[HN Gopher] Noncompete clauses: Companies say they need them, re...
___________________________________________________________________
Noncompete clauses: Companies say they need them, research shows
that's not true
Author : tekdude
Score : 203 points
Date : 2023-03-16 17:41 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (slate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (slate.com)
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Employers say they need noncompete clauses in order to protect
| their trade secrets and confidential information.
|
| Which is such a clear and obvious lie that I'm amazed they even
| bother to say it out loud. There already exist several
| contractual and legal mechanisms that do a much better job of
| protecting trade secrets and confidential information.
|
| Noncompetes aren't needed for this, and are only marginally
| useful for this at best.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| I think part of what is going on here is that lawyers are
| incentivized to identify and mitigate risk. They don't carry
| the downside to over-mitigating risk -- in this case the
| company writ large and employees do, but lawyers are penalized
| -- or at least they perceive they will be penalized - if they
| don't identify any conceivable risk for their clients.
|
| There are also a lot of asshole business owners out there. A
| friend once had a former employer successfully enforce a non-
| compete agreement against him for structured cabling work while
| his daughter was undergoing treatment for leukemia. He had to
| drive 200 miles one-way to work for a year to avoid being sued.
| For snaking Ethernet cables behind drywall.
| tibbon wrote:
| Surely some CEO here, or someone who has worked in HR can
| illuminate us on how they believe this is true.
|
| I once caught a company I worked for in the lie about this. I
| was advocating for a new employee who didn't want to sign the
| no-compete clause. They say they _needed_ it. I asked what
| problems they had in California, and how it was impacting their
| business - they replied there were no problems. So I was like,
| "Ok, so if it isn't impacting you in CA, why do you think it
| will impact elsewhere?"
|
| In the end, they did hire that person, and did not make them
| sign the non-compete.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Companies don't "believe" things. They will amorally advocate
| for whatever is remotely favorable to the company.
|
| There is no financial incentive for them to say "We don't
| need noncompetes" or even "You know, it really doesn't affect
| our bottom line either way." So instead they will always say
| "Of course we need it." There's no downside.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Companies don't "believe" things.
|
| The people in charge of them cargo-cult like a
| motherfucker, though.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Companies don't "believe" things. They will amorally
| advocate for whatever is remotely favorable to the company.
|
| I think this makes companies seem much more rational than
| they actually are. Plenty of companies do things because
| other players (especially larger players) in the space do
| it, regardless of cost/benefit to themselves. Where do you
| think the phrase "no one got fired for buying IBM" comes
| from?
| bell-cot wrote:
| If you've been around high-level exec's or their lawyers
| much - there's a _whole_ lotta "what is the maximum
| amount of sh*t that we could get away with, or at least
| might benefit from attempting?" going on.
| danaris wrote:
| > Companies don't "believe" things.
|
| This is technically correct. (The best kind of correct,
| right?)
|
| > They will amorally advocate for whatever is remotely
| favorable to the company.
|
| This is not (at least, not as universally as you state it).
|
| Companies are legal fictions; they do not act on their own.
|
| _People_ act. People talk. People believe things. People
| often amorally advocate for whatever they _believe_ will be
| most favorable for their employer, or for themselves.
|
| People are often wrong.
|
| As companies are made up of _many_ people, those people 's
| beliefs and actions don't always match up, so it's still
| dangerous to talk too carelessly about a given company
| "believing" any particular thing without qualifiers.
|
| Any time someone talks about a company "doing something",
| they obviously mean that the people within the company did
| those things, and those people's actions are guided by
| their individual and collective beliefs. They do not
| suddenly become perfect automata operating solely for the
| best interests of the company, without bias of their own,
| and they _certainly_ don 't suddenly become perfectly able
| to _determine_ what will best serve the interests of the
| company.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| OK, I can try and steel man it for you. Warning, long.
|
| California hasn't had noncompetes for a long time (B&P
| 16600). But if you look in the code right around there, there
| are a few carveouts that cover most of the situations that
| are used most of the time for legitimate cases, like the
| split up of a closely held company.
