
Connecticut moves to help low-paid workers hurt by noncompete rules - ohjeez
https://www.ctpost.com/politics/article/CT-moves-to-help-low-paid-workers-hurt-by-13745423.php
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olliej
I feel a simpler solution(given many American politicians hatred of worker
rights) would simply be that you have to pay any employees bound by non
compete clauses for the period of the non compete clause.

And they should be paid for 8-10 hours a day, 7 days a week - the non compete
clause prevents them from working for a “competitor” every day of the week.

That will quickly get rid of non competes that aren’t actually necessary for
anything other than wage suppression.

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vostok
People get around that by splitting pay into salary and bonus. Then they just
pay salary during the non-compete.

Other fun things are enforcing the noncompete at the employer's discretion.
You never know if you're out for a month or a year and they can change their
mind mid way through.

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lsllc
As with pensions [for civil servants] it should be the average of the last 3
years of compensation (e.g. W-2 take-home).

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Godel_unicode
That's not how it works for civil servants either. Bonuses (signing and
retention) are not factored into high-3. It's salary plus locality, not w2.

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twblalock
None of the arguments in favor of noncompetes are convincing. There are
legitimate downsides to getting rid of noncompetes, but there are solutions
for all of them, e.g. using NDAs to protect trade secrets.

Some say eliminating noncompetes would hurt businesses, but consider that
California banned noncompetes back in the late 1800s (yes, really) and has the
largest economy of any state.

When low-wage workers are involved, noncompetes are a form of coercion pure
and simple.

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AlexTWithBeard
I firmly believe that prohibiting things is rarely a good idea.

Just require a business to keep paying an employee his salary and benefits
during the non-compete. A business has a secrets to guard. An employee has a
family to feed. All is fair.

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throwawayjava
These are probably functionally equivalent for most employees... and
especially the low-level employees that the article is talking about.

Plus, there are real downsides to your approach. It puts the onus on the
employee to collect from the employer, which is best-case arduous and worst-
case more expensive than it's worth with most of the money going to a
billboard lawfirm anyways.

Your approach might make sense in the mid six figures and up, but for low-wage
or even low to mid middle class workers, outright nullification would be way
more effective.

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AlexTWithBeard
Sorry, functionally equivalent to what?

I don't think it will involve collections or anything like that. You just keep
receiving your monthly paycheck.

No paycheck - no non-compete.

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AlexandrB
About time. IMHO non-competes are inappropriate for anyone outside of C-level
executives (who are well compensated for accepting such terms). For low-wage
workers non-competes are just pointlessly cruel.

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xfitm3
How do you define "well compensated"?

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AlexandrB
At the high end, the typical CxO golden parachute that can be equivalent to
several years of pay. At the low end, additional stock options or bonuses at
the time of signing.

Either way, an incoming CxO has a lot more negotiating leverage (and usually
experience) to ask for such things than fresh graduate looking for his first
job. Low wage employees usually have no negotiating leverage at all and must
accept the contract as-is or remain jobless.

Edit: I'm definitely not against banning non-competes for everyone. But a
candidate for a C-level executive position is much more likely to have the
resources and the knowledge to negotiate fair concessions or compensation for
accepting a non-compete.

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xfitm3
Outlaw non-competes for ALL workers. Rely on NDAs.

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perfunctory
So you want noncompete. That's fine. But then it should work both ways. You
don't want me to compete with you. Well, I don't want you to compete with me
either. So for one year after I leave the company I am not allowed to work for
your competitors and you are not allowed to hire my competitors (workers with
the same skill set) on the same position. Deal?

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tareqak
What do people and politicians in right-to-work states think of non-compete
clauses? Aren’t these workers being prevented from working the jobs they can
get using the skills they’ve acquired in a similar way?

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tathougies
California has prohibited non-competes since forever. And by 'prohibit' I
mean, they refuse to enforce them. I've signed many non-compete agreements,
and you know what -- they don't mean anything. Might as well use them as
toilet paper.

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m0zg
Just burn the whole "non-compete" thing with fire nationwide as far as I'm
concerned. Basically mandate that if a person is subject to a non-compete, she
needs to be paid the pre-departure salary and bennies for the duration of the
non-compete. Essentially, your noncompete becomes a yearlong Hawaii vacation.
I'd totally go for that. Some employers, in cases where non-compete is
justified, would too. And where it's not justified, fuck them with a cactus.

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Cyclone_
This is a step in the right direction - my understanding is though that most
non competes aren't enforceable to begin with, even outside of California.

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caseymarquis
This only applies to those making less than 2x the CT minimum wage, including
heathcare costs. That's currently 40k or less per year.

