impact the freedom of contract. (In the same way, but to a lesser extent, than the ban on being able…
> Alas, as nice as it is to cloth an issue we care about in the language of moral superiority, banning noncompete agreements does in fact impact the freedom of contract. (In the same way, but to a lesser extent, than the ban on being able to sell yourself into slavery.) Not allowing consensual slavery agreements, consensual beating people to death, etc, also limits "freedom of contract". That's because we value other…
Which kind of brings up an interesting angle - if every company is asking for an NCA, can't you argue that you signed it under duress, i.e. you didn't have a choice in the matter, and therefore that part of the contract is invalid?
The headline kind of has the valence of government activity backwards, though I agree with its policy proposal. Other states don't restrict job-hopping, they just stand by and don't interfere as the free market ends up having the effect of restricting job-hopping. Employees end up signing restrictive employment contracts, and states don't prohibit them from doing so. California has made a conscious decision that the…
I think your lense of "free market" needs to be supplemented with a little game theory here. If you're an employer, what's your disincentive for tucking in a little non-compete in your contract? None at all[1], especially since many of your prospective employees won't read it or potentially (if you're a low-wage employee) understand it's implications. Then what's the disincentive for an entire industry to do this? No…
Why is this on the employers, exactly?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The free market solution to contract enforcement is something like credit ratings where businesses form a network to enforce penalties. Without government, assuming society would be able to reach those levels of sophistication, it seems probable that capital would still enjoy a strong balance of power over workers to force them into undesirable contracts.
It's fine if corporations can form syndicates to black list workers, workers can form unions to strike, take over factories, etc. If corporations can then buy its own mercenaries so can workers form their own militias to take on rent a cops. And so on. This stupid fantasy of corporate tyrants free to do as they wish ends the same way all tyrannies do, with a revolution.
> After Almeida switched jobs, a lawyer from his old employer, ServiceMaster, sent him a letter threatening a lawsuit
> The company told the Seattle Times that the noncompete agreement was necessary because ServiceMaster had provided Almeida with valuable training
So require that the employee stay with the company until they recoup the investment. If the employee leaves before the term is up, charge the employee the cost of training.