[HN Gopher] New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
___________________________________________________________________
New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 282 points
Date : 2026-03-30 17:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.seattletimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.seattletimes.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=49.62
|
| https://eig.org/state-noncompete-map/
| mitchbob wrote:
| https://archive.ph/2026.03.27-223204/https://www.seattletime...
| sheikhnbake wrote:
| Big ups for pro-working class legislation
| Analemma_ wrote:
| It always baffles me how much resistance there is to banning
| noncompetes every time this is proposed, and how that resistance
| lives right alongside "we want to be the next Silicon Valley",
| even though pretty much every analysis of "what's Silicon
| Valley's secret sauce" cites the unenforceability of noncompetes
| as one of the most important factors. But maybe the ship is
| turning very slowly.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| People in control of orgs and capital want to telegraph thought
| leadership via "we want to be the next Silicon Valley" without
| actually giving up control of workers or making the necessary
| system changes. For a parallel, see how Jamie Dimon says "AI
| could help bring about the 4 day work week." [1] Is JPMorgan
| Chase trying to move to a 4 day work week? No, of course not.
| Jamie likes to be important and have his proclamations
| disseminated, not actually make the change being used to chase
| clout and status (because once wealthy, there is nothing left
| to chase if one wants to chase something).
|
| TLDR Talk is cheap, work and change is hard and painful
| (broadly speaking). Observe actions, not words.
|
| [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-
| says...
|
| Related:
|
| _" CEO Said a Thing" Journalism_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577735 - March 2026
| anon291 wrote:
| Non-competes are almost always unenforceable. Never take money
| (although even then, they're still mostly useless), and just
| ignore them and no one is going to do anything. That was what
| my business law professor taught us. No court is going to
| enforce a non-compete if it means the person who cannot compete
| is going to be unable to support themselves. The only time
| it'll be enforced is if you're already independently wealthy.
|
| In other words, a completely useless scare tactic.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| I know at least one person who joined a Michigan startup,
| moved over, got sued by non compete, and the new employer
| just didnt want any hassle and laid them off. This person had
| to leave country then.
|
| The take home is dont take tech jobs in states where non-
| compete clauses are still legal.
| anon291 wrote:
| Sue them back. Represent yourself. Get compensatory
| damages. They will lose unless you can support yourself. Do
| you think any state is going to let someone go on
| unemployment and withdraw from the public dole just because
| some private company wants to gain some competitive
| advantage. Lol
|
| But I do agree in general, never take compensation upon
| leaving a company, for whatever reason. Then everything is
| certainly unenforceable.
|
| As for leaving the country... even if a non-compete is
| found to be enforceable (due to you being self-sufficient,
| or sufficently compensated), then the scope cannot be
| country wide. It has to be limited to a particular
| reasonable geography and a particular reasonable field.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| The problem is it won't get as far as trial, if the old
| company gets wind of it early enough (and they often do). The
| old company will reach out to the new company and politely
| inform them they believe they have grounds for a noncompete
| suit. The new company will either indemnify the worker, or
| (far more often) drop them as not worth the hassle, and take
| their #2 choice.
|
| The legislation needs to change. The situation as it stands
| is ripe for barratry and bullying.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| You may not even get as far as an interview. More and more,
| I see job applications asking whether you are subject to
| non-competes, alongside asking about visa etc. I imagine
| answering yes will unceremoniously move your application to
| the reject pile.
| kccqzy wrote:
| It just means your start date is delayed. No different
| from interviewing a student whose graduation date is a
| year away or interviewing a foreigner who might require a
| few months of paperwork to get a work visa.
| x0x0 wrote:
| I lost a job because of one. In nyc. Company made some
| threats and the offer was pulled.
| bluGill wrote:
| You can sue the old company for that. You had a job that
| they are not allowing you to do. Courts don't like it when
| someone isn't allowed to support themselves, and so
| generally place narrow limits on what a non-compete tan
| cover. You should sue for the sake of the rest of us who
| might be next when this tactic is found to work.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Lawsuits take years and are very expensive in time and
| money. Years of litigation cost Epic billions in legal
| fees and lost revenue. It's much much worse if you don't
| start with millions.
