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RIM Accuses Motorola of Blocking Job Offers
theodp writes "Taking a page from the insanely-jealous-husband-playbook, Motorola management has adopted an if-I-can't-have-you-nobody-can stance on its fired employees, reportedly blocking RIM from offering jobs to laid-off workers. In a complaint filed in state court, Motorola is charged with improperly trying to expand a previous agreement 'to prevent the RIM entities from hiring any Motorola employees, including the thousands of employees Motorola has already fired or will fire.' Through its Compete America membership, Motorola has repeatedly warned Congress that failing to accommodate the lobbying group members' 'principled' demand for timely access to talent would not be in the United States' economic interest and would make the US second-rate in education and basic research."
But if you aren't playing with your toys, you have to share with the other children.
If they really want to keep RIM from having their castoff engineers, just keep paying their salaries.
From TFA: "BlackBerry maker Research in Motion sued Motorola over claims the mobile phone maker is improperly blocking it from offering jobs to laid-off Motorola workers"
This is really sad. The US has a very high unemployment rate and people are struggling to find jobs. Some people are barely able to put bread on the table and Motorola wants to keep it that way? For what? A dispute with Blackberry? Screw you Motorola, you've just lost my business forever.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
I can't believe that anyone is even allowed to fire someone and then to prevent them from attempting to get another job anywhere they want.
One thing is when someone quits and there is a non-competition agreement, another thing is when someone is fired. Has anyone ever lost in court to a company that fired them when they started working for a competitor?
Everyone: if you are a 'permanent' employee, don't sign non-compete clauses, and if you do, at least modify them to say that if the company terminates your employment, then this clause does not apply.
Nice of Motorola, by the way, to attempt and stop people that they fired from trying to find employment, especially in this economy. If anything is going to hurt economy of the USA it's going to be millions of unemployed people.
You can't handle the truth.
Actually, this could easily pave the way for legislation to make every state like California. In this age of rising unemployment, legislation that removes arbitrary restrictions of this nature on employment only makes timely sense. Sure, it would make some businesses angry, but they don't vote. And truly, anyone who preaches "free market society" and at the same time seeks to "limit the competition" doesn't know what the spirit of the free market is about.
Since the US is far behind being 2nd in education - most notably math - wouldn't being 2nd be an improvement?
Perhaps we should retain our high-value educated workforce by preventing them from leaving the country, to make sure they carry out their patriotic duty! Maybe we could set up some sort of iron... curtain... or such, to make sure they stay.
No one who is a paragon of "Capitalism" believes in "Free Market" regardless of the mouthings their PR tasked people make. The aim of any successful capitalist is to leverage yourself into the position of having all the capital and therefore controlling the market. The only time free market is observed as a "good thing" by true capitalists is when forcing their competitors into one gives the capitalist an advantage.
Economic theorists aside, only failed capitalists actually follow the theory of modern capitalism. In a way, it's much like Scientology in that respect. The initiates believe and the 'true believers' don't.
As much as people like to bitch about outsourcing here in the USA, why should we allow our talent to migrate to Canada? Doesn't allowing High Tech workers to work for foreign companies support Microsoft's contention that we need to increase H1Bs because the talent isn't here anymore?
That is a separate issue. If I fire you, what right do I have to say where you can and can't work? It is that simple. I believe we (U.S.) have a constitutional amendment addressing such practices.
As much as people like to bitch about outsourcing here in the USA, why should we allow our talent to migrate to Canada?
Allow your talent to migrate? Jesus fucking christ, is this the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA or SOVIET RUSSIA?
A FREE COUNTRY does not lock in its citizens and prevent them from leaving. Are you building the new Berlin wall?
Is this the USA? The FREE WORLD? Or did someone cut off your country's balls?
Doesn't allowing High Tech workers to work for foreign companies support Microsoft's contention that we need to increase H1Bs because the talent isn't here anymore?
If you are FIRING the talent, you can't claim that the talent isn't there anymore.
In case you didn't know, RIM has offices all over the world. RIM employs quite a few people in the USA.
People must wake up and realize that we allow the corps to employ us at OUR sufferance, not the other way around. Do not let them make you think they are doing you some huge favor by employing you. It's the other way around.
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
However, Motorola wants to keep these people unemployed.
I see a massive and expensive class-action suit in the offing. Motorola shareholders should contact the company's general counsel and tell him in no uncertain terms to cut that shit out.
-jcr
I doubt the shareholders give a damn, in fact, it's the shareholder's general lack-of-interest in ethical behavior that has bought corporate America to its current state. All Motorola's management would have to say is, "by doing this we're going to raise the share price." That would be the end of the matter so far as the shareholders are concerned.
