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Non-Competes Might Mean Loss Of Benefits
Skapare writes "WashTech is running a story about how having a non-compete agreement could cause loss of unemployment benefits. While non-compete agreements are addressed in unemployment benefits policies, it seems you still get shafted because it forces you to accept any employment outside your field, making it much harder to find work in your field. Personally, I think the employers with whom you have a non-compete agreement should be the ones paying you unemployment benefits."
Want to put non-competitive clause in my contract? Fine, but then I want you to pay me salary during the perioid.
It has to be a balance in the system.
I remember hearing a lecture on this very topic a couple of years ago. The main point was that as you proceeded westward across the U.S., the non-competes became less enforcable, until California non-competes are virtual oxymorons (Google the term).
I think that the idea of a non-compete is an idea that's going to fade away; it justn't seem intellectually tenable to me. It's certainly reasonable for a company to protect its trade secrets and intellectual property (don't mean to troll here), but labor mobility is a force of public interest (supports wages and other positive economic effects).
I'm what most people would consider a radical free marketer, but even I realize that certain agreements foul up the system by their very nature. For example, I should theoretically support the right of a worker to sell himself into slavery; after all, if it is his very own freedom, is it not his own freedom to sell? Obviously, this gums up the works very quickly and destroys the system. Kind of like Hofstader's self-destroying record - record player combo. Anyhow, I think non-competes may be a less extreme version of this.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
This article is so unbelieveably biased that I didn't even have to look at the source to realize that it was Union rag.
....Bethanie....
Note how it starts out by getting you all riled up about this poor guy's plight -- his role as the beleaguered sole supporter of his special-needs daughter and the hopelessness conundrum proposed by his circumstances. But if you read it thoroughly, you also see that he was completely vindicated by Excell, the Washington State Employment Security Department, and later, by Volt.
And then, of course, the article launches into the obligatory attack on Microsoft and its evil feudalistic business practices, because who doesn't hate MS, right?
Listen up, people. We live in a FREE country. You don't HAVE to sign a contract with an employment agency if you don't want to, and before you do, you'd sure as hell better read the fine print before you sign up! If they aren't making you a decent offer, then move on to the next agency!! Evaluate them as carefully as you would a prospective employer -- because, in effect, that is what they are.
The knowledge you have and the skills you can leverage are your currency in today's economy. When you accept a job or a contract with someone, it's because you are willing to provide what you know in exchange for what they offer you.
These businesses won't STAY in business for long if they can't recruit quality talent. Hell, if you're good enough, you can negotiate the damn non-compete out of your OWN contract!
Next time you read an article like this -- remember: Always consider the source!
Actually, things like welfare and universal health coverage are good for the economy. The former does things like flatten out the business cycle by increasing spending counter-cyclicly (to people who will spend all the money on goods and services instead of saving it) and the latter reduces costs to the overall economy by improving health standards (it's cheaper to prevent illness than cure it)
But more importantly, they're a sign of a civilised society.
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My wife went straight from college to mothering, and has never worked, so has few job skills. The company for whom I work (who shall remain nameless) just sold my position to a contracting company, with one weeks' notice. Despite their company policy, they are not giving me any severance whatsoever if I don't take the job with the contractors. The contractors *require* a two-year NCA, and stated unequivocally that anyone who would not sign would lose their job immediately. The contracting company is *huge*, and it is quite likely that any potential job I get may conceivably compete with them somehow.
Did I mention that there aren't really any jobs out there right now? Do you think I'm in a position to fight the contract? No, I signed, and I will try to tough it out as best I can. If I have to leave (or get fired) from the contractor, I will get a new job as quietly as I can, not tell my former boss, and hope they don't notice.
The idea that everyone has free choice in signing contracts is foolish. The bottom line is that a disproportionate amount of power is placed in the hands of employers during hard economic times. They should not be able to do anything they chose because of that. The solution you propose -- which as I read it is pure Laissez-faire -- was more or less tried in the 19th century. It resulted in horrible abuses, and horrible conditions for working people. It resulted in the unlimited importation of cheap labor from foreign countries (every read "The Jungle"?) It resulted in 60 hour work-weeks for 12-year-old kids. All this was done as good examples of "free enterprise". It was in reaction to these conditions that labor unions were formed and fair labor practices laws were passed.
It is no coincidence that these abuses started at a time of great economic growth (the Industrial Revolution.) The laissez-faire approach might work in a smaller economy. However, the creation of shared-stock companies has the effect of watering down the process of making ethical decisions so that no one feels personally responsible. Instead, everyone operates on a scheme of plausible deniability. It is correct and appropriate in such cases for the government -- who created the shared stock company as a separate persona in its own right in the first place -- to take action to ensure just and moral practices.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Please think of this next Christmas when you're watching the Corporate News.