| postflopclarity wrote:
| I don't think this is quite true. in my industry & city,
| noncompetes are very common and commonly enforced.
| tzs wrote:
| > No court is going to enforce a non-compete if it means the
| person who cannot compete is going to be unable to support
| themselves. The only time it'll be enforced is if you're
| already independently wealthy.
|
| The first part is probably usually true, because places where
| non-competes are enforceable generally will not enforce them
| if they are overly broad.
|
| But for tech workers there are almost always other jobs that
| the worker can qualify for and pay similarly to their old job
| but are not covered by the non-compete and then then non-
| competes do get enforced even though the worker is not
| independently wealthy.
|
| A fairly recent example [1].
|
| [1] https://callaborlaw.com/blog/former-draftkings-employee-
| lose...
| Aurornis wrote:
| Is there actually substantial resistance to this? Or just a few
| manufactured counter-arguments from news outlets trying to do a
| both-sides take on this?
|
| Non-competes have been heavily limited or outright voided in
| California. That's an easy and obvious rebuttal to the Silicon
| Valley argument.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Yes. The US Chamber of Commerce is particularly noteworthy in
| their attempts to slow the deployment of this policy at
| scale. They of course act on behalf of their members as a
| reputational laundering operation, so their members do not
| have to engage in this lobbying directly (potentially
| exposing them to reputational risk).
|
| _U.S. Chamber of Commerce and business groups file lawsuit
| challenging FTC noncompete ban_ -
| https://www.fmglaw.com/employment-law-blog-us/u-s-chamber-
| of... - April 26th, 2024
|
| > Less than 24 hours later, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
| Business Roundtable, the Texas Association of Business, and
| the Longview Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against the
| FTC in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of
| Texas alleging that the consumer protection agency lacks the
| authority to issue rules that define unfair methods of
| competition, and instead, the FTC Act only allows it to bring
| cases challenging particular practices. The Chamber's
| Complaint also contends that even if the FTC possessed such
| authority, the "noncompete rule would still be unlawful
| because noncompete agreements are not categorically unlawful
| under Section 5." The lawsuit further argues that the rule is
| "impermissibly retroactive" and reflects an "arbitrary and
| capricious exercise" of the FTC's power.
|
| > The Chamber of Commerce is seeking an order "vacating and
| setting aside the noncompete rule in its entirety" and an
| order permanently enjoining the FTC from enforcing the rule.
| The plaintiffs are also seeking an order to delay the
| effective date and implementation of the noncompete ban until
| the conclusion of the case.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| There's a lot of opposition to pretty much any nigh objectively
| good thing for the people. Just follow the money. It usually
| comes down to
|
| 1. lobbyists vying for a company who wants to keep power
|
| 2. the legislature having its own vested interest from
| relationship/deal/lobbying
|
| 3. the minority of constituents are the ones who constantly
| call in and go to townhalls, because they have the time, money,
| or energy to do so compared to someone who's at work during a
| townhall.
| remarkEon wrote:
| What's the actual steel man argument for why noncompetes are
| good? I've never really encountered one, just seen the
| corporate advocacy that they don't want to deal with high
| employee turnover.
|
| Best I can do: Non-competes are (possibly) unenforceable
| anyway, so signing one maybe acts as a value signal for the
| employee? "I'd have to violate my non-compete, so in order to
| do that and permanently burn the bridge with my current
| company, you need to pay me $X + $Y."
|
| Frankly I don't buy it, though, because it assumes too much
| about the rationality of all actors involved and the savviness
| of the employee during negotiations.
| jkingsbery wrote:
| I am glad most places are getting rid of non-competes. But
| here is the best argument I've heard for them:
|
| For many companies, a lot of their value is in their
| intellectual property. Non-competes exist not because the
| company will enforce it against employees (they might, but
| they usually don't), but more as a fig-leaf to potential
| investors down the line asking about the value of the
| intellectual property. The argument goes, if someone could
| easily leave the company with the knowledge earned and go to
| a competitor, then the investment wouldn't be as valuable.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Okay this I do buy, but that would only explain non-
| competes for startups, right?
