Slashdot Mirror
Bill Guarantees 50% Salary For Workers Laid Off With Non-Compete (computerworld.com)
Reader dcblogs shares a Computer World report: Non-compete agreements are controversial for many reasons, but what may be worst of all: Even if you are laid off from your job, a non-compete agreement may still apply. California has made non-compete agreements unenforceable, but Massachusetts has not. Some opponents say that's partly the result of lobbying by EMC, which has considerable clout as a major state employer, headquartered in the Boston suburb of Hopkinton. But the pending $67 billion merger of EMC with Dell, and the prospect of merger-related layoffs, is spurring a new attack on non-compete agreements. State lawmakers are considering limiting non-compete agreements to one year, banning them for low-wage workers and for people terminated without cause. The leading legislative proposal will also require an employer to pay at least 50% of the former employer's salary during the period of time the non-compete is in effect. This salary guarantee is called "garden leave" and is in Massachusetts House bill H.4323. In May, the White House released a report about non-compete agreements. It found that 18% of the workforce is now covered by a non-compete agreement, but over the course of a career, some 37% of all workers (PDF) will be subject to them.
Bill who?
Seriously, nobody ever actually checks that you signed your name. Just write 'I don't agree' somewhat legibly.
HR drones are fucking morons, use it.
Consider signing actual name on IRS and 401K documents, but even there no big deal, nobody checks.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If you are subject to a non-compete, you should covered 100%.
How about non-competes require to pay out at the highest salary the worker has had with the company, with automatic COL raises baked in, over the length of the NDA, minimum two years.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Pay my salary or the non-compete is null and void. People need to start standing up for themselves. If company schills want to push shit like this (non-compete agreements), then people need to start lining them up against the wall an putting a bullet in their head.
Can't have unions, can't get another job, have to take pay cuts, get randomly laid off, no job security. And now they want to make it so you have to find a whole new type of job? Add a poison pill to keep HR from running amok.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
Provided that the company is able to release the employee from the non-compete at any time, with a few weeks' notice (zero if done at the time of termination, more afterwards).
You misunderstand. The company is required to pay the employee for the time they're still obeying the company's rules. This isn't the employee paying the company.
to move where they can non-compete
That is the stupidest thing I read today. Thank you for making the internet dumber.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Why is such a clause even valid at all if it was the employer that terminated the employment?
Unions caused these non-competes to happen. In an effort to ensure that even the shittiest employees get luxurious lifelong jobs with full pay and benefits, they forced companies to do things like this to stay afloat without unfair competition from other fat cat Union shops. So the next time you get laid off and are forced to sign a non-compete, remember that fat cat Union backed by criminal Democrats like Hillary Clinton are the reason you are suffering.
I'm interested in this because I've never heard those two things connected before. Can you substantiate it please?
The main reason so far as I know why unions exist is that worker productivity has steadily risen since the 1950s while wages have remained stagnant. It's a predictable situation when you have two parties with competing interests, only one of them has a great deal more power, can dictate terms to the other, and generally is holding all the cards. That's where the demand and support for unions comes from. The problems with unions happen when they participate in politics, generally.
In Belgium if you have one, you are pretty golden as it is the company that has to pay a serious sum and it is only for higher ups, so not if you work as a normal worker.
Because if they put it in, they will have to pay you and you can still work anywhere you desire.
When I changed jobs, that was the first they removed, because I was not going to the competition and if they would not have revoked it, they would have had to pay me.
In the majority of the cases, if it is in there, you can still work anywhere you desire, but you get the monies as well.
Do not listen to me, listen to a specialized lawyer. This is specialized stuff and the average lawyer will know nothing about it and will think YOU need to pay, where it is the company that needs to pay you for limiting you on your life choices, like where you want to work.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
How about non-compete pays the salary in the highest offer you were able to obtain, for the duration of non-compete? Every time I changed jobs, I got at least 15% raise, sometimes more than that. I don't see why I should give up this money just so my previous employer could have me not compete against them.
I mean, he's already behind on child support, and he's selling blood plasma just to make ends meet!
That's Bill through and through - just a lot of big talk.
