Slashdot Mirror
'Send Noncompete Agreements Back To the Middle Ages' (bloomberg.com)
Stephen Mihm, Bloomberg contributor and associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, argues against the use of noncompete agreements (NCAs) because they limit the free flow of employees and discourage innovation. An anonymous Slashdot reader shares an excerpt from his report: The agreements, known as NCAs, forbid workers from taking valuable skills acquired from one employer to a competing firm. They first appeared in the Middle Ages, when master artisans required them of apprentices because they didn't want to face direct competition once their proteges set up shop on their own. Courts eventually sanctioned these restraints, provided they didn't harm the public interest, establish a monopoly or unduly restrain an employee's right to work. But this trend toward wider use of the contracts, which gathered steam from the late 18th century onward, conveniently omitted that they originally applied to skilled laborers operating in a pre-capitalist society. Yet employers increasingly used noncompete clauses to limit the mobility of unskilled wage laborers along with skilled workers.
Have NCAs helped or hindered economic growth? The most famous study looked at California, one of only a handful of states that do not permit NCAs. The de facto prohibition of the agreements affected skilled and non-skilled workers alike, and employees high and low could jump from job to job without any fear of legal reprisal. The mobility seems to have disseminated innovation very swiftly from company to company, creating the kind of dynamism and technological spillover that helps foster long-term success. The prohibition of NCAs clearly benefited Silicon Valley. Further proof was provided by the comparison to another claimant to high-tech supremacy: Route 128 in Massachusetts. The conclusion was that California's ban -- and the embrace of the agreements in Massachusetts -- helped tilt the balance of power to California.
Have NCAs helped or hindered economic growth? The most famous study looked at California, one of only a handful of states that do not permit NCAs. The de facto prohibition of the agreements affected skilled and non-skilled workers alike, and employees high and low could jump from job to job without any fear of legal reprisal. The mobility seems to have disseminated innovation very swiftly from company to company, creating the kind of dynamism and technological spillover that helps foster long-term success. The prohibition of NCAs clearly benefited Silicon Valley. Further proof was provided by the comparison to another claimant to high-tech supremacy: Route 128 in Massachusetts. The conclusion was that California's ban -- and the embrace of the agreements in Massachusetts -- helped tilt the balance of power to California.
Using them to protect trade secrets is one thing, using them to render former employees unemployable without risking lawsuits is unacceptable. The US in general needs stronger worker protection laws.
I've had several employees leave to start their own businesses doing the exact same thing we do. I'm friends with all of them. We steer work to each other, and collaborate on larger contracts to compete with the bigger firms.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
You linked to "Huawei Reveals the Real Trade War With China"
No one thinks ex-government employees lobbying because of what they know is problematic. It's an issue because they're selling who they know, those relationships. And, more importantly, what \they're selling to current government officials is the ability to also become a highly paid lobbyist... if they vote the right way now. It's a deferred bribe/government official safety net.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Whether or not it's enforceable isn't as important as whether or not you can afford the $100,000 in legal fees to prove it's not.
Get another lawyer.
So far as I know there's no country in the western world that lacks "Right to work" laws. That means that if your specialty limits your career options and you're in a non-compete, then you should be able to employ "right to work" since no company has the right to lock you into your position by making it impossible to find employment elsewhere.
I think right to work sometimes even has requirements that if they don't offer you an exit clause... something like "You can't compete for 2 years, though if you wish to be released, the company will be responsible to cover your salary during that time" etc... then you have a really good case. Remember, the non-compete isn't to take ownership of you. It's to protect the company from IP theft. If they believe they can't protect their IP any other way, then it's their responsibility to cover the cost of distancing you from the IP during that time.
If they release you at some point, you probably could get a lawyer to make sure you're compensated for your loss of work associated to the non-compete as well.
When someone leaves, it means that we didn't offer them something to convince them to stay. Loyalty is great if you're a dog. But when it comes to someone's ability to place food on their tables, if they believe they can do better somewhere else and I can't offer them the same benefits, that's just how it goes.
Of course... if the guy gets your daughter pregnant, spray paints your living room and then puts up billboards bashing your company.... I think then there's reason for enmity.
Non-compete clauses are close to slavery.
It is difficult to convince the powerful to care about the weak. It is better to argue that a change of policy is in their own interest.
California has long banned non-competes. That has benefited both workers and investors.
For software engineers, most NDA/NonCompetes I've seen are written to claim they own all IP except for what you exclude in a postage size stamp area at the bottom--completely unfair to the employee. I write in that area: See attached exhibit A for addendum to this contract, where I then explain that when there are clauses that are in confusion, then the addendum takes precedence, and then I list everything I've ever done, regardless of how booring, including anything posted to my blogs, social media, and personal github page; and I add clauses that the company only owns IP specifically pertaining to their existing products, and any new product work that is expressly added by their own addendum. It's about 5 pages of addition, and it basically inverts the burden of proof back to the employer. Nobody ever reads it, and I've always had to insist on getting it counter signed, but it's always counter signed.
You have the control in these scenarios, never accept a boilerplate NDA. Attach 10 pages of addendum, rewrite it, bring your own, whatever. But don't accept the stock one, ever.
tora
Non-compete clauses are close to slavery.
It is difficult to convince the powerful to care about the weak. It is better to argue that a change of policy is in their own interest.
California has long banned non-competes. That has benefited both workers and investors.
I agree completely. Under no circumstances should it be possible to sell a right. (In a non competes case the purchase price would be the original job.)
You also shouldn't be able to be bought off by the rich and powerful to silence your story. They can pay and ask you not to speak, but they shouldn't be able to go after you if you do it anyway.
Under no circumstances should it be possible to sell a right. (In a non competes case the purchase price would be the original job.)
You also shouldn't be able to be bought off by the rich and powerful to silence your story. They can pay and ask you not to speak, but they shouldn't be able to go after you if you do it anyway.
This is why I think we should eliminate the fungibility of intellectual property. If patents and copyrights were an inalienable personal right of the creator rather than being real estate, any exploiting IP that you created would have to maintain a personal contractual relationship with you, and only within your lifetime. No more having to sign away your IP rights on employment and then having the company kick you to the curb and plug in a cheap offshore replacement. No more patent troll companies hoarding the inventions of others.