| dismalaf wrote:
| > What's the actual steel man argument for why noncompetes
| are good?
|
| It makes it possible to confidently buy a business that's
| mostly or all goodwill. Otherwise the previous owner can
| simply poach all the clients.
|
| Also lots of jurisdictions allow non-competes as long as the
| employee is paid for the duration of the non-compete clause.
| Obvious win there: paid vacation or double up your salary by
| working for a non-competing firm.
|
| Non-competes on employees without compensation are obviously
| bad.
| tzs wrote:
| > What's the actual steel man argument for why noncompetes
| are good?
|
| It probably depends on the kind of job.
|
| If say Walmart tried to use a noncompete to stop cashiers
| from going to Target there probably is no reasonable argument
| in favor of that.
|
| On the other when the employee is a top level executive who
| knows all the company's trade secrets and all their plans for
| the next year or so and they want to go to a direct
| competitor it is hard to see how they won't use that
| information at the competitor. Even if they scrupulously try
| to uphold any NDAs they are under and so don't consciously do
| it stuff will leak.
|
| If the first company sues accusing the second company and/or
| ex-employee of using such information it can get pretty
| messy, and consumer judicial resources better used for other
| things.
|
| A policy then of allowing noncompetes in this situation might
| overall be beneficial. Top level executives are generally
| well compensated and should be sufficiently sophisticated
| financially to understand the consequences of a noncompete
| and take that into account when deciding on taking the job so
| having to sit out 6-12 months before taking a directly
| competing job should not be a serious issue.
| lokar wrote:
| In theory, something like a technical job that requires
| extensive training. I always see reports about a lack of
| training for high tech trade / manufacturing jobs, as they
| require up to 2 years of training, but training slots are
| limited. You might get companies to pay the training if they
| could be assured the person would not run to a competitor.
| But even that should be agreed up front, with a limited term
| (eg we will train your two years, then pay you $X, and you
| will be subject to a noncompete for four years)
| tbrownaw wrote:
| The place I work has[1] a thing where they'll pay for
| (some?) college classes, and it comes with a clawback if
| you leave too quickly after.
|
| [1] well, as of when I last looked a few years ago
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| A lot of training isn't accredited or transferrable and
| just a scam.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Personally I think the way to go about this isn't to ban non-
| compete agreements but instead to get a couple of highly public
| cases where said non-compete is voided because the employee
| didn't receive anything of value for it. Once case law is clear
| that it requires 80% of the employees salary for the term of
| the lockup, companies will only require it where it makes sense
| rather than applying it willy-nilly due to the essentially free
| nature.
| lateforwork wrote:
| The flip side should be considered as well. There should be some
| sort of protection for small startup companies. A big company
| should not be able to steal an innovative startup's technology by
| hiring away the employees that worked on the product. That used
| to happen a lot when Bill Gates was running Microsoft, for
| example.
|
| Patents provide some protection, but it is flawed because a big
| company can put you out of business if you get into a patent war.
| An employee should be able to leave at any time and work for a
| competitor, but maybe should not do identical work, otherwise
| startups will have a hard time protecting their IP.
| kccqzy wrote:
| This is not a mechanism to protect startups. This is a
| mechanism to protect the flow of ideas, whether the ideas are
| flowing from a big company to a startup or vice versa. Workers
| who find a big company bureaucratic should be able to launch a
| startup. Workers who find a small startup insufficiently
| resourceful should also join a big company to get resources.
| observationist wrote:
| Companies need to put more care into who they trust, and maybe
| incentivize skin in the game. If leaving for a competitor means
| you lose equity, agency, ownership, or some intangible, that
| can outweigh bigger paychecks.
|
| The market should be able to solve this problem without the
| government setting arbitrary rules, and people should be
| allowed to sign contracts that limit or restrict their freedom,
| so long as it involves informed consent from all parties.