That's because OP is a blithering idiot who is so determined to make things the ebil libruls fault, he dreams up imaginary scenarios like unionized IT shops and goes full tilt ranting at them, Don Quixote style.
Maybe how to use the grievance process to obtain camera access when your boss pockets some of the register and writes you up for the theft in front of everyone, would be a good example.
Seriously, just ban con-compete clauses nation-wide and void any contracts that include them. They're only ever used abusively on the part of the company that insisted on them as a way to screw over employees in revenge for leaving. And they don't benefit the overall economy. Just look at California. The illegality of non-competes certainly hasn't caused the tech industry here to collapse in on itself.
Apple and Google got in a world of hurt a few years ago for screwing their employees over with an informal no-poaching arrangement. Well... non-compete clauses screw the employee an order of magnitude worse. And we should drop the hammer... equally hard if not harder... on the companies using them.
Imagine all the people...
What if the company cut your salary before firing you?
"Hey Bill, you've had your salary reduced to minimum wage, but don't worry, we're firing you!"
Non-compete for 1 year price: ~$8,000
Or even better:
"Hey bill, we'll give you severance pay of $X, but you have to sign these papers..."
Included in that pile is an agreement to take a lower base salary for your last pay check, which is then used for non-compete salary calculations.
What about health and other benefit coverage during the non-compete time period?
Just because you have a pimp doesn't mean the rest of us do.
What will end up happening is employers are going to think twice about hiring.
Competition is what fuels our free market. I don't know why people want to mess with that: either business with these silly instruments or unions with theirs.
Let everyone compete for any reason!
Many contracting companies have an NCA that prevents a contractor from going to a new firm for a job which is also offered by the original contracting company, in addition to requiring a premium fee from a contract-to-hire from the host company.
The main reason so far as I know why unions exist is that worker productivity has steadily risen since the 1950s while wages have remained stagnant.
Unions exist thanks to the rise of Communism in the early 20th Century, which happened in response to the uncontrolled Capitalism of the 1800s (see: Gilded Age). I think that the US would eventually have gone through a Russia-style revolt if not for the rise of unions to curb the worst of the excesses. The Depression and FDR came at just the right time as well -- before it was too late. Ever since the 50s, Union power has been declining, and is almost gone by now.
If the company doesn't give you a severance, go to the unemployment line. You would certainly qualify.
Non-compete "agreements" are hugely unethical in my opinion. If I work at Google and Apple wants to hire me I should have the right to switch employers without further restrictions. If companies want employees to sit on the sidelines they should either pay them enough to keep them on the payroll or pay them market value to sit on the sidelines. Putting a non-compete in front of an employee as a condition of employment should be illegal and unenforceable anywhere in the US.
By all means, let me just not sign that NCA and miss payments on my house and other obligations to stand against NCAs. How noble! Meanwhile some incompetent schmuck will get the job and the company who would have hired me will never associate with me on any level. And let's not forget, even unenforceable NCAs can be damaging to the employee. Even though I'm in a state where NCAs are considered "unenforceable" I know of at least 1 job offer I did not get because of a 3 year NCA between current employer and potential employer. See, the potential employer plays for the "NCAs are good" team, doesn't want to rock the boat on current contracts, and has no interest in generating legal liabilities because even if the agreement is "unenforceable" if they get served with papers it already costs them money.
And if I don't sign them, the employer runs screaming and crying to mommy government to demand that they produce more people so they can get employees that will obey their terms, rather than actually adjusting to the free market.
When employers settle for a free market in labor, we'll talk again, until then, employees have every right to run screaming and crying to mommy government too.
Doesn't right-to-work trump non-compete?
A reasonably serious question: In an ideal world, law makers wouldn't try to make this a law unless the majority of the population wants it to be so. In this situation, if that same majority refused to sign the damned things, then wouldn't economics take care of eliminating them? I realize of course that we don't live in an ideal world as such, so the whole process is slowed by momentum, and would probably have the greatest negative effects on the folks who are among the first to reject them. Surely there is some economic principle or theory that describes this situation, which is the point of my actual question: If it exists, what is the name of the economic principle that explains why people can't reliably effect policy change by way of boycott?
