
Obama takes aim at workers’ non-compete agreements - hackuser
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/302765-obama-takes-aim-at-workers-non-compete-agreements
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maxerickson
Looks like a dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12793501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12793501)

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markwaldron
This would be a game changer. My fiance works in a non-technical role for an
online media company and her non-compete clause is basically every other
online media company in the NYC area. I don't understand how a company can
have the authority to limit someone like this for 2 years after working there.

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mdellavo
I suspect a lot of these do not hold up in court. In fact, I believe NY is
very favorable to the employee in overly broad non-compete agreements.

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johnward
The problem is that a low level employee doesn't have the money to fight
something like this. The simple fact that they can be litigated is enough.

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adrr
Would a company spend money to enforce it? With non poaches, worst thing i've
seen was a threatening note from a lawyer. No one wants to spend the money to
take it court.

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johnward
Usually my answer is no. I sign them and then, personally, complete disregard
them because I think it's highly unlikely a company would enforce it on a low
level employee like myself. The fact that they could try is usually enough to
scare smaller employers away from even trying though.

Most sentiment seems to be that they "would never hold up in court". Every
once now and then a case does come up though [http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2014/07/amazon-sues-ex-em...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2014/07/amazon-sues-ex-employee-who-went-to-work-for-google-cloud/)

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johnward
"which would prohibit companies from requiring non-compete agreements for
employees who make less than $15 an hour or $31,200 annually."

A step in the right direction but not enough. It needs to address all non-
executive employees.

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saosebastiao
Or at least require real consideration that takes into account the possibility
of extended unemployment. Like a mandatory ~75% of full compensation for the
duration of the agreement or securing equivalent employment, whichever comes
first.

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jgeada
I think non-competes should only be legal if the controlling entity pays the
affected person's full salary for the period of the non-compete. As far as I'm
concerned, if you want to control what a worker does you need to pay the
worker for the privilege. And prepared to bet if such a thing was the law
there would be significantly fewer non-competes in place.

And yes, am aware that once you get far enough into the management structure
this can be negotiated. I just want it to be the default arrangement for
everyone.

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paulddraper
Has anyone seen a non-compete enforced?

I know plenty of engineers (not of the software kind, though) that quit to
work at competitors, but when there are three companies in the world that make
electron scanning microscopes or whatnot, it's practically impossible not to.

Enforcing a non-compete seems like it would be an uphill battle.

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kasey_junk
It happens in trading fairly regularly.

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bpchaps
Yep. Even in states like Illinois where NCAs are non-enforceable, they can
still complicate hiring decisions. I've heard of a few cases where companies
(particularly in trading) will choose not to hire someone with a NCA because
of the risk/time/effort involved in dealing with it.

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kasey_junk
NCA's used to be largely nonenforceable in IL. The advice I've received is
that was changed by court precedent in recent years.

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mcarlise
Did I read this correctly?

"which would prohibit companies from requiring non-compete agreements for
employees who make less than $15 an hour or $31,200 annually."

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ghaff
Yes. This is basically aimed at a handful(?) of especially ridiculous cases of
minimum wage service workers having to sign non-competes.

ADDED: In other words, at the risk of being cynical, I suspect that this is
mostly political grandstanding. I'm guessing that none of these have ever been
enforced. And, whatever one's stand on non-competes generally, it would really
be hard to defend the practice in this case with a straight face.

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sammydavis
They have been enforced, against of all things sandwich shop workers. Those
are mostly just to scare low income workers from leaving their job.

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snambi
Seems like the right direction. The current setup protects the "status-quo"
and it is never a good idea to "protect" the status-quo.

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dudul
"which would prohibit companies from requiring non-compete agreements for
employees who make less than $15 an hour or $31,200 annually."

Great. So the guy who leaves Dunkin' Donuts can go work at Starbucks? Awesome.

What kind of BS is that? What kind of secret IP, or valuable knowledge does a
low-wage employee has that is worth protecting with a non-compete?

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dragonwriter
A fair number of low wage jobs use noncompetes, notionally to protect trade
secrets that line staff need access to in order to execute job duties. It's
probably most often pretextual in such jobs, but that's a good reason for
policy to particularly disfavor the use of noncompetes there.