|
| There are other extreme examples that use a slightly
| different legal theory, like professional athlete contracts,
| which also rely on the forbearance of the other teams from
| employing the person in that specific role, though if Lebron
| wanted to pour beers for the Knicks, I'm doubtful that's
| covered. (Back when they were the worst team in existence, I
| did some work for the Warriors.)
|
| The real reason they're haven't been so many issues in
| California is because they make you sign all kinds of things
| about IP, trade secrets, and so on which they will always
| start with if they really want to block a move. The courts
| know the score, they know this is just non-compete by other
| means, but if you cover your bases, it usually works (i.e.
| move is ok). Your new employer knows the score too and will
| usually just work a deal or fight the case. But if the cost
| gets too high, or maybe you kept an email print out you
| shouldn't have, it can get gnarly/expensive. And even just
| that drag/delay is enough of a deterrent.
|
| So what's left? An employee who leaves with no critical
| information who just wants to open a competitor near by?
| There are a few circumstances like this where it might
| matter. Small company, key employee leaves, he has no IP, but
| it will probably impact your business. So what do you do?
|
| Realistically, you probably engage in guerrilla tactics. And
| this brings me to my steel man.
|
| How much of the oblique, bank-shot BS litigation (the
| guerrilla tactics I mentioned) about "trade secrets" is
| really just back door non-compete? That's your cost. Your
| benefit is free movement of employees, which means employees
| have more leverage in a freer market for labor and employers
| have to run their business well and can't just collect rents
| on their non-protectable intangibles, like being the only
| iPhone repair shop in town.
|
| If you had a fair, reasonable standard for non-competes that
| had statutory limits and were void otherwise and that had to
| be supported by separate consideration, sort of like how
| we're trying to do employment arbitrations here, then I might
| be interested whether this cancels out the BS trade-secret
| litigation is enough of a benefit to outweigh the cost.
|
| Of course, I doubt it. I've been involved with this stuff for
| decades and it's never perfect, and I understand that other
| states might want to be careful about adopting California
| stuff, but this statute is so old that it's from when Earl
| Warren was governor.
|
| No one will miss these much. But I think the next question is
| how to tone down these BS trade secret cases too.
|
| Employers do have legitimate concerns in their IP, but those
| are protected other ways. Maybe they don't believe that can
| be done easily. Or maybe it's in your brain and you can't
| unforget. Well, then the solution is in the IP universe, not
| in keeping competition out.
|
| tl;dr best argument is that it's the only practical way to
| protect IP, but this can be addressed other ways both legal
| (contracts, lawsuits) and nonlegal (cybersecurity), which is
| exactly what people in CA have done sometimes too much.
| treis wrote:
| The pro sports restrictions are because they have a union
| and a collective bargaining agreement. If it weren't for
| that all the draft, trade, free agency, and so on rules
| would be unenforceable.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| Sort of. There's a nexus between antitrust and the
| unions, but in terms of why someone can't just quit and
| go work for another team, that relies mostly on what's
| called a "negative covenant" that's in all of the
| standard player contracts and related clauses and it
| involves jumping between leagues or even sports as well,
| so the anti-trust surface is a bit different or possibly
| not in the mix, and can also involve individual sports
| like tennis or boxing. A lot of the other anti-
| competitive things sports leagues get away with are
| because of what you're talking about, but the reason
| every California-based professional athlete can't just
| rip up their contract and walk away is they have a
| different kind of reasoning going into it based on their
| rarity.
| ghaff wrote:
| These discussions often get very binary.
|
| As you say, California companies have a ton of things they
| can pull on departing employees--especially if those
| employees did take IP or client lists out the door with
| them.
|
| In addition, while signing non-competes and having them
| stringently enforced isn't quite a man bites dog situation
| in other states, it's very far from universal. Only time I
| had one was while I was briefly working for EMC (big non-
| compete advocate) who acquired the company I was working
| for. And, in that case, the non-compete only applied to
| becoming an executive of a storage vendor.
|
| I wasn't aware of non-competes being a widespread thing in
| the MA computer industry at the time. The company I worked
| for was actually founded by an ex-DEC engineer. That said,
| I'm happy to see the current pushback. They definitely have
| a chilling effect on especially small firms hiring people
| because they're seen as a risk. The very small company I
| worked for over a number of years saw any non-compete as a
| hard pass.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| What I have told people, both as a business owner and as
| an advisor to others is, there's this magical thing you
| can do to keep employees from moving to other companies.
