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Amazon Requires Non-Compete Agreements.. For Warehouse Workers
Rick Zeman writes: Amazon, perhaps historically only second to Newegg in the IT nerdling's online shopping heart, has not only subjected their warehouse employees to appalling working conditions, but they're also making them sign a non-compete agreement for the privilege. Here's an excerpt from the agreement: "During employment and for 18 months after the Separation Date, Employee will not, directly or indirectly, whether on Employee's own behalf or on behalf of any other entity (for example, as an employee, agent, partner, or consultant), engage in or support the development, manufacture, marketing, or sale of any product or service that competes or is intended to compete with any product or service sold, offered, or otherwise provided by Amazon (or intended to be sold, offered, or otherwise provided by Amazon in the future)."
Overly broad non-competes are almost universally unenforceable. The lawyers writing this non-sense know this.
Scott
for every single case where Amazon tries to enforce this against a warehouse worker. This is absolutely f***ing disgusting.
Right now - with minimal punitive effects - the system encourages people to over-reach when writing such contracts, in the hopes of intimidating people from using their legal rights.
This effect, rather than a few rare extreme punitive tort cases (i.e. suing because the coffee is too hot), is why we get said contracts and why we have to sign away our rights whenever we decided to go say white water rafting.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Can anyone identify a product or service that Amazon doesn't sell or provide?
Job prospects are going to be few and far between if you leave Amazon.
See the part that says "any product or service". That's entirely too broad. Have you seen the breadth of things Amazon sells? This could probably only be enforced if someone was taking proprietary information about how Amazon does things and improves the processes at a competitor.
F$*# that, use California rules. In California, a company that insists on having an invalid non-compete agreement signed by their workers under threat of firing may be liable for wrongful termination in violation of public policy.
Which non-competes are unenforceable/therefore illegal? Basically all of them.
The only time a non-compete agreement is valid (regardless of consideration) is when the person signing away their rights does it as part of a sale of a business and the goodwill of that business. So, you can't create the next WhateverApp, sell it for $X-leventy billion, write a deal that says you will not compete with the business you just sold, and declare that non-compete invalid under California law.
But basically every other non-compete is automatically invalid (even when it is for compensation). If you are paid under the terms of a non-compete for your cooperation, and you break the terms of the deal, you will still be entitled to keep what you have received (that deal was not legally binding) and the company's only recourse is to stop sending the payments. They cannot sue you for violation of contract terms.
Requisite: IANAL but I play one on slashdot.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
The German rules make far more sense dude. In some instances a non-compete DOES make sense, and it should be an option.. but it shouldn't be used to handcuff someone to a company.
Attaching a monetary cost for the company protects employees from abusive employers, and let's a company protect their inside information / processes for a bit.
That one word pretty much sums up the trajectory of business and politics today. And neoserf for its plans for us.
In Belgium when you have a non-compete, you will get what is quoted in the contract. (Unless you start working for the competition)
It also depends on the job and will have a limited reasonable duration.
I had one, but unfortunately they annulled it when they fired me.(1) Otherwise I would have been given a year extra payment while working at a company in the same job, but not in the same field.
I know somebody who started working for the competition and in the identical job, but they just named the job differently. He never asked the money and the company never followed up on it.
I know of somebody else who was forced to leave their new job, but got the money. The law will side with the worker most of the time and unless there is a clear abuse of what is reasonable, then nobody actualy follows up on it.
If you get fired, most of the time it will be annulled and if people leave, they just go to somebody who is not the competitor.
All that said, if you are anything like a blue collor worker or an office serf, no way they could stick that to you. I sign them gladly and hope they forget when they fire me when they need to cut back.
(1)They gave me 5.5 months pay instead of the legal required 3, so that was nice.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
As I understand it, this is saying that warehouse workers (i.e. the people who do physical labor like moving products from point A to point B, or pack shipments) can't help to develop similar systems for their competitors using what they know about Amazon's practices. This does not seem to stop them from doing manual labor elsewhere.