You're right though: it would certainly be in the employees best interests to get organized, talk to a good law firm, and apply for class-action status.
Does anyone know exactly how many people we're talking about here? The articles linked were rather skimpy on details (in fact the first two were links to the same text.)
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Unfortunately being fired does not automaticly negate a signed contract. However, on the flip side, most noncompetes are so vauge, over reaching, and one sided that they are unenforceable from the get go, even assuming you don't live/work in a state such as California.
WTF?
Company A laid off people...
People have no jobs....
Company B said, "hey you know we could use you..."
Company A says, "oh no you can't work there because well we don't want you to kill our business completely..."
GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!!!! Yes I am screaming here, but this patriotic act is completely misguided. The issue here is that people are laid off and they would like to put food and bread on their table. And if they need to travel to Canada so be it! This is what competition and capitalism is all about.
Want to know what might result?
Instead of hiring out of work American workers they will hire out of work workers from some other place. And then what spot is America? With more unemployed bitter people who say the government gets in their way!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Like an ANON said to you, there is a freedom thing. If you stop the flow of people out of the country, you are stopping the flow of people into the country too. If canada gets pissed at us for quite literally stealing jobs from them, they won't exactly smile through it.
Meanwhile, I seem to recall articles saying that H1B's have been abused/etc so issuing more would solve one problem and create another ripe for abuse.
Maybe they need to come up with a new system that isn't as easy to game as current H1B systems are. If you RTFA you'd notice that the "non-hire" agreement has already expired as well, so it's kinda irrelevant at this point. Anyone laid off from Motorola that decides to go to RIM should be able to do so at this point, bar company politics deliberately breaking the law.
What I mean by the last comment is that many states don't like noncompetes. Currently, Illinois does uphold them unfortunately. However, instead of having the employees sign a noncompete (which they could contest in court), the two companies signed a noncompete (which it's impossible for an employee to contest in court)....essentially making it impossible for people to switch companies in that scenario. Specifically because they could just BS their reasoning for declining to hire someone such as "they didn't meet our qualifications" (with no explanation).
If you don't want Canadian companies hiring your talent, maybe you should fire the H1Bs and give those jobs to your own people. Otherwise, what reason do they have to stick with your shitty economy that won't even let them work in the first place ? That, and RIM probably has a few offices in the US, meaning the people aren't moving up to Canada because they work for a Canadian company.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I always thought it would be brilliant if the Democrats developed a policy platform based on competition. Real competition.
Where the vision would be a marketplace where the small guy could take down the big guy based on brains and good ideas. The only tool the big guy would have to fight back would would be brains. Not legal shenanigans based on deep pockets, old boys clubs and family fortunes.
The policy should proudly proclaim that today's underprivileged are encouraged to drive today's upper class back to the middle class and trade places with them.
Because, in Western society, the upper classes are in grave danger of starting to consider themselves royalty.
That would completely outflank the Republicans claim to be the pro-business party leaving them with only the faith communities as a support base. Unfortunately the Democrats have trouble organizing anything more complicated than a birthday party.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Motorola is no paragon of capitalism. They've been part of the military-industrial complex for a very long time.
Yes, and China suckered them out of a lot of money and technology too. Motorola is only reaping what they've sown, so far as I'm concerned.
I tend to say something along the lines of "your approval is neither sought nor required" in such a situation.
Back in the mid-eighties I worked for an outfit that really tried to nail their developers to the wall, contract-wise. When I was hired, I was given a bunch of papers to sign ... one of them was this completely outrageous non-complete/non-disclosure agreement. It said (among other bits of obnoxiousness) that any software I wrote, any products I developed, whether relevant to my work or the industry, or not, even if done on my own time, for a period of five years after I left employment with the company was the property of the company. In addition, I was not allowed to work as a software developer during the same period. I mean, what the Hell? Was I supposed to just switch careers after leaving the place? Anyway, that incredible document went on for some time in the same vein ... I'm not even a lawyer but I could see the ridiculousness of it. Probably it wouldn't have been enforceable, but I had an attorney look it over. He didn't even finish reading it before he said, "You'd be nuts to sign this." So I didn't.
... was that stupid NC/NDA. Sneaky. But I told her I had no intention of signing it.