|
| If Microsoft wants to hire an AI expert for a million dollars a
| year, and restrict him from competing for 2 years after leaving
| Microsoft so as to avoid losing market advantage, that seems
| like a reasonable thing for Microsoft to want. If all Apple has
| to do to get all the Copilot secrets is hire the chief copilot
| engineer for 1.5 million, seems like that creates a toxic
| dynamic and all but guarantees acquihires and a near immediate
| turnaround in a startup to corporate pipeline for raiding IP.
|
| Maybe we should be limiting businesses to doing business at a
| scale they can responsibly handle. If you can't get human
| customer service for your computer issues because Windows and
| Mac have scaled far beyond the number of users they could ever
| hope to handle, maybe that market needs regulation, and unless
| they scale customer service accordingly, they don't get to
| target a majority of the world's population as their customer
| base?
|
| That'd certainly create jobs and opportunities for Linux and
| induce a revolution in software markets, and it'd limit the
| incentives for MS and Apple and big tech to do shitty things to
| suppress the markets overall.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| The solution here in finance is garden leave, where people
| are contractually barred from competing with their former
| employer during a period for which they are compensated as if
| they were fully employed!
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| A lot of politics is people pretending the solution space
| hasn't already been explored.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| acquhire practicies show that yes - sometimes people really ARE
| the company. However, i think for the average C# developer, or
| Epson printer specialist or wordpress or Bosch controller
| analyst, these arent really true.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| No big company is going to bother poaching that way. They are
| either going to purchase the company outright or undercut them
| with their own competing product to kill it off through
| attrition. We're not in the 2010's anymore where people are
| banging at the door for singular SWE's.
| otterley wrote:
| Small startups in California (where many, if not the majority,
| of tech startups are headquartered) do just fine without
| enforceable non-compete agreements.
|
| It's also already unlawful to steal another company's assets
| when you leave. Besides, companies should file provisional
| patent applications as soon as they invent valuable proprietary
| technology to prevent the sort of subject matter leakage you
| mention.
| dymk wrote:
| Employers have plenty of leverage over workers already.
|
| Every time a pro-worker bill passes, there's an endless scree
| of "But what about the corporations?". Wow it's tiring.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| The only time I see non-competes as reasonable is when someone
| sells a business. It seems fair to put a territory restriction on
| a seller so the new owner doesn't have to immediately start
| competing against the person they bought out.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Isn't that doable via stay on and holdback clauses?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think every company with contracts like this should have a
| well furnished roof for these employees to hang out during
| the day
| josephg wrote:
| Why? They started one successful business. It seems good for
| society if they go on to start another.
| bs7280 wrote:
| Why would I buy a business if the person im buying it from is
| just going to create a new one to compete with me?
| genthree wrote:
| To have own the business?
|
| Purchases that wouldn't go through if they didn't reduce
| competition _shouldn 't happen anyway_. Banning those kinds
| of restrictions would help with that.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| Often an acquisition of a company is for the set of
| customers. If I sell my lawn care business and then turn
| around and email all my former clients offering them lawn
| care via my new company, I've just undercut what I just sold.
|
| Noncompete shouldn't be so broad that I couldn't move to
| another city and start a lawn care business there, but I
| shouldn't be able to compete directly with the business I
| just sold using my insider information of that business.
| hedgehog wrote:
| There's also a big difference between starting a competing
| business like your example, and being barred from say
| working on "cloud infrastructure" because your previous
| employer also worked on "cloud infrastructure". It can be
| blurry for executives, but in general noncompetes seem to
| be used to push pay down more than for any legitimate
| business purpose.
| themafia wrote:
| > Often an acquisition of a company is for the set of
| customers.
|
| That's a merger. You can, not having any business
| currently, buy yourself into one. In which case the
| acquisition is purely for the profits.
|
| > I've just undercut what I just sold.
|
| No you've just competed with them. If your prices are lower
| then you've undercut them. If their prices are artificially
| high then the market, a.k.a. those customers, are the ones
| to benefit.
|
| > but I shouldn't be able to compete directly with the
| business I just sold
|
| Competition is _competition_. You didn't buy a market you
| bought an opportunity. You still have to compete against
| everyone else.