| It almost always works. If it doesn't work, you can try
| the second thing.
|
| Wages and working conditions.
|
| No one wants to hear that because they want a magic piece
| of paper that makes all problems solved for cheap.
| ghaff wrote:
| >It almost always works.
|
| Maybe.
|
| Wages can be hard if you end up having to compete with
| FinTech, BigTech, and some other fields--or even just
| some company that really wants a person.
|
| And working conditions covers a lot of ground. People
| just get itchy feet even when conditions aren't
| objectively bad. Or they liked the company when it was
| smaller but it has outgrown them.
|
| But I'll agree that companies change and people change,
| and both should just be prepared to move on when the
| mutual bargain no longer works.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Are non-compete one-way in the US?
|
| Here in France we can have them as well but there is a
| counterpart: if I want to go to a company which is a competitor,
| my current employer can say no but they have to pay me for that
| for the time of the non-compete (something like 75% of the
| salary). This is the law and they have no choice (short of not
| enforcing it)
| galdor wrote:
| French here. The exact amount is negotiated (aka decided by the
| employer) and written in the contract. I had multiple work
| contracts where the indemnity would have been 30% of my annual
| salary, never more (which is actually pretty bad because you
| still have to find a job without breaching the non-complete).
|
| Non-compete clauses must also be limited in scope (geography
| and profession) and must not stop employees to live from their
| trade. As a result companies rarely exercise non-compete
| clauses since they are regularly thrown away by courts
| ("conseil des prud'hommes" in french).
|
| Still they are part of the so called "standard work countract".
| I imagine most companies just get their base contract copy-
| pasted from the same template.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| You can't have a society that claims that "the right to work" is
| a thing while disallowing workers to go work for the competition
| if the competition offers a better compensation. NDA already
| exist for trade secrets.
| thwayunion wrote:
| Of course you can! It's what we have in the US. Don't confuse
| capitalism -- the ideology of capital -- with marketism or
| competitionism or dynamism.
|
| If you take it as an axiom that capitalism is an ideology
| designed to acreed economic activity to holders of capital --
| and you should, it's literally in the name -- then "right to
| work means union busting and strong non-competes that sacrifice
| the right to work on the alter of return to capital" makes
| perfect sense
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Reminds me of how "economic freedom" metrics usually
| include[1] how easy it is to fire people, but not how
| restricted employees are by non-competes and other measures
| that make changing jobs harder. This seems to hinge on the
| idea that employer-employee relationships are non-coercive
| and potential employees can always "vote with their feet".
| However, employees usually depend on having a job to live and
| - whether through collusion or herd mentality - employers in
| an industry tend to converge on a common set of restrictions
| on their workers.
|
| [1] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/economic-freedom/approach
|
| > Many types of labor-market regulation infringe on the
| economic freedom of employees and employers. Among the more
| prominent are minimum wages, dismissal regulations,
| centralized wage setting, extension of union contracts to
| nonparticipating parties, and conscription. The labor-market
| component (5B) is designed to measure the extent to which
| these restraints upon economic freedom are present. In order
| to earn high marks in the component rating regulation of the
| labor market, a country must allow market forces to determine
| wages and establish the conditions of hiring and firing, and
| refrain from the use of conscription.
| tristor wrote:
| My most upvoted comment on HN is from some time ago specifically
| about non-competes. In summary: fuck non-competes. I will not
| sign them. I will not work for any company that puts non-competes
| in their employment contracts. I will advocate that all of the
| people in my professional network (all of whom are top of their
| fields) do the same.
|
| I have never seen a single convincing argument for why companies
| need non-compete agreements for employees. Every single argument
| I have been provided, including the arguments in this article,
| are not even covered by non-compete agreements and are actually
| covered by non-solicitation or non-disclosure agreements instead.
|
| Non-competes are amoral, create a social and moral hazard that
| depresses wages and further imbalances the power relationship
| between employees and employers, and are on their face rather
| stupid. There is not, and never has been, any legitimate reason
| for any company to put a non-compete into their employment
| contract. The only reason companies do this is because they're
| allowed to and any competent corporate attorney will try to get
| as much over on the other party as possible in a contract
| negotiation.
|
| This research is completely unsurprising to me. Anyone with more
| than 5 brain cells to rub together can easily figure out that
| non-competes are a total farce and have no reason for existence.
