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It's really odd too - what's the advantage? Not to be offensive but these people do low skilled work. You can onboard another employee relatively quickly. A p

It's really odd too - what's the advantage? Not to be offensive but these people do low skilled work. You can onboard another employee relatively quickly. A part of me would think it's there to avoid turnover costs because I imagine these businesses have decent turnover given the low quality job and pay, why not bounce to a new job if this one sucks or is too stressful?

dlp211 8y ago
It prevents wage competition.
mabbo 8y ago
The unemployment rate is below 4%. I'm not saying you can't find someone, but the labor market is tightening and eventually gasp employees may demand more than minimum wage. By removing their ability to change jobs, you prevent them from even threatening to quit.
- Zanni 8y ago
  Except they're not prevented from quitting. If they work at McDonald's, they can walk down the street to Burger King, just not another McDonald's location. To me that seems like enough freedom for employees that I'd want to see compelling evidence that being unable to switch to another location of the same fast food place (which would presumably offer identical wages) actually harms employees.
  - bcassedy 8y ago
    They don't offer identical wages. The McDonald's by my house offers $17/hr starting pay. The McDonald's by my work ~7 miles away offers $13/hr starting pay. That's about a 30% raise for an extra 15 minutes of commute each day.
    - Zanni 8y ago
      This is the kind of evidence I was talking about (and not presented in the article).
  - lovich 8y ago
    What kind of world do you live in where you think the employee needs to provide evidence that they are being harmed before they are allowed to seek a new job? Companies can enter into contracts with employees to prevent them from going to other employers but unless they offer some sort of consideration you are walking down the path towards indentured servitude and slavery
  - cortesoft 8y ago
    Not all jobs are the same. If you read the article, it mentions a person trying to get a better position at a different location. That means an entry level employee couldn’t take a manager job at another franchise.
  - donbright 8y ago
    70s conservatives: "If you don't like your job, get an education" 80s conservatives: "If you don't like your job, quit and get another one" 90s conservatives: "If you don't like your job, start your own business" Neo conservatives: "If you don't like your job, I need to see compelling evidence that you are being harmed"
    - internetman55 8y ago
      Hahaha
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      Neoconservativism places a lot of importance in the free market, I don’t see how contracts that prevent people from seeking work could be labeled as neoconservative policy.
      - mrguyorama 8y ago
        The free market for the business owner I've never seen evidence that those arguing for a freer market want such for the employee
        AmericanChopper 8y ago
        Then I think you might not be very familiar with economics, because that’s the market theory of wage determination, which is simply supply and demand applied to the labor market. Can you provide any examples of conservatives who argue against the existence of a competitive labor market?
        lovich 8y ago
        The guy up above who thinks employees need to show proof that they are harmed before these restrictive convenants are prevented.
        AmericanChopper 8y ago
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    Why that way? Why shouldn't the employers have to prove that they have a significant need before severely restricting employee freedom?
grawprog 8y ago
There's that...but like any job. Some people really are better at it and put more effort into it than others. Sure you can fill a position quickly I imagine, but finding someone reliable and hard working I imagine is just as difficult as any other job, if not more because I'm sure you get a lot more low quality applicants. If you actually do get someone that works hard and does well at a job like that i imagine you probably try to keep them. It's been many years since I worked in a fast food place, I'm gonna add my grocery store work in there too because it's fairly similar skill wise, but there were people there who'd been at these places for a long time, like most of their lives, they were treated really well, paid well and pretty much allowed to do whatever the fuck they wanted. A few of the employees like that at a grocery store I worked at in a small town were hunted and hired by a competing grocery store. Even me when I worked there, I was only there for two years, but I got a bunch of raises while I was there, was given a bunch of responsibilities, got to choose my shifts and was told when I left if I ever needed a job I'd always have one there just because I didn't fuck around and worked hard while I was there.
scarface74 8y ago
Not to be offensive but these people do low skilled work. You can onboard another employee relatively quickly. Not if you can’t find anyone willing to work. I doubt the teenagers I see driving to their minimum wage jobs in decent cars are doing it out of necessity. Many are just doing it for work experience. I’m sure their are other high priced areas where the people who work minimum wage jobs aren’t doing it to support themselves and their families - especially in places that are inaccessible via public transportation.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  NPR Planet Money The Indicator podcast had a great segment the other day on why teens aren’t working summer jobs anymore. https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624566202/why-teen-employment-numbers-are-down https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624566202/why-teen-employment...
- megablast 8y ago
  > I doubt the teenagers I see driving to their minimum wage jobs in decent cars are doing it out of necessity. Many are just doing it for work experience. They are doing it because as soon as they got a paying job they went and blew all their money on a loan to get a stupidly expensive car, and now have no choice.
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago
    I think you aren't seeing the GP's point. The family bought their teenager the decent car, because the family can afford that kind of expense, which is the signal that there is no real financial necessity.
    - PSZD 8y ago
      The point is that people buy themselves absurdly expensive vehicles on credit. Assuming everyone with one of those vehicles had it bought for them is absurd, and reads as an indictment of the author's high socioeconomic status. Outer appearance of a vehicle also means very little - my motorcycle looks great, but it has 50k miles and cost me less than a lot of the commuter bicycles I see people on.
jryan49 8y ago
Maybe the suppression of wages due of inhibiting mobility outweighs it?
vinceguidry 8y ago
> You can onboard another employee relatively quickly. If that were true then there would be no point in creating this regime. If you want a higher wage as an Arbys employee, you need to jump to McDonalds or Popeyes or anywhere that's not Arbys. They wouldn't have bothered to make these deals unless there was some economic advantage for Arbys chains to hire workers from other Arbys restaurants.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "If that were true then there would be no point in creating this regime." You're assuming the reason is always purely rational or economical. This is about control, pure and simple.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  Nonsense, it's an asymmetrical market. The Arbys has a standard training regimen and brings new people on board every other month; they fire the ones that don't pull through. For the employee, going to a new employer is a major life change that will happen maybe a dozen times in their life and the training is exhausting work. I'm generally libertarian-minded but I see the value in California's employee-friendly restrictions on noncompete clauses. I don't see why this shouldn't be extended, as much as possible, up and down the payscale.
cortesoft 8y ago
> Proponents of the restrictions argue that they protect restaurants’ investments in training in an industry where employee turnover is high. Well, the companies are arguing they are doing it to protect their training investment, so apparently they think the onboarding process is not that simple. It is a bullshit argument anyway; you keep your ‘investment’ from walking away by paying them a decent wage.
- throwaway426079 8y ago
  And offering decent conditions. Short notice shift changes and lazy/incompetent supervisors are examples of why someone might leave for an otherwise similar job.
  - convolvatron 8y ago
    even if the place you're moving to is equally as bad, a change of psychological scenery can help out temporarily. if your old assistant manager liked to creep you out by staring at you across the room for minutes at a time, maybe your new one enjoys torment by unwanted touching. at least its different.
Spooky23 8y ago
It’s all about suppressing wages. Also, in some settings finding reliable low wage workers with transportation is hard. When I was in high school in the early 90s. I worked for a sandwich/coffee place that would pay a $1000 bonus to people who could operate the cappuccino machine and stay through Labor Day.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
Wage. Suppression. Wage theft alone is the largest form of theft in America. Wage suppression is just as significant, and carried out through a huge variety of means, many of them legally questionable at best.
igneo676 8y ago
We had no poach deals with other franchises when I was a hiring manager. The idea was: 1. Other franchise owners knew each other by name and would call each other up when they found their employee were hired by us. Enough harassment and you tire or worry that they won't help you in situations like running out of product or selling/purchasing stores from you 2. The kind of person looking to sell themselves often were often trouble and weren't what we were poking for. Signal to noise ratio was terrible in these situations 3. Since we paid so little, a wage war was a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction and good employees were worth much more than we were paying them. Why chance that? 4. Training a new employee was a lot of time and money - a week with another employee just to make them somewhat competent in their station and a month so they could reliably hold their own. Then do that for every station the employee was expected to work (5 - 6 for a non-kitchen employee) I only "poached" if I was sure I would withstand a tongue lashing from the office and I was almost told to stop the hiring process on one after I had offered them a job. Glad I'm out of that industry
- lovich 8y ago
  How is that not illegal collusion? The franchises have set themselves up as separate companies for their own benefit, but when it would benefit employees they work in concert?
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  Point #3 is exactly why the law should have zero tolerance for this type of agreement.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dlp211 8y ago