|
| > I just sold using my insider information of that
| business.
|
| Insider information? On a lawn care business that has no
| issued securities?
| Klonoar wrote:
| That is not even remotely the point OP is arguing.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| That's how it works in California. I had a 3 year non-compete
| with VMware after we sold a business to them. It was restricted
| to the specific market and technology our business covered but
| didn't limit activities in other areas. It seemed completely
| fair to me.
|
| Besides, competing would have meant doing exactly the same
| thing over again. What's the fun in that?
| colechristensen wrote:
| >Besides, competing would have meant doing exactly the same
| thing over again. What's the fun in that?
|
| All of the baggage and tech debt gone! THIS TIME WE'LL DO IT
| RIGHT
| dylan604 wrote:
| It is not unheard of that employees leave a company to
| start their own precisely because the company is not
| addressing something specific leaving a gap in services.
| The startup begins to gain traction to the point the
| company the employees left buys the startup. It's like this
| is the only way for the company to "do it right", yet it
| would have been cheaper if they'd just let the employees do
| the thing as employees in the first place
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > it would have been cheaper if they'd just let the
| employees do the thing as employees in the first place
|
| Keep in mind the company is probably not refusing to do
| things because of cost. Often it is because of risk.
|
| A lot of people running businesses have _terrible_
| judgement when it comes to risk
| yegle wrote:
| PeopleSoft -> Workday
| gridder wrote:
| Apple -> NeXT
| mzi wrote:
| Here in Sweden non-competes without a financial agreement is
| void. And those that offer some financial are probably OK, but
| haven't been tried extensively.
|
| The non-competes I've signed have offered 60% of my base pay
| for six months (the length of the non-compete) if I cannot find
| a job because of the contract if the company exercise it.
|
| They never have exercised it for me.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Those sorts of agreements are generally still allowed with
| these anti non-compete laws. If there is a specific non-
| compete contract that is signed, with money being paid for it
| directly, that is fine. That is a normal contract where both
| sides trade something of value.
|
| The types that are banned are ones that set the restriction
| as a part of a normal employment contract, where there is no
| specific compensation given for accepting the non-compete and
| where the employee can't decide to abandon the non-compete in
| return for not getting the extra money.
| mzi wrote:
| Yeah, those contracts are not valid here as the right to
| livelihood will trump that contract.
|
| So even if you sign that clause you are not bound by it.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Right, the way it would work is that you are getting some
| sort of payment every month for not competing. If you
| choose to start competing, those payments stop. You can
| choose to stop the non-compete at any time, you are just
| giving up that income stream.
| bombcar wrote:
| The problem is allowing companies to _do_ contracts that
| their lawyers know are null and void (like the above) but
| the _employee_ may not know.
|
| Employees _thinking_ they are subject to legal penalties
| /fight due to a non-enforceable non-compete gets the
| company 90% of what they want, anyway, and so to prevent
| that they should be _strongly_ punished.
| bsder wrote:
| > So even if you sign that clause you are not bound by
| it.
|
| Jimmy John's was making its low-level employees sign non-
| competes, for example. This was ridiculous on its face,
| and probably wouldn't hold up in court. However, the
| people affected by it were least able to take it to
| court.
| worik wrote:
| In New Zealand it has been like that for ever, but no one
| knew, and employers used them and employees abide.
|
| Partly it was naked power.
| Beestie wrote:
| Non-competes are restrictions on employees by their current
| employer. A non-compete agreement between a seller and buyer is
| perfectly fine.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > A non-compete agreement between a seller and buyer is
| perfectly fine.
|
| Well, it's up to market protection agencies to look at the
| specifics.
| Beestie wrote:
| Not really. Individuals who can build a company are under
| no obligation to sell it to anyone placing unreasonable
| conditions on the sale. If I'm buying your company, I have
| a concern that you might pull of of the customers back
| (having started a new company) but the price I'm willing to
| offer you compensates you for the book of business you are
| selling to me. That's where non-solicitation clauses come
| in.