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| In my experience, at least with startups, non compete agreements
| are often pushed and drafted by the legal team of the entities
| investing in the business.
|
| Investors want to be protected and their attorneys will do
| anything that's necessary to make sure there aren't loopholes
| left open for ideas to be stolen.
|
| The result is poorly drafted and ridiculously broad non compete
| clauses that would not be enforceable in most if not all states.
|
| However even when they may not be enforceable (and you will hear
| the hiring manager saying that 100 times), non competes can still
| hurt candidates big time once they go back to the job market
| because many companies actually have provisions to disqualify
| those coming in with the extra baggage of a non compete.
|
| If candidate A and B have very similar skills and experience and
| A has a non compete and B doesn't, why would anyone bother with
| A?
|
| So it is true, non competes are in most cases non enforceable but
| they can still reduce your chances of getting a (better) job.
|
| I declined offers after months of negotiations because of non
| competes and I would advise others to refuse to sign them, unless
| you desperately need the job, the compensation package is amazing
| or there are provisions or amendments to the clause, like a
| reasonable garden leave, that compensates you for having to carry
| a stinky non compete agreement on your forehead for an entire
| year or more if things don't work out.
|
| If they want the non compete, make them pay for it, don't pick up
| the tab yourself.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> non competes can still hurt candidates big time once they go
| back to the job market because many companies actually have
| provisions to disqualify those coming in with the extra baggage
| of a non compete._
|
| Get a lawyer, ensure it's not enforcable, then sign it.
|
| If you're in CA, sign it. If you're in MA and there is no
| garden leave clause, sign it. Then do what you want.
|
| When a hiring company asks if you have a non-compete, specify:
| "I am not bound by an enforceable non-compete". If they ask for
| specifics, explain and mention the law firm you consulted. This
| has always worked for me.
|
| I suppose you could also just say you're not bound by a non-
| compete, and leave it at that, as that's also not a lie. If I
| sell myself into slavery in the USA, then I can -- without
| lying -- tell everyone I'm definitely not a slave. Because I'm
| definitely, absolutely, not. Non-competes are no different: if
| it's prime facie unenforceable, then you are NOT bound by a
| non-compete, full stop, end of story. But I like to be a bit
| more up-front.
|
| _> If candidate A and B have very similar skills and
| experience and A has a non compete and B doesn 't, why would
| anyone bother with A?_
|
| I've admittedly never been in this situation -- at least as far
| as I know -- because my skill-set is pretty niche (ie, I am
| pretty sure that I have always known all the other people in
| the world who are interchangeable with me for a particular
| position when I get to the stage of negotiating the offer).
| cesarb wrote:
| > Get a lawyer, ensure it's not enforcable, then sign it. If
| you're in CA, sign it. If you're in MA and there is no garden
| leave clause, sign it. Then do what you want.
|
| What if the law changes and now it's enforceable? What if you
| move to another USA state, or to another country, and it's
| enforceable there?
| convolvatron wrote:
| what if the people who hired you are total idiots and take
| you to court anyways?
| thwayunion wrote:
| Counter-sue for damages consisting of the total value of
| my foregone compensation package (which are typically 2-4
| year packages). Triple real damages because enforcing a
| prime facie unenforceable contract is an unfair and
| deceptive business practice. I would be more than happy
| to be the test case for this novel theory.
|
| My strong suspicion is that no competent employer has the
| balls to do anything other than settle the counter-suit
| (less about the $ amount than the precedent), and my even
| stronger suspicion is that I'd win the triple damages if
| the poor sops in legal were desperate enough for a
| severance package to try and fight.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> What if the law changes and now it 's enforceable?_
|
| Before that happened, I'd remind my lawmaker of both my
| generous giving and also how valuable my personal time and
| network has been, relative to any campaign donation, in
| terms of winning and keeping the seat.
|
| If it happened anyways, I'd move my primary residence.
