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CA Vs. MA In Battle Over Non-Compete Clause
Lucas123 writes "A case was filed with superior courts in California and Massachusetts involving a former EMC top executive who is trying work for HP. The case is throwing into relief Massachusetts's and California's differing approaches to non-compete clauses in employment contracts. California courts have argued that non-competes hamper a person's ability to traverse the marketplace freely for work, while Massachusetts courts say the agreements actually afford freedom to develop technology without the fear of IP theft."
Easy solution. Legalize non-competes, but require the company to pay the employee while bound by the non-compete.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
However if a company wanted you to take 6 months paid leave before you could leave I have no problem. But once you stop paying me you stop telling me what to do, that's mostly the way employment works.
Ask yourself this: which state has Silicon Valley? Which state is home to the vast majority of tech companies?
And which state is known for overreacting to animated LED characters by deciding they're bombs and evacuating the state capital over them?
By the way, this has already been answered in a previous Slashdot article. Someone has done the research: California's lack of non-compete agreements helped them become a center of technology in the US. Massachusetts' non-compete agreements helped ensure that no tech company prospered there. (The only company I can think of that was based in Massachusetts is Digital, and they died what, over a decade ago?)
No. Once you stop paying me you don't have any right to tell me what to do. You don't want me to join a competing company for say a year, you can damn well pay me for a year to sit on my ass. I'm fairly sure that they are not allowed in the UK anyway, so I'm fine.
It appears most of EMC is technically "located" in foreign tax havens (click Locations & Production). As such, I don't think the US Justice System should waste US taxpayer money enforcing EMC contracts. They like the low taxes in the Bahamas and Bermuda, let's see them protect EMC.
I'm almost always in favor of more open markets over regulation and control, so, IMHO, non-competes are stupid and a restraint of fair trade.
Sounds a little self-contradictory there. The non-compete was not part of "regulation and control"; it was part of a contract negotiated supposedly in good faith by both parties in an open employment market. If you think non-compete's are a restraint of fair trade, then I suppose your head asplode, because it's the regulations that forbid them and nothing else. Only government regulation is supporting fair trade here, not the open market.
Of course, those of us who aren't ideological fanatics and who realize that governments of the people are the only thing standing between us and outright slavery by corporate/military/religious/political overlords aren't a bit surprised. Governments that are too big or too small both lead to slavery, and finding a reasonable balance in between is almost impossible, which is why the phrase 'Situation Normal, All F***ed Up' was coined. :)
Well, given how Silicon Valley is vastly more important than Boston (which used to have parity), you can see which approach is more useful for technological advancement.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Companies have no business telling people where they can and cannot work. Don't want to risk losing your people? I guess that means you value them. Maybe try not treating them like shit and then you won't lose them.
Just because I don't have enough money to continue doing R&D, doesn't mean that my engineers don't possess valuable information that I already paid for and that is rightly my trade secret.
Sucks to be you. You either keep them on the payroll or deal with losing them.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"