|
| I think the operative principal here is that employees are
| at a disadvantage w/r to employers. Buyers and sellers are
| not presumed to be at any disadvantage w/r to each other.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Technically, restrictions on employees by their FORMER
| employer. In theory (if valid), they could retain power over
| you for a time AFTER you are no longer employed.
|
| A similar thing is often done during dismissal: sign away
| your rights to sue for wrongful dismissal in return for
| severance. In my case, almost a year's worth of pay seemed
| like a reasonable severance, so I took it and didn't argue.
| bickfordb wrote:
| I also see these as reasonable since they are part of the
| negotiation of selling the business. Non-competes as it relates
| to most ordinary employees in the US is typically a contract of
| adhesion: a surprise take it or leave it clause while signing
| an employment agreement, well after a job offer and salary
| negotiation.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| It's not the noncompetes that's the problem, it's confidentiality
| agreements with extremely broad language.
|
| Learn about the legal principle of "inevitable disclosure". It's
| the idea you can't work for a competitor because you can't help
| yourself but violate an NDA
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Inevitably, it's just the need for lawyers to intervene in
| "common sense" negotiations. It's never legal to do X, Y, Z,
| but if the business has all the lawyers and the employee has
| non, then it doesn't really matter whats legal; it's whose
| willing to exhaust the cash to fight the issue.
|
| Which of course, is why unions are what's needed to properly
| negotiate employee-employer relationships, the same way a
| strong government is needed to negotiate corporate-civil
| relationships.
|
| Americans, however, have decided that "individual freedom" is
| _soooooo_ valuable, that it only exists for people with enough
| cash to defend it.
| wbl wrote:
| Have fun trying that in CA.
| WarmWash wrote:
| I haven't heard much about it, but I am incredibly curious
| about how this is currently shaking out in the AI craze.
|
| It seems these labs are revolving doors, and any kind of
| breakthrough knowledge would immediately make you incredibly
| valuable to other labs or incredibly valuable as a spinoff
| start-up. Never mind these researchers all knowing each other
| and certainly having more than a few common spaces (digital or
| IRL). And the excitement of working in a fresh field still
| littered with low hanging fruit.
|
| I can't help but feel that a large part of the reason why the
| labs are neck and neck is because everyone is talking to
| everyone else.
|
| I can't substantiate any of this though, it seems to have
| largely dodged anything besides internal conversation.
| ralph84 wrote:
| They're all in California where the law is very pro-employee.
| As long as you're not taking actual documents or code with
| you, there's nothing your former employer can do about what's
| in your head.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| This is a huge part of how SV as a whole works. People figure
| out what works and point out how to do things better at their
| next roles. It's mostly a good thing. The main downside is
| that it exacerbates tendencies to cargo cult apply solutions
| for problems that come from a particular organizational scale
| to orgs without them.
| matthest wrote:
| A win for Adam Smith capitalism.
| jkingsbery wrote:
| Not sure if this is meant sarcastically or not, but it is - it
| helps reduce transaction costs of changing employers. Anyone
| who has ever signed a contract with wide non-competes knows
| that it is hard for an individual to negotiate against it on an
| individual basis, but they are rarely enforced in practice,
| which leaves open individuals to worries about "maybe I'm one
| of the unlucky few?" These clauses then primarily only
| increased transaction costs, so eliminating them aids free
| exchange.
| matthest wrote:
| Not sarcastic. Anything that helps keep markets optimally
| competitive is good for capitalism.
| otterley wrote:
| Why wait until 2027, instead of making it effective immediately?
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Especially when WA's ruling party regularly uses false
| 'emergency' declarations to make new laws become effective
| immediately and because this lets them make new legislation
| immune to voter referendums (yes they abuse this loophole all
| the time). They could do the same here. If they don't, it's a
| choice made on purpose.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Washington has a 2/3 threshold in both houses of the
| legislature to pass emergency legislation, and the majority
| party is short of a 2/3 supermajority in both houses, so it
| is actually impossible for them to unilaterally pass
| emergency bills. Also, emergency laws in Washington are _not_
| immune to initiative (repeal or amendment by subsequent laws
| passed by the voters), but are immune to referendum (popular
| veto by the voters before going into effect).
