Have we talked about non-competes
- Thread starter artradley
- Start date
Employees (EE) need to take control from their employers (ER) on this. Something very un-American about this practice.
employees who leave and then soliciting customers from the company they left...
Gotcha.
I skimmed the rule and preamble and it appears to still allow carefully-crafted non-solicitation covenants.
Prohibited - for 12 months after employment you can’t go to work for a competing business.
Still permitted (apparently) - for 12 months after employment you can’t call on customers you called on in your prior employment.
So really, appears not much has changed except for prohibiting the egregious non-competes that were already unenforceable.
Thank you! I appreciate your insights.
I agree with the solicitation parts. But preventing someone to move to another job is crap in my opinion. I know that there is caselaw refuting my position, but it just feels gross to me.
Good. I hope they rid of them. In my experiences they’ve been abused to try to keep wages suppressed and retain employees moreso than they have been to protect “trade secrets”, etc. If you want to keep employees, pay them appropriately.
The two Republicans vote to keep the rule. The working man’s party…
I've been subject to 2 non-competes. One I never signed due to incompetent HR folks, and the other was a cookie cutter agreement that had already been litigated by someone else and was unenforceable. I don't like non-competes generally, for lots of reasons. That said, I wonder what gives the FTC the right to outlaw them. Seems like the FTC is overstepping their authority.
Like the example cited in the article of a security guard. Complete BS to have a non-compete for a low-wage security guard, who's trade secrets would include walking around, having people sign a logbook, and looking at camera views on a monitor.
I'm OK with no contact clauses for 1 year or 6 mos. NEVER would sign a no-compete without a heck of a compensation.
I am ok with Non Competes up to a degree. There is also an aspect, if an employee brings a ton of business with them, if a few left, its really not a non compete issue as those individuals followed that individual to your business. Personally I think non competes should be restricted to the community you live in rural Iowa, or a very narrow radius of larger communities like 3-5 miles. Beyond that an employee should be able to gain employment and not be restricted by a non compete.
I have a non-compete, but it is very reasonable. Basically says I can’t take proprietary information (steal data) to another employer and also states that the agreement cannot prevent me from earning a livelihood. There’s nothing wrong with such an agreement.
A good friend runs (doesn’t own) a pretty good sized construction company in a mostly rural area. They (the owner’s family) have done very well being the primary option for new construction in the area, with little competition. They’ve got my friend locked up with an onerous non-compete and the owner gets to play the good cop in bid negotiations, post-job issues, etc while my friend has to play the asshole. He gets paid a good living, but nowhere near his value to the company and he’s prohibited from opening a competing business or working for another company within 60 miles for x amount of time. My friend has the talents and business acumen that grew the company to what it is, but it’s the family who hired him that has reaped the majority of the benefits. Without the non-compete he’d have likely been on his own a long time ago. Its contracts like these that are total bullshit.
A good friend runs (doesn’t own) a pretty good sized construction company in a mostly rural area. They (the owner’s family) have done very well being the primary option for new construction in the area, with little competition. They’ve got my friend locked up with an onerous non-compete and the owner gets to play the good cop in bid negotiations, post-job issues, etc while my friend has to play the asshole. He gets paid a good living, but nowhere near his value to the company and he’s prohibited from opening a competing business or working for another company within 60 miles for x amount of time. My friend has the talents and business acumen that grew the company to what it is, but it’s the family who hired him that has reaped the majority of the benefits. Without the non-compete he’d have likely been on his own a long time ago. Its contracts like these that are total bullshit.
One of my more satisfying moments was in my youth, when I moved to NJ after being hired by a consulting company that took advantage of people from low cost of living states by hiring them for salaries woefully inadequate for the Northeast. They had about a one hundred page packet that you had to fill out, several pages of which were a list of every company for whom we were not allowed to work if we left. It basically made it impossible to work in IT. I decided to not sign that page, and sure enough nobody in HR caught it. Within a few months I had the chance to double my pay with another company (on the list) so I turned in my notice.
I soon received a call from HR, and the guy smugly asked me if I was aware that I had a non-compete clause and that their policy was to enforce it. I told him I was aware, that the NC was total BS and that its ridiculous terms were exactly why I didn’t sign it. He said he would call me back. A few minutes later he called back, mad as hell, telling me I pulled a fast one but that they weren’t going to pursue it.
Damn right you aren’t going to pursue it.
good stuff, from my experience with them I've only every seen them fought is with the sales reps
either way I'm glad to see them kicked to the curb
either way I'm glad to see them kicked to the curb
I got a similar call when I left that company. I asked the HR person to mail me a copy of the non-compete that I signed, and I'd get back to them. That was 1994, and I haven't gotten it yet.
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