This doesn't seem all that concerning to me. AFAIK this is the exact kind of thing non-competes are intended for. Perhaps 18 months is a little long. I'd guess 6-12 months is more reasonable.
But other than that, this doesn't seem all that bad.
That was my reading too -- they aren't trying to prevent an Amazon warehouse worker from working in a Walmart stock room (even though Walmart and Amazon may be selling the same consumer goods), but are trying to prevent a warehouse worker becoming a Google consultant to help design Google's warehouse operations.
Sounds like there's some overlap with an NDA but Amazon is probably trying to cover all of their bases to give themselves more ammo in a lawsuit.
What I found most disturbing about the linked article on working conditions in the Amazon warehouses is that they were trying to get the temps to work harder with vague statements about full time employment. I work as a temp, and every single temp agency in existence has a provision in the contract they have with the employers that the employers will not hire the temp for a period (usually six months) after their last paycheck. I'm smart enough to know that anyone who promises me a full time job is lying, but to try and pull the wool over the eyes of these warehouse workers is unforgivable.
My wife's employer is an apartment management company. Their HR director copied all the company policies and procedures manuals, then bailed to start a competing firm. A few months later, the company demanded that all employees sign non-competes as condition of continued employment.
Because she's worked in the company for nearly 15 years, it's unlikely she would find comparable employment in an unrelated field should she decide to leave. We sought the advice of an attorney who offered some great advice. First he said the company would need to undertake legal measures to enforce the non-compete. Theirs did not provide for any penalty against my wife, so even if they were to win in court, there's no consequences, other than her company is out their legal costs.
Secondly, a non-compete cannot be one-sided, or courts will throw them out. People have a right to work that cannot be forfeited or signed away. Her non-compete was overly broad - both in geography and scope. The language disallowed employees to work in any field the company did business in within the state of Nevada or within 100 miles of any site where they operated. Keep in mind they also demanded the maintenance and landscape workers to sign these non-competes. Our attorney counseled us that those provisions alone would likely nullify the entire document in court. It's not reasonable to tell the guy who mows your lawn that he needs to move across the country if he ever wants to work in yard care again.
I suspect Amazon's warehouse workers would fall under the same protections. Nothing about putting product in a cardboard box is proprietary. This is just some idiot middle manager trying to intimidate employees in an effort to reduce turnover.
Of course not.
They'll sue their ex-employee's new employer, assuming it's strategically worth it to bully them into something. (Coerce them out of a market, or into a partnership, etc.)
It's an arrow in a quiver. It's not fired unless there's a good target.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
what the "free" in free enterprise is supposed to mean?
"The wisdom of the Patriarchs was that they *knew* they were fools." --Master Foo
It's not really the ex-employer keeping track that you have to worry about. Almost all prospective employers will call for a reference and then they know you are looking into a banned job. But the most troublesome for you would be friends and people you used to work with running into you on the street or something and you letting it slip that you are working somewhere specific. They then either out of amazement or stupidity, end up telling someone else at work and eventually it become common enough knowledge that the management hears about it.
It's happened to me before. I've wondered out loud about how some former coworker was doing and someone ends up telling me "just fine, they are working at XYZ now" not realizing they should have used a bit more discretion. Before I knew it, I was in the office being grilled by the boss and almost lost my job by telling them I was talking about someone from school not work when they heard the entire conversation. Thankfully, it turns out in my situation that the former employee already cleared the job with higher up management so the only one in any trouble was me. I soon found another job.
Here we have a very effective law that put a complete stop to the non-compete bullshit: any company that wants a non-compete contract will have to pay half salary for the entire period where said non-compete contract is valid.
So if you stop working somewhere, they have to keep paying you half salary, if they really think that non-compete contract is necessary. They almost never do.
A quick search says either Germany or Belgium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...