Make fucking non compete ILLEGAL! Otherwise force companies to pay 110% of a persons income indefinitely if they must have a non compete. It's 100% bullshit that noncompetes even are allowed to exist and is really only used to force an employee to feel like an indentured servant.
My response is tough shit for them.
Any business model that relies on court enforcement of restrictive labor contracts is weak. If you can't provide an incentive good enough to keep your employees at your firm and need to coerce them, you're doing it wrong.
Non-compete agreements were historically an executive clause, designed to protect a company against having a key man quit and then immediately apply a headful of inside knowledge against the former employer. When such a worker separated with a non-compete in effect, he was usually walking off with a tidy stack of equity shares whose value would be diminished if he were to violate the agreement.
So when a company requires a non-compete from a worker who does not in any way benefit from the clause, let's require compensation in the form of a percentage of former salary.
I worked for Dell a few years ago and got laid off. I did have 1 clause that I was supposed to tell Dell who my employer was for 2 years after I left in the employment agreement, but I ignored it and they never bothered me. If they did, I would just tell them I was self employed or something or not working. I did switch jobs a second time after a year and my current employer checked my employment history. However, like most large companies they outsource Employment Verification to 3rd party vendors.
Non-competes can be a problem if your next employer checks your previous employer. So if you are still working there you check the box for don't check my current employer. However, if you are laid off you can't do that. Non-competes are dangerous. However, Dell did NOT make me sign one.
I remember being in the Information Technology Workers Union back in 90's, and...
Wait, there's never been an IT workers union.
The number of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones people that have infiltrated a site that I used to come to for tech news and thoughtful comments has embraced the right wing echo chamber to a sad degree.
California has the best most innovative economy in the world, and non-competes are not enforceable here. And if you think about it, when companies try to make people sign a non-compete what they are actually doing is meddling in the free market.
I can see them being actively enforced for people working directly on technologies with a specific competitive value, but it seems like they're used so often for people whose main risk from leaving for the competition isn't threatening privileged information but the hassle to management of losing an employee and having to hire another one, often at a higher wage.
Does anyone really spend any money on these rank and file "blanket NDA" employees?
It should 75-100% salary for the duration of the time for those laid off or fired without cause, but, it should also be 50% for those fired with cause. After all, it is still in effect.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Non-competes should not be enforceable for layoffs and termination for convenience. If they are enforced at all they should only be fore voluntary termination or for gross misconduct.
A non-compete that essentially means you cannot find work is void.
For example, it would be acceptable to say that you cannot work in the same area your current employer is in, provided it isn't too broad and it depends on what kind of job you have. If you work at an investment bank as a database engineer, the non-compete clause "must not work for financial services" can stand because you can find work in a different area (e.g. as a database engineer for a search engine provider). If you were a stock analyst, the non-compete would be void because who but an investment bank would possibly hire a stock analyst?
It's sensible and in the spirit of the non-compete without putting the Damocletian sword of "you won't work in this town, or anywhere, again if you dare to leave us" over your head.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Non-competes are largely unenforceable, even in states like Massachusetts where they're not explicitly prohibited.
If you're not attempting to do the exact same job for a direct competitor, there isn't much a former employer can do - and even then they may have no recourse if your line of work is specialized enough.
If companies really think non-competes are necessary then this is just a cost of doing business. The point is that there is now a real cost to both parties.
In the meantime, young kids that don't remember the cold war or any of the (true) stories about Soviet style living are starting to embrace communism.
Bad economic times don't just give rise to Trumps, they also give rise to Bernies.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Wouldn't the better option be to make a law that says If you have a Non-Compete Agreement with your employer and your employer Lays you off, then the non-compete agreement is Null-and-void.
i.e. you can't just jump ship to a competitor, but if your company lays you off then they have already calculated that they don't need you so you should be free to work for a competitor (including your own business)
So the next time you get laid off and are forced to sign a non-compete
There is absolutely no way whatsoever to force a person to sign a non-compete, and especially there is no way to force a person who has been laid off.
Now, some person may choose to sign a non-compete in order to get a severance package, but that is the exact opposite of being forced a person to sign.
