8 ms·

Perhaps the main thing such a society could do is maintain a website with data about employers that have non-compete clauses in their employment contracts, and

Perhaps the main thing such a society could do is maintain a website with data about employers that have non-compete clauses in their employment contracts, and the extent to which they try to enforce them (like Chilling Effects, but for employers). If prospective hires for such companies knew that they would be seen as damaged goods on the employment market as a result of working for a certain company, it would influence their choice of employers, especially in the common scenario of having a few offers to choose between and not having much else to separate them with.

jessriedel 10y ago
Agreed. It's always a shame that the response to purported market failures is either (1) attempt to regulate directly or (2) do nothing, rather than (3) attempt to fix market failure through narrow means.
- DasIch 10y ago
  Are non-competes somehow acceptable when the supply of potential employees is higher? If the answer to that isn't "Yes" it's clearly not a market failure. This isn't just theoretical by the way. There are quite a few cases of companies with non-competes forced on low-income employees often without them understanding the ramifications. Non-competes prevent competition and therefore stand fundamentally in opposition to a free(-ish) market. There is no reasonable response but to either ban them completely or force companies to pay employees an income for as long as the non-compete is in effect.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    > Are non-competes somehow acceptable when the supply of potential employees is higher? If the answer to that isn't "Yes" it's clearly not a market failure. > This isn't just theoretical by the way. There are quite a few cases of companies with non-competes forced on low-income employees often without them understanding the ramifications. There are many more kinds of market failures besides lack of competition. The one you suggest here is information asymmetry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry > There is no reasonable response Uh oh. The folks who disagree with you aren't just wrong, they're unreasonable...
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      If you believe that a company should be able to have any say whatsoever on what a person does after they've left the employ of that company, then yes, you are unreasonable.
      - marcoperaza 10y ago
        So let's say you're offered $500k a year to work on some cutting edge secret technology, something that improves the relevance of web search results by 50%. The company would be crazy to not have a noncompete. What else stops you from going to a competitor and applying everything you've learned to their product? You're basically calling for the effective end of most trade secrets, that aren't easily enforced directly. Alternatively, you'd have yourself take a huge paycut in exchange for the freedom to quit (or get fired) and live the life for a few years. Edit: I'm rate limited, but the replies below me claiming that China has no obligation to abide by our patents are mistaken. They've signed up to various treaties that do require them to respect American patents. They choose not to, and we mostly choose not to retaliate for it, for many reasons. Maybe we should.
        sbov 10y ago
        What sort of hypothetical situations that would apply to an insignificant fraction of the work force will we attempt to accommodate to the benefit of corporations and the neglect of the VAST VAST majority of workers? If your scenario were what companies by in large used non competes for then I doubt anyone would have a problem. But in the meantime they're mostly using it to fuck people over en mass. Maybe if they behaved like adults, but in the modern business environment where anything legal is good, sometimes you need to take away the toys from entities that basically act like a bunch of toddlers.
        marcoperaza 10y ago
        I used an extreme example to counter the argument that any such restriction is always unreasonable, which is what I was responding to. But there are reasonable restrictions for lower-pay workers too. E.g. requiring that your secretary not work at your direct competitors for two years after leaving. Secretarial jobs at your competitors are probably a tiny fraction of the whole market for those jobs. Replying here because I'm rate-limited: Because your secretary might know a great deal about your business strategy and plans.
HarryHirsch 10y ago
Sounds nice in theory, but in practice the greater part of offers at the high-end employers, like Amazon, Google, Facebook, is made through referrals or internships. Everyone who signs up has the full picture already. I just can't see this work.
- pm24601 10y ago
  A lot of times employers say "This is industry standard." or "Everyone else has the same sort of agreement." If such a website listed companies that good/no non-compete clauses, it gives ammunition for prospective employees. Esp people with multiple offers, during the negotiation, the candidate can point to a competing offer from a company with no non-compete clause.
  - HarryHirsch 10y ago
    The common piece of advice that you get is to run your employment contract past a lawyer. That's good advice. If the landshark is any good they'll tell you what is industry standard and what is overreach. You don't need no website, you need a professional network and some sense.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Porque no los dos? Having and hiring your own expert to negotiate helps. But shining some very bright sunlight on practices and abuses helps as well. The more Amazon (and its recruiters) hear "I don't work for assholes", the better. Markets rely on well-informed participants. Also Microsoft. And, on different grounds, Oracle. And Google, Intel, Cisco, and Apple ("anti-poaching" market collusion -- the case is still ongoing AFAIK, though I've not been following closely). I've many reasons for avoiding the industry, but these are among them.
      - WildUtah 10y ago
        "Porque no los dos?" ¿Por qué no los dos?
umanwizard 10y ago
Unconstitutional according to what legal argument? (I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious)
- chrisbennet 10y ago
  Restraint of trade? http://www.rotlaw.com/legal-library/what-is-restraint-of-trade/ http://www.rotlaw.com/legal-library/what-is-restraint-of-tra...
  - umanwizard 10y ago
    That article doesn't talk about constitutionality at all.
    - chrisbennet 10y ago
      Oh, you're right. I don't know how that legal argument derives from constitution.
      - Bartweiss 10y ago
        As is usually the answer with business, it's the Commerce Clause. ("Congress shall have the power... to regulate commerce... among the several states") It's a basically open-ended constitutional grant to regulate business, with the only caveat being that it's restricted to activities which affect the flow of commerce across state lines.
        umanwizard 10y ago
        That would give Congress the power to regulate these contracts; it wouldn't make them unconstitutional automatically, unless there's some argument I'm missing.
        Bartweiss 10y ago
        True enough, I'm not sure why the word 'unconstitutional' was used. This seems to be a pretty clear case of "laws enabled by the commerce clause", so all it would take is a repeal of Sherman to change the situation.
patmcguire 10y ago
I would compare it to "I Paid a Bribe" in that they need a bit of secrecy http://www.ipaidabribe.com/ http://www.ipaidabribe.com/
bunnymancer 10y ago
Problem is that companies of that size are selling "Your dream and life!" and not a job. With 200k on the table and a plethora of perks, nobody thinks "Yeah no, I'll need to pass this up because I might quit in 5-10 years and go to another somewhat similar company".