|
| _> What if you move to another USA state, or to another
| country, and it 's enforceable there?_
|
| That's not how non-competes work in any US jurisdiction of
| which I'm aware.
|
| Even if it were: if a company wants my labor -- and enough
| do that I'm not concerned about finding takers -- then they
| have to hire me in a state where I'm comfortable with non-
| compete law. I don't care about in office vs remote, but I
| do care about non-compete law. Companies shop around
| jurisdictions. In-demand labor should as well.
| petsfed wrote:
| >Get a lawyer, ensure it's not enforcable, then sign it.
|
| There's a lot of daylight (and a few thousand dollars in
| legal fees) between "would be thrown out upon casual perusal"
| and "is not technically enforceable, but we'd have to
| litigate in front of a sympathetic judge".
|
| The issue has never, EVER been whether or not Jimmy John's
| non-compete is enforceable, its that a person leaving a Jimmy
| John's for a $0.50/hr raise at the Burger King across the
| street can't afford to litigate it, and the Burger King
| franchisee definitely won't pay to litigate it.
|
| For those of us who can afford a lawyer to analyze a non-
| compete clause (and the barest of legal fees necessary to
| show in front of a judge such a clause), they aren't really
| an issue. But that's actually a pretty small subset of the
| population.
| thwayunion wrote:
| Totally agreed. My advice is targeted at laborers and
| employers who can afford the fight.
|
| BTW, there's a lot of money to be made here by an
| enterprising lawyer. The laws have been moving fast and
| most companies -- even those that should know better and
| will get very little sympathy -- aren't playing by the
| rules.
| InfamousRece wrote:
| You have to be careful with that. Sometimes unenforceable
| non-compete can be amended by a judge and become enforceable.
| I believe the term is "blue pencil" rule vs "red pencil"
| rule.
|
| Reference: https://www.upcounsel.com/blue-pencil-rule
| thwayunion wrote:
| Inapplicable in my case.
|
| First, the state's statute is _extremely_ clearly worded.
| The amount of judicial activism required for me not to win
| some substantial monetary damages -- at least a multiple of
| garden leave -- would go far beyond taking a pencil to the
| contract; it would require substantially rewriting plainly
| worded statute itself. That 's not a blue pencil; it's a
| sledgehammer to the constitution.
|
| Second, I'm in an "equitably" state. A core claim of the
| counter-suit would be that I'm been deprived of a
| low-8-figure compensation package due to litigation.
| Lawsuits take years. No blue pencil can "reset" the
| contract to an equitable state without first evaluating
| that counter-claim. That's the point of the counter-suit,
| btw. I don't need the fucking money.
|
| Anyways, given the composition of our judiciary, I think
| all of my previous and existing employers lack the balls to
| risk the precedent we'd be working to establish. Especially
| since, in order to establish that precedent, I'd settle for
| a Pyrrhic victory. (I have shitloads of cash, live a monk's
| life, and will burn the world down to kill non-competes.
| Corporations are hyper-rational sociopaths, and if you're
| going to work for one you need to play the game theory
| accordingly.)
|
| That said...
|
| 1. IANAL.
|
| 2. I have a lawyer but my lawyer is not your lawyer.
|
| 3. Get a lawyer to review anything you sign, before
| signing.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Pair this story with the other one that made the front page -
| about Meta paying employees not to work, but not to work for
| their rival FAANGs. And yet I'd be surprised if there weren't a
| horde of lawyers that go to bat on behalf of employees trying to
| hop to a different Big Name but have to deal with noncompetes.
| It's a weird world in the Valley.
|
| When you put those two approaches side by side, you're almost
| forced to say Meta did it better, simply because if an employee
| bound by a noncompete can't work for a rival, at least Meta was
| paying them not to.
| paxys wrote:
| > And yet I'd be surprised if there weren't a horde of lawyers
| that go to bat on behalf of employees trying to hop to a
| different Big Name but have to deal with noncompetes. It's a
| weird world in the Valley.
|
| The difference is that non-competes are (mostly) illegal in
| California, so silicon valley tech companies don't use them at
| all. Meta has no choice but to employ and pay developers if
| they want to stop Google from having them.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Right, right, the California Exception to Everything...
