Slashdot Mirror
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
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
Yes, it is actually slavery.
Someone who has signed such a contract would be forced to stay and work in same shitty job with same shitty pay forever if he wants to put food on the table. He has in fact been removed from the competitive part of the workforce unless he is retrained to do something completely different such as teacher or nurse,
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
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.
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.
You're confusing non-dislosure agreements with non-competes. A non-disclosure agreement covers not using proprietary knowledge of one company for the benefit of a future employer. A non-compete is basically trying to ban you from getting gainful employment in the very field in which you have work experience.
On $89 billion dollar revenues, expenditures exceeded that figure; they lost $240 million last fiscal year.
That "loss" was due to the fact that Amazon basically reinvests pretty much all of their revenue back in the company.
Million dollar fines would definitely hurt Amazon.
No, it wouldn't. They would simply reinvest a fraction of a fraction of a percent less back into the company.
Unfortunately not enough people go union. So many people have bought into the corporate bs about unions (though some of it is the fault of unions and well-deserved) that they actively work against their own interests. Combined with enormous amounts of pro-employer/pro-corporation statutory law and case law basically has created a huge imbalance when it comes to workers' rights.
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
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