71–80 of 269 posts
In fact, 12% of hourly workers earning $20 or less had to sign non-competes. These workers do not have access to corporate secrets. It simply reduces their power to negotiate with their employer.
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2021/non-compete-cont...
OTOH, beware letting yourself be intimidated by scary looking but unenforcable clauses that are all over contracts. In doubt, spend a bit of money on a lawyer to figure out what your real situation is. I know of several cases where lawyers said "don't bother arguing with them about clause X, just sign it and ignore it".
Seems like a lot of successful people in business know exactly how far they can step over the line without suffering serious consequences.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pro-California and anti-noncompetes, but I'm not sure if this evidence demonstrates much. The banning of non-competes in California is a very recent thing, and if we're doing a correlation thing, California saw the vast bulk of its growth when non-competes were in effect.
The Traitorous Eight would only have been possible in California, not Washington, because of the position on noncompetes.
I'm against non-competes except in narrow cases. But a lot of people probably give the general inability to enforce non-competes in California too much credit for CA tech success in spite of one story in particular.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In finance, it is common to be paid your base wage during your non-compete. Or at least that is how mine worked.
That seems like something ripe for being gamed. How do they protect from someone just quitting and continuing to get paid?
OTOH, I've seen non-competes as long as 2.5 years from places like Citadel.
OTOH, beware letting yourself be intimidated by scary looking but unenforcable clauses that are all over contracts. In doubt, spend a bit of money on a lawyer to figure out what your real situation is. I know of several cases where lawyers said "don't bother arguing with them about clause X, just sign it and ignore it".
This is pretty much the advice every lawyer has given me in the past. The likelihood of it coming up is very low. Sometimes it's good to not be special.
What exactly should one be on the lookout for? Practically every company has an IP confidentiality agreement.
Yeah, good luck being the odd one out who wants special individualized contract. This might work for unicorn value level employees that are poached from one FANG to another but not for the average Joe.
I am good at what I do, but no unicorn and not FANG "level".
But then again, I don't live in the US
What exactly should one be on the lookout for? Practically every company has an IP confidentiality agreement.
Yeah, good luck being the odd one out who wants special individualized contract. This might work for unicorn value level employees that are poached from one FANG to another but not for the average Joe.
What exactly should one be on the lookout for? Practically every company has an IP confidentiality agreement.
ianal but: don't perform personal work while you are employed by an employer in the same industry. Or at least make it like you didn't do that to any observer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Realistically, most places ban ‘unconscionable’ contract clauses, either explicitly or by making them unenforceable. At least in theory, any judge that saw clauses like that should throw it out for that reason alone in those jurisdictions.
Precisely. And, at least in the US, any contract which makes it impossible for a worker to take a new job in their field is extremely likely to be found unconscionable. It doesn't matter whether the contract is cast as a non-compete or as a NDA; if its effect is to say "you must work for us, or not at all", it's unlikely to hold up.