18% of all working people in the US are under non-competes. This is a huge deal.

Yes, this is a big fucking deal.

100%. These non-competes essentially lock employees in to their existing employer, unless they want to find a job in a completely unrelated sector (and likely take a massive payout, which, especially these days, is near financial suicide). This will have enormous ramifications for companies with toxic culture, as now people don’t have to put up with their crap. This allows for freedom of economic mobility, and more control of one’s own life.

When places talk about how they’ll be “the next Silicon Valley” this is one of the reasons none of them have actually managed it. In CA people in many cases can take a good idea that their employer doesn’t want and do something with it themselves. In most other places it will get so tied up in non competes that it’s not worth the effort to even try.

And it’s not just tech, here in Colorado we recently had a restaurant try and shut down another restaurant simply because the newer place’s chef had worked at the older place. They settled but it’s so entirely ridiculous that it could have even started court proceedings in the first place.

I’m going to go against the crowd and say that while I think it’s a good move to make it official non competes were effectively already declared unenforceable via the court system. It’s rarely used for the average worker unless something truly fucky was going on and the courts would usually side with the employee no matter what unless something truly fucky was going on.

Is this a big deal in terms of allowing people to more easily quit their jobs and take new ones? Yes.

Is this a big deal in terms of boosting innovation and economic productivity by allowing ideas to move more freely between businesses? Maybe.

Is this a big deal in terms of harming businesses or causing radical shakeups at businesses? No. States like California already ban non competes as do most western countries, companies just keep on going, truly proprietary innovations are already going to be covered by NDAs.

Yes big deal. However, I’m not sure if this will survive the supreme court.

My country has non-competes in the most sensible way: if you don’t want the employee to go to a competitor, you must pay him what he could earn at the competitor during the duration of the non-compete. Employee quits? He can either join the competitor or you can pay him as long as you want him away from the competitor.

Will employers still put non-applicable non-competes? They sure do and I smile when I see those baseless clauses. Have they tried enforcing them at the “work tribunals” (free for the employee), yes they have and they’ve been laughed off by the judges.

Is it controversial? The only support I’ve heard for them comes from corps, sleazy executives looking to control their employees. Everyone else is like”meh, clearly unfair and should be illegal but I can’t do anything about it and still have a job”

Unfortunately, there is a strong implication in American culture that your worth as a human being scales directly with your productivity + net worth. Rich people are intelligent and to be admired

Now take all that stuff that you pointed out as bad, and add on the fact that your healthcare typically comes from your employer too!

You probably don’t even need me to tell you that the right wing media in this country would immediately kick into gear and start programming their base to hate the idea of labor market mobility and the market routing around bad employers. Those people ARE the bad employers!

Non-competes are antisocial, because they blunt one of the few mechanisms capitalism has to keep employers in check – labor market mobility

Hence the chamber of commerce threatening legal action.

If businesses can’t abuse the workers, how can they continue to set new profit records every month? Won’t someone think of the poor CEOs?

What you are talking about is colloquially called Chevron Deference. And yes, it is on the kill list after Roe, Obergefell, and I can only assume Brown v Board ffs.

Wouldn’t Department of Labour ban ALL of them instead “almost all”?

EDIT: Really? Why downvote? Wouldn’t any sane Anything of Labour ban noncompetes when court explicitly says it is their jurysdiction?

It would come down to exactly what authority has been granted to the FTC by Congress and whether or not this falls under that. And not a broad strokes description, but just what power Congress actually delegated to them and no further. The recent EPA cases are examples of that in action.

Employee

There is so no way that would happen here…

They probably were, but to find out you’d have to go to court, and your average person doesn’t want to do that.

I had a non-compete handed to me when I lived in California. I laughed my ass off and signed it. When I left the dumbass VP of HR threatened me with it.

My response was “Could you pretty please try to enforce it? My lawyer would absolutely love to represent me in court. FYI you know my lawyer. He was the paralegal that told you the non-compete contract wasn’t legal. You then screwed him over and got him laid him off. Guess who passed the bar exam 6 months ago!”

They are illegal in sane countries. Sadly, my country(Russia) is not very sane, so they are only unenforcable here. At least as far as I know.

Yes.

IMO that should be legal, but only if they pay you your full wages for that period of time after you quit or are fired.

Let’s see how eager they are to really protect those precious company secrets.

Or sometimes, like mine, that you can’t quit your contract early to apply for a full colleague position at the company you’re being contracted out to.

I think so, yes. If you read the actual rule (https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/noncompete-rule.pdf) it says a noncompete is something against “seeking or accepting work in the United States with a different person”. Since you’re working in the first part with a contracting agency, and then going to work with a different company, the rule seems applicable here.

I’m not sure why they use “person”, but I’m assuming your W-2 or 1099 would have different companies, and the different companies would have different presidents/CEOs/chairmen, so it would objectively be different both in the general legal Romney-style “corporations are people” person and the literal dictionary person.

That’s exactly what a non-compete is. Your job can no longer stop you from quitting and working for a competitor.

That’s a good question (but you might want to rephrase it to something clearer).

Isn’t that scenario a dispute between the contracting company and its customer? How is the employee even involved? Contracting company should have a term in their contract with their company how to handle that situation

I’ve had one in previous contracts. I smirked since they aren’t applicable in my country unless they are willing to pay me to vacation.

ive signed one for every job I’ve ever worked, I think. UK and USA, employment and contractor. And then hopped competitors and to my knowledge no one even so much as raised an eyebrow.

the fact that non competes and NDAs are a thing upon leaving a company is fucking insane

Non-competes are completely evil. Especially so in fields requiring very specialized skillsets. And even more so when the company insisting on the non-compete lays off people.

How the fuck is someone supposed to keep a roof over their head in a situation like that?

Worker: “Well, I got laid off from the job I’ve been working for the last 20 years, but at least I have the skills I picked up along the way!”

Company: “Actually, those belong to us too.”

The ban, which will take effect later this year, carves out an exception for existing noncompetes that companies have given their senior executives, on the grounds that these agreements are more likely to have been negotiated. The FTC says employers should not enforce other existing noncompete agreements.

Only exception seems to be preexisting agreements for top execs making more than ~150k yearly and having decisionmaking power.

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