Well, I got hired anyway, and apparently nobody noticed that I hadn't signed the thing because a few months later the HR guy's secretary comes by with a bunch of papers on a clipboard, and asked me to sign it at the bottom. "Just routine", she said, or words to that effect. I immediately noticed that there were several rather innocuous sheets on top, and underneath
She went away, and back comes the HR guy himself. He was nice enough, but he tried to convince me that I had to sign it, "Why is it a problem? Everyone else here signed it." I told him that if my continued employment was dependent upon that "agreement", that I would happily clean out my desk right then and there. He went away, and that was the last I heard of it. I was serious, however, and if they'd pushed the matter I'd have walked out right then and there. As it happens, I work in an "at-will" State: sometimes that sucks, but sometimes it works in your favor.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yes, but how would this be any less reactionary and ill-advised (i.e., to negate the freedom to contract) than passing the PATRIOT Act because of terrorism, etc.?
If we criticize Congress for passing overreactive laws in response to the fear of a terroristic death, shouldn't we also rightly criticize Congress for passing overreactive laws in response to the fear of an economic death?
I worry about Congress, in the current climate, passing an overrestrictive law destroying much of the freedom to contract.
So how do you prevent someone from quitting or being poached and taking their technical or company specific knowledge to a competitor?
Pay the person what they are worth to your company!
cat sig >
To be fair, over 50% of all shares in major stock markets today are held by institutional investors--mutual funds, banks, etc.
I have a bank account. But I sure as hell don't know what holdings my bank has. I doubt the average Joe on the street does, either.
So it's not me turning a blind eye to corporate practices when it's institutional investors who control the majority of the market.
She went away, and back comes the HR guy himself. He was nice enough, but he tried to convince me that I had to sign it, "Why is it a problem? Everyone else here signed it." I told him that if my continued employment was dependent upon that "agreement", that I would happily clean out my desk right then and there. He went away, and that was the last I heard of it. I was serious, however, and if they'd pushed the matter I'd have walked out right then and there. As it happens, I work in an "at-will" State: sometimes that sucks, but sometimes it works in your favor.
Thank you. It's tough to do the right thing sometimes, and you took a big risk. Your integrity helps all of us, and our entire industry.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I thought campaign contributions were considered more valuable than individual votes.
And that's exactly why political campaign contributions coming from anyone other than individual registered voters needs to be outlawed.
Non-compete agreements are nothing short of employee abuse. When people are in need, they will sign just about anything to get that need taken care of. And when people want to earn money, these are exactly the people we don't want abused. Sometimes I think people honest enough to work for money are a rare breed of people indeed. There is no way you can honestly connect anti-competitive activities like that with free market. Such agreements need to be fair and balanced. For that arrangement to be fair, they should be paid for the duration of the contract whether they work or not.
In the end, it should be only fair that if an employee, especially one that was terminated for reasons that are NOT his fault, should be free of any restrictions to find new work and feed his family. The rights of individuals should trump the rights of companies each and every time. There used to be a thing called loyalty to the employee. You are probably too young to remember that ideal ever existing. Meanwhile, people are expected to be loyal to their employer regardless of how they are treated. And beyond all other reasoning, it is fair free market idealism to be able to choose not to work for someone who no longer offers "a good deal." You shop for better deals when you go shopping don't you?
From a more practical perspective, we are already running a huge trade deficit. Some economists say this doesn't matter, but others say it risks nasty bubbles and major instability. If the US continues being the dumping ground for cheap products and services, this bubble risk grows as the trade imbalances create credit bubbles. Economists tend to under-estimate bubbles, perhaps because they are overconfident in their ability to "fix" them, so I will take the view of the "bubblers".
Further, many times those countries are cheaper because they lack regulations that keep us safe and healthy. They may have 60-hour work-weeks in asbestos-festered offices or work with dangerous chemicals and pollution in factories. It's unfair if we have to compete with regulations that they don't have.
Further, it would push us to all be Walmart greeters and shoes salesmen as "non-face" jobs shift to where the labor is cheaper. Diversity in careers would diminish, and lack of diversity is also a bubble-risk.
The "open borders" labor thinking just has too many unsolved problems. Adam Smith's equations need a rewrite to reflect risk and uncertainty better. Maximizing an economy based over-simplistic models is partly what got us into the current mess.
Table-ized A.I.
Nonono, not rising wages, that's just one of the mechanisms of worth parity. For monetary instance, if a company would fail entirely and the company's entire fortunes rests on the shoulders of one developer, and if this developer were to leave and join the competition, then that would be the end of the company, then what is that one developer worth? I'd say a fair sight more than the CEO.
cat sig >
... a form of restraint of trade? A violation of the Sherman Anti-trust act?
If the labor market is similar to any other market and I negotiate with my competitor to split a market between us and not compete with them, I'd get a vacation at Club Fed. Striped pajamas and all.
Have gnu, will travel.