|
| At a past job, there was a 2-year noncompete clause that
| stated I could not work with any company, anywhere in the
| world, who currently competes _or might someday compete_ with
| the company I was at. I 'm in the biotech industry, so I was
| unimpressed when I first read that. I can only imagine it was
| designed to intimidate people who would take that clause at
| its word, not realizing it was so broad and vague that it
| would be unenforceable.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| So noncompetes are just a result of the human tendency to assert
| control wherever possible?
| [deleted]
| moosey wrote:
| This tendency is not necessarily human. There are enormous
| numbers of humans disinterested in control of others, or their
| environment, etc.
|
| Those who want control might suggest otherwise, and they might
| actually believe it, but that's just lack of creativity
| (thinking of other possible worldviews) or empathy (realizing
| that others might see things differently).
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Yup. In a group of 100 people, if only one wants control,
| guess who will probably get control? Paradoxically, it's
| probably the last person you want having control.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Noncompetes are an attempt by companies to deny potential
| resources to their competitors. Nothing more or less than that.
|
| That's why they're unethical -- they're using a former employee
| as a kind of cannon fodder in a business war.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| If that's all they were, then we would have never seen
| companies create broad non competes that deprive a person of
| their livelihood.
|
| I agree that's one purpose, but I think another is to
| penalize the employee for leaving, discouraging them from
| doing so... and as a result increasing retention and/or
| reducing the pressure on the company to deliver increased
| benefits and wages in the future.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Yes, this is an excellent point.
|
| Interestingly, when I am presented with an employment
| contract, there are two things that often appear and that I
| always require to be removed: noncompete clauses and
| wording that assigns the rights to all of the work I do
| (even work that does not use my employer's time, resources,
| or knowledge) to my employer.
|
| I have never once had an employer refuse to remove or
| modify those terms, but a couple of times it took a bit of
| negotiation to get there.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| Jimmy John's forced fast food employees to sign non-competes.
|
| The labor pool of potential fast food workers is so vast, and
| the number of employees is so vast that it's very clear these
| non competes were intended to threaten workers and suppress
| wages.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| More like--if you can do something that's very, very unlikely
| to benefit you, but also costs _you_ nothing and cannot hurt
| you, you may as well do it (unless you care about, like, ethics
| or any of that mumbo-jumbo)
| skeletal88 wrote:
| In europe, in my country, the company that wants to enforce their
| non-compete has to pay the former employee their salary for the
| duration of the non-compete. I mean if i was working at a bank
| diing ordinsry software development like is done at all the banks
| then if they want me not to use my knowledge of payment schedule
| snd late fee calculations at other banks then they have to
| compensare for it.
|
| This change in the law killed all the non-competes for software
| developers, because it was ridiculous. If you wsnt me not to work
| then pay me for my time.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| I've never fully understood the market failure here.
|
| Let's assume no Monopsony. Let's assume no collusion by
| employers, since this is explicitly illegal, indeed it did
| happen, but the tech firms were slapped on the wrist for it.
|
| Why do employees not attempt to strike out those portions of
| their contract? Why does no entrepreneur create a tech company
| with one of the innovations being a no "non-compete" clause and
| using that to woo employees?
|
| My guess is that employees do not actually dislike non-complete
| clauses that they would accept a lower wage in compensation for
| no "non-compete".
| mjevans wrote:
| * A huge difference in power between the parties.
|
| * Lack of laws. Non-competes should be treated as an exclusive
| employment by the company, to expressly NOT work on any of the
| covered topics. They must be funded.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| Who has more "power" in the arrangement seems to be a
| function of the business cycle. Employees, in tech (we are on
| hackernews), had far more power 1-2 years ago.
|
| Why does there need to be a law here? Why don't employees
| say: "If you want a non-compete you have to pay me $X/hr
| more" or conversely if non-competes are common : "you can pay
| me $X/hr less if there is no non-compete".
|
| That this doesn't happen, and that there isn't a wiley
| entrepreneur out there figuring out that "if everyone would
| take X less for non-compete job, I'll offer then X/2 and make
| bank!". Since this doesn't happen, this means that employees
| don't care much at all.
| nickff wrote:
| Most people value compensation in the short term over the
| absence of a non-compete in the long term.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| Yes. I agree.
