
Senators propose near-total ban on worker noncompete agreements - Deinos
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/senators-propose-near-total-ban-on-worker-noncompete-agreements/
======
thomascgalvin
Non-competes in America are _insane_. The article points out the even fast
food restaurants are forcing their fry cooks to sign non-compete contracts,
preventing them from flipping burgers at a different chain.

This is basically slavery. People that take these kinds of jobs tend to be
vulnerable, tend to lack other options, and these non-competes remove even
those few alternatives.

But they're morally wrong at every economic level. If a company wants to
control what you do with your time, they should pay you for it. If you aren't
actively employed by them, they should have no say in who you _are_ employed
by.

Protecting trade secrets is fine, but you don't get to tell an engineer that
she can't write software for Amazon just because she also wrote software for
Google.

~~~
jjeaff
The only immoral part is that the companies are using them to scare people
that don't know any better.

Because there is a 0% chance you could enforce a fry cook non-compete. And
even trying would take so much more resources than could conceivably be
recouped by enforcing it.

~~~
neetle
We're talking about people who wouldn't have enough money to fight this in
court. All it would take is one attempt to enforce it with the right judge and
it'd seem like a legitimate clause.

------
jbottoms
It's in all professions. In school we studied a case in which a man hired
every lawyer in his small town for his divorce. Then he quit them all except
one. By ABA procedures, lawyers can't represent a party if they have work for
the other party on the same case. His wife had to drive long distances to work
with a lawyer from another town.

Oh, and there is the case of the cobbler who made high heels for a living. His
agreement prevented him from making high heels for anyone. But that was all he
knew. The court ruled against the contractual agreement which effectively made
it impossible for him to find work.

------
perl4ever
The logic here is interesting - California doesn't allow noncompetes; Silicon
Valley does well, so maybe noncompetes should be outlawed.

In another thread, (about China, I think) I was reading one of the usual
earnest defenses of intellectual property. But aren't patents functionally
just a form of noncompete? Sure, sure, people always say they are necessary to
ensure sufficient investment. But that's the same reason given for worker
noncompete agreements.

I can't help thinking maybe before long we will decide they make no more sense
than the medieval guild system.

------
chewz
Lets introduce noncompete for companies. If a person who worked at company A
is hired by company B then company A is forbidden to compete with company B
for 24 months.

------
jmpman
Let’s say I am working for a company in a state outside of California, with a
non-compete. Can I take a job with a competitor if I move to California? Can
the non-compete be enforced? What if I move to California to live, but commute
back to the original state to work for the competitor? (Assume I’d pass the
teddy bear test for California residency) What if I lived in the original
state and commuted to California for the new job?

~~~
staticautomatic
It can't be enforced if you move to CA, among other reasons because CA law
says you can't use a choice of law clause to get around the prohibition
against restraints on trade like non-competes.

------
bradhe
This seems fine to me. These are rarely enforced but when they are, it ends up
being exceedingly expensive and causes significant heart ache.

------
gnicholas
Interesting that CA/SV is used as an example for how great things go when you
don't have noncompetes. Have they forgotten the massive anti-poaching
agreement that led to a $1.5 billion settlement?

Outlawing non-competes may be good, but big companies will still find a way to
keep people locked in.