It prevents wage competition.

mabbo 8y ago

The unemployment rate is below 4%. I'm not saying you can't find someone, but the labor market is tightening and eventually gasp employees may demand more than minimum wage. By removing their ability to change jobs, you prevent them from even threatening to quit.

Zanni 8y ago
Except they're not prevented from quitting. If they work at McDonald's, they can walk down the street to Burger King, just not another McDonald's location. To me that seems like enough freedom for employees that I'd want to see compelling evidence that being unable to switch to another location of the same fast food place (which would presumably offer identical wages) actually harms employees.
- bcassedy 8y ago
  They don't offer identical wages. The McDonald's by my house offers $17/hr starting pay. The McDonald's by my work ~7 miles away offers $13/hr starting pay. That's about a 30% raise for an extra 15 minutes of commute each day.
  - Zanni 8y ago
    This is the kind of evidence I was talking about (and not presented in the article).
- lovich 8y ago
  What kind of world do you live in where you think the employee needs to provide evidence that they are being harmed before they are allowed to seek a new job? Companies can enter into contracts with employees to prevent them from going to other employers but unless they offer some sort of consideration you are walking down the path towards indentured servitude and slavery
- cortesoft 8y ago
  Not all jobs are the same. If you read the article, it mentions a person trying to get a better position at a different location. That means an entry level employee couldn’t take a manager job at another franchise.
- donbright 8y ago
  70s conservatives: "If you don't like your job, get an education" 80s conservatives: "If you don't like your job, quit and get another one" 90s conservatives: "If you don't like your job, start your own business" Neo conservatives: "If you don't like your job, I need to see compelling evidence that you are being harmed"
  - internetman55 8y ago
    Hahaha
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    Neoconservativism places a lot of importance in the free market, I don’t see how contracts that prevent people from seeking work could be labeled as neoconservative policy.
    - mrguyorama 8y ago
      The free market for the business owner I've never seen evidence that those arguing for a freer market want such for the employee
      - AmericanChopper 8y ago
        Then I think you might not be very familiar with economics, because that’s the market theory of wage determination, which is simply supply and demand applied to the labor market. Can you provide any examples of conservatives who argue against the existence of a competitive labor market?
        lovich 8y ago
        The guy up above who thinks employees need to show proof that they are harmed before these restrictive convenants are prevented.
        AmericanChopper 8y ago
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Why that way? Why shouldn't the employers have to prove that they have a significant need before severely restricting employee freedom?

