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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)."
That's a pretty broad exclusion to be enforceable.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
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.
In Germany, a non-compete clause is only enforceable if compensated, since that goes against the the constitutional right to work where you want. The company has to pay at least 50% of your salary during the non-compete period. That means even if you did sign a non-compete, it's not valid unless the old company is compensating you. Effectively, this forces companies to balance the need for a non-compete with the cost. Effectively, this means only high up people have the clauses in it.
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.
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.
Um...lawyers wrote this.
In the red corner, we have lawyers! In the blue corner, we have lawyers!
Come out fighting. Whoever wins, its a lawyer!
Because some of us actually have empathy and don't agree with ridiculous contracts that bar people from being able to find gainful employment because they happen to leave or get fired from Amazon? Many of the people who will sign this are likely desperate for a job and Amazon is taking advantage of that by adding in scary clauses into their employment contract that provides the worker ZERO BENEFIT.
Just because people choose to work in a place, doesn't mean the company gets to trample its worker's rights. Besides, it might not have been much of a choice. Suppose someone loses their job and is out of work for awhile. Money gets tight and they need to feed his family. He is offered a job at Amazon and no other prospects are forthcoming. Should he decline the job on principal/due to the non-compete contract clause, thus putting his family in deeper financial peril? Or should he accept the job protecting his family from financial ruin now but at the possible non-compete expense further down the line? Not everyone has a lineup of a dozen companies vying to hire them every time they find themselves unemployed.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
it seems everyone wants everyone else over a barrel.
Then don't sign it!
Right, it's not like people need money to buy food, shelter, etc. Fucking bastards should just be homeless.
You don't have a right to a job, a job is a privilege.
Maybe in your psychotic world view. Many people in the world don't share your viewpoint.
Look, if they offered you a job at a some ridiculous minimum salary like $20K a year, you would say no.
Not if the other choice is to become destitute and homelesss.
The fact that you are hungry for work is not Amazon's or any other employers problem.
It also doesn't give Amazon or any employer the right to try to get you to sign away basic rights that many US states have mandated are rights.
That kind of warehouse workers are replaceable in a second and Amazon knows this. If they have to or want to fire one there's a sheaf of a hundred resumes equally qualified to trudge about scanning items and bringing them to the packing area. It's absolute bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. This is the only reason most amazon warehouses aren't replaced by robots now: humans at slave wages cost less.
source: I once worked in an Amazon warehouse.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
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.
what the "free" in free enterprise is supposed to mean?
"The wisdom of the Patriarchs was that they *knew* they were fools." --Master Foo
Its a scare tactic to keep the ignorant workers in line. First time I encountered a non-compete (as a factory assembler putting screws in a sheet metal box) I was convinced I was going to be stuck working for these guys forever. So did most of the other people on the floor. I mentioned something to my neighbor, showed him a copy of the Non-Com. He told me what every one else is saying here, it was almost impossible to enforce (in the state I was in at the time) and that there were no penalties and the onus was on the company to do something about it. Of course, I made sure to let all the people on the floor know that information too. After I moved up the ladder to a more technical job there and took a job at a competing company, I got a letter from my old company telling me I was in violation of the Non-Com. My lawyer sent them a letter saying to fuck themselves and that was the end of it.
Amazon is to remove a ''non-compete'' clause from its employment contracts for US workers paid by the hour after criticism that it is unreasonable to prevent such employees from finding other work.
A company spokeswoman confirmed to the Guardian that the clause would be cut.
''That clause hasn't been applied to hourly associates, and we're removing it,' 'she said.
The company would not disclose the breakdown of its staff by geography or hourly pay and salary. No UK employment contracts for hourly workers contained such non-compete clauses.
Amazon further required laid-off employees to reaffirm their non-compete contracts in order to receive severance, reported the Verge.
Amazon to remove non-compete clause from contracts for hourly workers
Here in the EU, if there are terms in an employment contract that effectively mean a non-compete for X length of time after leaving that employment, they are completely unenforceable once the employment contract is terminated. The key terms are "contract" and "terminated". The contract no longer exists legally once the employment is terminated.
If a company wants non-compete methods, then they have to request that the newly-ex-employee sign a new contract to not compete with the previous employer's competitors, and in every case that I have heard of, the monetary terms for that non-compete had to be very very generous in order for the newly available employee to not work for the next 6 to 18 months in the business. Some in this situation went on training courses to stay current, others branched out into differing areas of work, all while getting handsomely paid not to work for the competitor.
Amazon have their head up their ass regarding the treatment of their employees for a long time in the US, and it'll come back to bite them. At least in the EU the employee protection legislation prevent such entities from taking that level of advantage of their employees. I'll be glad if/when karma comes back to burn Bezos and gang over their unethical actions and general mistreatment of their staff.
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
"As a current employee of Amazon and looking for a different work, with reference to Non-Compete document# xxx I have signed, I am requesting a comprehensive list of jobs and domains which I'm forbidden to participate in. Currently my job as a janitor of warehouse X leaves me with very little to no knowledge of what products or services are in development, manufacture, marketing, sale , offered or otherwise provided by Amazonof any product or service that competes or is intended to compete with any product or service sold, offered, or otherwise provided by Amazon, and especially the ones it intends any of the above in the future. Since I must know if I'm allowed to perform any of jobs there are openings for, I require this information, so that I don't violate my Non-Compete."
"Please deliver the printed list to my house at [...], as I'm unable to rent a truck to take it home from work."
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