|
| I think this is the root of the problem. They do not attempt
| to compute a price.
| tombert wrote:
| I certainly understand _why_ companies do this, but often these
| non-competes are so overly broad to a point of being farcical.
|
| When I was at Apple, in my free time, I started hacking on a
| clone of Plex Server. I had gotten multiple emails around the
| time saying that open-source policies have changed, and every
| open source contribution needs to be approved by the VP of
| technology, which sufficiently scared me. I managed to get a
| meeting with the VP of tech when I was in California, and while
| he was extremely polite, his response was that because my project
| dealt with video, and Apple _sells_ video, it 's therefore
| competitive, so I need to immediately stop working on it. [1]
|
| It honestly kind of soured my opinion of the company, and I
| subsequently became a kind of crappy worker, because I stopped
| really caring if I made Apple better. I stayed on for about 1.5
| years after that, and accomplished very little in the aftermath.
|
| If he had just let me open source my stupid project that, lets be
| honest, would not have diverted a _single_ dollar away from
| Apple, I think they would have gotten much better work from me by
| the end of my time there.
|
| [1] Yes, obviously I could work on it in secret, and maybe it was
| a fools errand to ask permission on this, but I really didn't
| think Apple was going to be so overly broad with their definition
| of "competitive".
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Really their policy on open source programming while working
| there is one of the main reasons I have never considered
| applying there.
| olliej wrote:
| noncompetes that don't include full compensation for the period
| of the noncompete are purely a tool for wage suppression. That
| uncompensated noncompetes are legal, let alone a thing that
| companies do, is abhorrent.
| madsbuch wrote:
| they are not in Denmark. in Denmark you can only enforce a non
| compete, if you compensate (not 100% salary though)
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| Garden leave is a pretty imperfect mechanism. Given
| bonuses/RSUs and benefits, even 100% base salary could
| represent a 50% compensation cut plus the potential cost of
| taking a year break mid-career. Sure, some would be happy to
| sign up but a lot wouldn't really want to be in that
| position.
| olliej wrote:
| Oh I agree entirely, the compensation should match your
| opportunity in industry. Specifically if you can get an
| offer for total compensation X and your current employer
| chooses to say you can't work at that other company, your
| current employer gets to match X plus say a 20-30% premium
| to compensate for lost year of experience, lost year of
| promotions, etc and to try and say "do you really want to
| inflict this noncompete on people?". Note that you would
| not be employed by your current/former employer, they are
| paying you to not work for a competitor but if they require
| you to do work for them then they're just reseting the non-
| compete period.
|
| My goal in limiting NCAs would be for employers: "you
| cannot use non competes to artificially lower employee
| compensation, as your total cost will be much very
| expensive"; and for individuals: "if you are subject to an
| NCA you will actually be compensated for that period".
|
| It would also mean you can do industry standard practice of
| changing jobs to increase compensation even while subject
| to an NCA as they would be required to pay you more than
| the "competitor" if you get an offer and they want to
| prevent you taking it. Again the goal is to prevent the use
| of NCAs for wage suppression - the company requiring the
| NCA would have to be really dedicated to their belief the
| NCA is needed.
| madsbuch wrote:
| I am not entirely sure if you juxtapose the legal framework
| for Danish non-competes and garden leave. But assuming you
| do: In Denmark you are formally not employed, and you are
| free (actually obligated) to look for other job
| opportunities. You just can't, well, compete. So you can
| not take employment in a competitors company etc.
| ghaff wrote:
| So, if you're a lawyer, you just can't work as a lawyer.
| Or at least you need to work for a different type of
| company which may not be easy to do depending on your
| specialty. In fact, forcing someone to look for work
| doing something different seems like an even worse
| outcome than letting them do whatever personal activities
| they want for a year at reduced pay.
| madsbuch wrote:
| > you need to work for a different type of company
|
| This is the correct interpretation.
|
| There is a max time of 6 months for non-compete (and non-
| solicit). So in practice this is never an issue - you
| just wait out your 6 months.