jessriedel 10y ago

Agreed. It's always a shame that the response to purported market failures is either (1) attempt to regulate directly or (2) do nothing, rather than (3) attempt to fix market failure through narrow means.

DasIch 10y ago
Are non-competes somehow acceptable when the supply of potential employees is higher? If the answer to that isn't "Yes" it's clearly not a market failure. This isn't just theoretical by the way. There are quite a few cases of companies with non-competes forced on low-income employees often without them understanding the ramifications. Non-competes prevent competition and therefore stand fundamentally in opposition to a free(-ish) market. There is no reasonable response but to either ban them completely or force companies to pay employees an income for as long as the non-compete is in effect.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  > Are non-competes somehow acceptable when the supply of potential employees is higher? If the answer to that isn't "Yes" it's clearly not a market failure. > This isn't just theoretical by the way. There are quite a few cases of companies with non-competes forced on low-income employees often without them understanding the ramifications. There are many more kinds of market failures besides lack of competition. The one you suggest here is information asymmetry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry > There is no reasonable response Uh oh. The folks who disagree with you aren't just wrong, they're unreasonable...
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    If you believe that a company should be able to have any say whatsoever on what a person does after they've left the employ of that company, then yes, you are unreasonable.
    - marcoperaza 10y ago
      So let's say you're offered $500k a year to work on some cutting edge secret technology, something that improves the relevance of web search results by 50%. The company would be crazy to not have a noncompete. What else stops you from going to a competitor and applying everything you've learned to their product? You're basically calling for the effective end of most trade secrets, that aren't easily enforced directly. Alternatively, you'd have yourself take a huge paycut in exchange for the freedom to quit (or get fired) and live the life for a few years. Edit: I'm rate limited, but the replies below me claiming that China has no obligation to abide by our patents are mistaken. They've signed up to various treaties that do require them to respect American patents. They choose not to, and we mostly choose not to retaliate for it, for many reasons. Maybe we should.
      - sbov 10y ago
        What sort of hypothetical situations that would apply to an insignificant fraction of the work force will we attempt to accommodate to the benefit of corporations and the neglect of the VAST VAST majority of workers? If your scenario were what companies by in large used non competes for then I doubt anyone would have a problem. But in the meantime they're mostly using it to fuck people over en mass. Maybe if they behaved like adults, but in the modern business environment where anything legal is good, sometimes you need to take away the toys from entities that basically act like a bunch of toddlers.
        marcoperaza 10y ago
        I used an extreme example to counter the argument that any such restriction is always unreasonable, which is what I was responding to. But there are reasonable restrictions for lower-pay workers too. E.g. requiring that your secretary not work at your direct competitors for two years after leaving. Secretarial jobs at your competitors are probably a tiny fraction of the whole market for those jobs. Replying here because I'm rate-limited: Because your secretary might know a great deal about your business strategy and plans.