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Where are you seeing that emergency clauses need a 2/3
| majority in each house? I thought they require a simple
| majority.
|
| Regardless, the ruling party has pretty close to a
| supermajority - over 60% in each house. And also keep in
| mind, some of the members of the other party are opposition
| in name only due to the districts where they compete. The
| share doesn't really matter - the main issue is that it is
| overused. There shouldn't be a hundred emergency clauses in
| each legislative session.
|
| As for the voters' constitutional right to repeal - I've
| updated the terminology. From
| https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/time-
| to...
|
| > Despite the name, the real reason for these supposed
| emergencies is not that the state faces some immediate
| threat. Legislation that includes an emergency clause can
| only be repealed using an initiative, which requires twice
| as many signatures as a referendum to put on the ballot for
| the voters to keep or reject. Referenda also face fewer
| legal challenges because they consist of a simple up or
| down vote on a piece of legislation.
|
| It doesn't change the fact that the abuse of these
| emergency clauses is anti democratic and an abuse of power
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Because Washington has a Constitutional provision requiring
| that no law shall take effect sooner than 90 days after the end
| of the session in which it is adopted [0] unless it is an
| emergency law passed with a 2/3 vote, and the common convention
| for most normal laws is to set the first January 1 certain to
| come after the 90-day period of the current session as the
| effective date so that "new law day" for non-emergency laws is
| consistent.
|
| [0] Each state is different here, but a "90 days after end of
| session", or "90 days after passage" rule for the soonest a
| passed bill can go into effect, with exceptions for emergency
| bills with special rules including a supermajority requirement,
| are pretty common, as are conventions of setting a January 1
| effective date in the legislation itself when the minimum is X
| days from end of session or passage.
| bombcar wrote:
| One of those is even enshrined as an amendment:
| https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-27/
| dismalaf wrote:
| This feels a tad heavy-handed and will make it tougher to sell a
| business without hard assets.
|
| It should just be banned for employees or require a payout of
| (previous salary) * (length of non-compete).
| colechristensen wrote:
| As the years go buy I'm gradually more and more in favor of
| restrictions to sell businesses. They tend to benefit two
| groups: the people running a successful business and the people
| running the even more successful businesses buying them.
|
| They tend not to benefit the employees, the customers, the
| competitors and really anyone else besides a small number of
| people who are already very successful.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Not all businesses are wildly successful. Some are _just_
| successful enough to provide a single family with a middle
| class income. For some people, selling that is their only
| hope of retirement.
|
| It's not like the seller never has an option to say no to the
| non-compete.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| All voluntary transactions benefits both buyer and seller.
|
| This is as it should be!
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| And the government exists to safeguard the benefit of the
| broader public. Not all transactions are legal.
| logicchains wrote:
| Then nobody creates businesses in your state and everyone
| there loses. What person in their right mind would invest
| their time and money into a business they wouldn't be able to
| sell?
| richwater wrote:
| This is quite a stupid idea: you kill all innovative behavior
| if a creator can't decide to sell his creation.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Creators more invested in running their creation than
| selling it might do a better job.
| hedgehog wrote:
| Why would it affect selling a business?
| dismalaf wrote:
| Previous owner can start the same business immediately and
| poach all the clients, reducing the value of the sold
| business to zero. Buyers obviously anticipate this and won't
| buy the business without the non-compete.
| hedgehog wrote:
| That would violate a non-compete attached to the sale.
| dismalaf wrote:
| The posted article is literally about banning non-
| competes.
| hedgehog wrote:
| ...for employees. For business owners there are different
| rules (IIRC > 1% ownership threshold).
| modeless wrote:
| On the other hand it's a boon to those establishing new
| businesses. And a huge boon to employees. And a boon to the
| overall economy because it accelerates transfer of know-how out
| of older and more dysfunctional companies into newer and more
| nimble ones. This is what made Silicon Valley what it is,
| starting all the way back with the Traitorous Eight in 1957 and
| continuing today.