| ghaff wrote:
| Except what normally happens for professional jobs in the
| US is that someone lines up a new job, _then_ they quit
| (and maybe take a few weeks off between jobs). In
| general, in the US, not being able to start a new job for
| 6 months would be a non-starter in many situations. And,
| while some occupations may be very hot, depending upon
| your age /experience/etc. being able to just quit and
| count on quickly lining something up when you start
| looking seems risky.
| madsbuch wrote:
| I am not advocating this system at all, merely pointing
| out that in Denmark there are protections for employees
| and a requirement for the employer to pay.
| olliej wrote:
| So... you're free to change employer as long as you are
| willing to take a pay cut to work outside your field?
| madsbuch wrote:
| Yes, for a maximum of 6 months, which is the maximum time
| you can enforce a non-compete in Denmark.
| olliej wrote:
| Right, and so you should be compensated at the rate of
| the profession your former employer is preventing you
| from working.
|
| I don't see why an employer gets to say "well actually if
| you want to change your job you have to take a massive
| pay cut for 6 months. oh that means you can't afford your
| mortgage? ... that must suck. Have you considered working
| here for your current compensation indefinitely? that way
| you can keep your house"
| madsbuch wrote:
| Yep, that sounds reasonable.
| tedajax wrote:
| OK so... I can't work in my chosen field now? Seems
| pretty stupid.
| madsbuch wrote:
| Yes, for a maximum of 6 months, which is the maximum time
| you can enforce a non-compete in Denmark.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| what else is new, companies also said child labor laws will wreck
| business.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| s/said/say/
|
| And along with the GOP are working to remove those
| laws/restrictions.
|
| https://businessinsider.mx/fair-labor-standards-act-hiring-c...
| twiddling wrote:
| When you can't bring in sufficient numbers through
| immigration, you expand the labor pool in other ways.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| There are sufficient numbers... they expand the labor pool
| to reduce pressure on employers to increase pay and
| benefits. Need people desperate if you want to keep paying
| $7.25/hr.
|
| The bottom end of the labor market has the most slack...
| it's the last place in the labor market where you need
| additional supply.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Somebody has to work the BBQ pit for $8/hr... Teens want
| $20/hr and don't work. I bet we could get their little
| brother to do it for $8.
|
| /s
| nerdponx wrote:
| You're being sarcastic, but other people aren't.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| Actually, they're using kids to clean slaughterhouses and
| assemble cars.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| And also the Democrats.
|
| https://newjerseymonitor.com/2022/07/06/teens-in-n-j-can-
| wor...
| mbesto wrote:
| One of these things is not like the other:
|
| https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/related/proposals/sb3
| 3...
|
| https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bill-search/2022/A4222/bill-
| te...
|
| I bet you can guess who proposed which bill.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| If you want to argue that it's okay to roll back child
| labor laws to allow some children to work 50 hours per
| week over the summer but that it's not okay to roll back
| child labor laws to let children work as late as 9:30 on
| a school night, be my guest. I tend to agree that the
| Wisconsin bill is worse.
|
| The parent comment implied that it is always wrong to
| remove child labor laws, and that the GOP is the awful,
| backwards party that is doing it anyway. If you concede
| that it is okay to remove some child labor laws, in the
| words of the old joke, "Now we're just negotiating." I
| prefer that level of nuance over partisan ragebait.
|
| If you meant to say something else, posting the full
| content of both bills is not as illustrative of your
| point as you might think.
| Animats wrote:
| Huh.
|
| The Jersey shore has, for some reason, been the vacation
| spot run by teen labor.
|
| When you read these stories, the sense of entitlement of
| low-wage employers comes through strongly. If they aren't
| getting a steady supply of cheap labor, they get frantic
| and lobby for more cheap labor.
|
| Last week it was slaughterhouse workers. Countries that
| don't have a big underclass have to automate.[1]
|
| [1] https://scottautomation.com/en/industry/meat-processing
| cronix wrote:
| That is the first thing I redline in any potential contract. I've
| never had serious push back beyond, "oh, um, that's just
| boilerplate from our legal team. You're the first person who has
| said anything."
|
| It's basically along the lines of, "we know you have talent in x
| niche, which is why we are hiring you. However, you will no
| longer be allowed to work in that niche if we part ways for
| whatever reason" Yeah, ok.
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