HarryHirsch 10y ago

Sounds nice in theory, but in practice the greater part of offers at the high-end employers, like Amazon, Google, Facebook, is made through referrals or internships. Everyone who signs up has the full picture already. I just can't see this work.

pm24601 10y ago
A lot of times employers say "This is industry standard." or "Everyone else has the same sort of agreement." If such a website listed companies that good/no non-compete clauses, it gives ammunition for prospective employees. Esp people with multiple offers, during the negotiation, the candidate can point to a competing offer from a company with no non-compete clause.
- HarryHirsch 10y ago
  The common piece of advice that you get is to run your employment contract past a lawyer. That's good advice. If the landshark is any good they'll tell you what is industry standard and what is overreach. You don't need no website, you need a professional network and some sense.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Porque no los dos? Having and hiring your own expert to negotiate helps. But shining some very bright sunlight on practices and abuses helps as well. The more Amazon (and its recruiters) hear "I don't work for assholes", the better. Markets rely on well-informed participants. Also Microsoft. And, on different grounds, Oracle. And Google, Intel, Cisco, and Apple ("anti-poaching" market collusion -- the case is still ongoing AFAIK, though I've not been following closely). I've many reasons for avoiding the industry, but these are among them.
    - WildUtah 10y ago
      "Porque no los dos?" ¿Por qué no los dos?

umanwizard 10y ago

Unconstitutional according to what legal argument? (I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious)

chrisbennet 10y ago
Restraint of trade? http://www.rotlaw.com/legal-library/what-is-restraint-of-trade/ http://www.rotlaw.com/legal-library/what-is-restraint-of-tra...
- umanwizard 10y ago
  That article doesn't talk about constitutionality at all.
  - chrisbennet 10y ago
    Oh, you're right. I don't know how that legal argument derives from constitution.
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      As is usually the answer with business, it's the Commerce Clause. ("Congress shall have the power... to regulate commerce... among the several states") It's a basically open-ended constitutional grant to regulate business, with the only caveat being that it's restricted to activities which affect the flow of commerce across state lines.
      - umanwizard 10y ago
        That would give Congress the power to regulate these contracts; it wouldn't make them unconstitutional automatically, unless there's some argument I'm missing.
        Bartweiss 10y ago
        True enough, I'm not sure why the word 'unconstitutional' was used. This seems to be a pretty clear case of "laws enabled by the commerce clause", so all it would take is a repeal of Sherman to change the situation.

patmcguire 10y ago

I would compare it to "I Paid a Bribe" in that they need a bit of secrecy http://www.ipaidabribe.com/ http://www.ipaidabribe.com/

bunnymancer 10y ago

Problem is that companies of that size are selling "Your dream and life!" and not a job. With 200k on the table and a plethora of perks, nobody thinks "Yeah no, I'll need to pass this up because I might quit in 5-10 years and go to another somewhat similar company".