I worked for several years for a (first) company. Then my boss quit. He was starting a new (second) company to compete with the first company. I told him that was unethical and I would not work for him. I also phoned the owners of the first company and waened them of what my ex-boss was doing.
My refusal to work for the new company saved the owners of the old company lots of money. They have been grateful.
Seriously, how are non-compete clauses even legal ?
The second MY contract expires, EVERY SINGLE fucking binding clause is irrelevant.
But you can get me to not work for your competition. It's called an employment contract, and you pay my wage.
This has been taking place in tech companies for years. I know of one large company, that shall remain nameless, doing this as far back as the dot-com era. Rather than try to fight to enforce the non-competes, valuable employees who chose to leave were offered a fairly sizable pay (depending on their skill and negotiating skills, sometimes way more than 100% of their previous salary) to not work for the competition. Every so many months a groups of people would meet and decide whether it is still worth paying the individual, or release them from their non-compete. Some people have gotten as much as 200% salary for a couple of years just so they don't work for the competition.
They're good in theory. They protect trade secrets.
You can also protect a trade secret by paying the person to keep that secret. Why should an employee be obligated to keep a secret for a company when they are no longer in the employ of that company? And if the secret was so valuable to the company it should be worth it to pay the person to keep their mouth shut about it. If it isn't that valuable then why are they worried about it? If there is a very specific piece of information the company is worried about leaking (say a chemical formula for a new drug) then a very narrow NDA about that specific piece of information for a limited time is reasonable. And again there should be compensation to the individual for keeping that secret for the duration of the period in which the secret is to be kept.
You can't join a company, copy all their plans, quit, then start your own clone of their business without the expense of the research needed to create those plans.
In graduate school I took a class in entrepreneurship. One of the things I learned from the professor and that I've confirmed by starting several companies since then is that if you think you are the only person with an idea or that nobody else can figure it out you are delusional. Just because you copy someone's playbook doesn't mean you'll be able to execute it any better than them. To use a simple example, I could give you the secret formula to Coca-Cola today along with as much internal "secret" info as you want and you could go out and try to compete with them. But you would fail because the things that make Coca-Cola successful as a company have nothing to do with trade secrets and everything to do with planning, organizational structure, execution and capital. They're just going to be better at their business plan than you could ever hope to be.
I interviewed at a consulting company that made you sign a couple of WEIRD docs BEFORE the interview. One was that you would UNCONDITIONALLY accept their offer if the position was offered of Whatever the salary was at the time--It was in the Mid-50s, which wasn't bad...but the kicker was, if you quit, were laid off, or fired, you could not work for any of their "customers or competitors" for a period of 2 years. And they had a "list" of "customers and competitors" that was about as thick as the Chicago phone book.
It was PROBABLY totally unenforceable against anyone with lawyers to fight it, but I walked out, anyway.
I WILL GRANT them this---it was spelled out in VERY PLAIN English in a summary paragraph, along with the accompanying 20 pages of legalese.
The first one--by granting us the right to continue this interview, you agree to be contractually obligated to accept our salary offer of (whatever it was) and begin your employment within two weeks of our offer.
and the non-compete was pretty much the same.
2 years--don't work for any of the companies in *This* book in any capacity.
I elected to leave the interview.
Sounded too much like I was signing up to be an indentured servant..
at least mine does. I'm doing a 6 month WIA (Workforce Investment Act) job training. The agreement the employer signed says:
"Employer agrees that it will not require any Trainee, whose training costs are subsidized in whole or
in part with on-the-job training program funds, to sign any non-competition Contract that would limit
the future employment of the Trainee in respect to any period of time and/or geographic limit."
so I have that going for me . .. .
If a company lets you go, but demands that you not work for a competitor for x period of time after leaving the company (which essentially means that you cannot work during that time), then they should be paying 100% of your salary and 100% of your benefits for the full duration of their non-compete period.
It's their freakin' idea, not the employee's. Why should the employee be punished via lost wages in order to benefit the company that just laid them off?
Holy crap. Does anyone in government give a flying fuck about people anymore? Or, does government truly just exist to suck corporate hog?