|
| There are so many wannabe "New Silicon Valley" alternative
| areas that are unwilling to copy the non-compete ban, and
| subsequently fail to compete with the real Silicon Valley. It's
| a necessary ingredient in my opinion.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| WA has bigger problems like crazy overspending at the state level
| and many cities, leading to a spiral of new taxes, even if they
| are unconstitutional (at the state level). This new noncompete
| law won't be enough to make the state more attractive to workers
| and businesses. It has nothing to really offer above California.
| tzs wrote:
| The article covers this, but probably worth having it mentioned
| here too: Washington already had partially banned noncompete
| agreements.
|
| They were banned for employees who made less the $127k/year or
| contractors who made less than $317k. Those numbers were adjusted
| annually for inflation.
|
| Edit: less/more mixup fixed
| curuinor wrote:
| Less than, not more than
| Beestie wrote:
| A clause I frequently see (as one who performs a lot of contract
| work) is a restriction on accepting an offer of employment from
| the client of the consulting firm I'm contracting with. Whenever
| I see this clause, I redline it out and advise the consulting
| firm to fashion a buyout clause* with the client. I'm very firm
| that the consulting firm cannot restrict my employment
| opportunities.
|
| * The buyout clause is between the client and consulting firm and
| roughly compensates the consulting firm for the lost profit of
| the rate diff over the remaining term of my contract with the
| consulting firm.
| hx8 wrote:
| I've had a buyout clause used while consulting before. The
| company was ending their relationship with the contracting
| company and wanted to keep a handful of individuals.
| ConradKilroy wrote:
| wow, I've learned so much from your post, owe you big time!
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| If you had asked me in 1995 what was the one thing[1] that Boston
| could change in order to compete with Silicon Valley I would have
| told you "Make non-compete agreements illegal" Companies in the
| Bay Area whined about it all the time but it kept the ecosystem
| vibrant and a lot of technology exists because of that. In the
| late 90's early '00s a big reason for a lot of 'high profile'
| people quitting their cushy job and setting out in a startup was
| because 'management' wouldn't allow them to move forward on an
| idea that they felt would "disrupt our own business." Those same
| people could quit, create a start up, and make that idea real
| anyway. So this is excellent progress for Washington State. I
| wonder how many ex-Microsoft employees this effects.
|
| [1] I vacillated between this and California law giving ownership
| of what you worked on in your own time on your own equipment
| yours, except the latter was pretty effectively neutered by big
| corps defining their businesses more vaguely.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Wait, I'm confused. Do you mean Boston should have made non-
| compete agreements illegal?
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Yes. At the time, non-compete agreements were legal (and
| commonplace) in Massachusetts. I haven't followed the Boston
| tech news for a decade so they may have changed that. But I
| had this exact conversation with Senator Ed Markey who was a
| congressman at the time. He was in the Bay Area and I was one
| of the people who were invited to a dinner he held on
| "Technology and Innovation."
| Twirrim wrote:
| Massachusetts used to be one of the most favourable states
| for non-compete agreements, with strong legal protection and
| support, favouring companies. Not sure if that has changed
| since the last time I looked (been a few years).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-law-about-
| no...
| charcircuit wrote:
| I think it's reasonable to prevent your employee from working for
| your competitor at the same time they are working for you. Or
| even an employee creating a startup themselves with AI and then
| mailing all of your clients.
| jmward01 wrote:
| I was just forced to sign one of these after already being
| employed. I, very clearly, pointed out that I didn't actually
| agree but that I needed a job. Often people don't see these
| things until it is too late to back out like at on-boarding or
| even later, as in my case. It is bad enough to have non-compete
| clauses, they are evil and should be banned, but then to
| sneak/force them after as if your employment is a TOS that can be
| changed at any time is beyond wrong.
|
| If you really are a good place to work people will stay. If you
| really are paying enough for the value you provide, people will
| stay. If you aren't then people will leave, for the competition
| likely since that is the industry they know. Non-compete is
| really just a power play that enables companies to pay employees
| less and it is an abuse of power.
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