grawprog 8y ago

There's that...but like any job. Some people really are better at it and put more effort into it than others. Sure you can fill a position quickly I imagine, but finding someone reliable and hard working I imagine is just as difficult as any other job, if not more because I'm sure you get a lot more low quality applicants. If you actually do get someone that works hard and does well at a job like that i imagine you probably try to keep them. It's been many years since I worked in a fast food place, I'm gonna add my grocery store work in there too because it's fairly similar skill wise, but there were people there who'd been at these places for a long time, like most of their lives, they were treated really well, paid well and pretty much allowed to do whatever the fuck they wanted. A few of the employees like that at a grocery store I worked at in a small town were hunted and hired by a competing grocery store. Even me when I worked there, I was only there for two years, but I got a bunch of raises while I was there, was given a bunch of responsibilities, got to choose my shifts and was told when I left if I ever needed a job I'd always have one there just because I didn't fuck around and worked hard while I was there.

scarface74 8y ago

Not to be offensive but these people do low skilled work. You can onboard another employee relatively quickly. Not if you can’t find anyone willing to work. I doubt the teenagers I see driving to their minimum wage jobs in decent cars are doing it out of necessity. Many are just doing it for work experience. I’m sure their are other high priced areas where the people who work minimum wage jobs aren’t doing it to support themselves and their families - especially in places that are inaccessible via public transportation.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
NPR Planet Money The Indicator podcast had a great segment the other day on why teens aren’t working summer jobs anymore. https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624566202/why-teen-employment-numbers-are-down https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624566202/why-teen-employment...
megablast 8y ago
> I doubt the teenagers I see driving to their minimum wage jobs in decent cars are doing it out of necessity. Many are just doing it for work experience. They are doing it because as soon as they got a paying job they went and blew all their money on a loan to get a stupidly expensive car, and now have no choice.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  I think you aren't seeing the GP's point. The family bought their teenager the decent car, because the family can afford that kind of expense, which is the signal that there is no real financial necessity.
  - PSZD 8y ago
    The point is that people buy themselves absurdly expensive vehicles on credit. Assuming everyone with one of those vehicles had it bought for them is absurd, and reads as an indictment of the author's high socioeconomic status. Outer appearance of a vehicle also means very little - my motorcycle looks great, but it has 50k miles and cost me less than a lot of the commuter bicycles I see people on.

jryan49 8y ago

Maybe the suppression of wages due of inhibiting mobility outweighs it?

vinceguidry 8y ago

> You can onboard another employee relatively quickly. If that were true then there would be no point in creating this regime. If you want a higher wage as an Arbys employee, you need to jump to McDonalds or Popeyes or anywhere that's not Arbys. They wouldn't have bothered to make these deals unless there was some economic advantage for Arbys chains to hire workers from other Arbys restaurants.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
"If that were true then there would be no point in creating this regime." You're assuming the reason is always purely rational or economical. This is about control, pure and simple.
stickfigure 8y ago
Nonsense, it's an asymmetrical market. The Arbys has a standard training regimen and brings new people on board every other month; they fire the ones that don't pull through. For the employee, going to a new employer is a major life change that will happen maybe a dozen times in their life and the training is exhausting work. I'm generally libertarian-minded but I see the value in California's employee-friendly restrictions on noncompete clauses. I don't see why this shouldn't be extended, as much as possible, up and down the payscale.

cortesoft 8y ago

> Proponents of the restrictions argue that they protect restaurants’ investments in training in an industry where employee turnover is high. Well, the companies are arguing they are doing it to protect their training investment, so apparently they think the onboarding process is not that simple. It is a bullshit argument anyway; you keep your ‘investment’ from walking away by paying them a decent wage.

throwaway426079 8y ago
And offering decent conditions. Short notice shift changes and lazy/incompetent supervisors are examples of why someone might leave for an otherwise similar job.
- convolvatron 8y ago
  even if the place you're moving to is equally as bad, a change of psychological scenery can help out temporarily. if your old assistant manager liked to creep you out by staring at you across the room for minutes at a time, maybe your new one enjoys torment by unwanted touching. at least its different.

Spooky23 8y ago

It’s all about suppressing wages. Also, in some settings finding reliable low wage workers with transportation is hard. When I was in high school in the early 90s. I worked for a sandwich/coffee place that would pay a $1000 bonus to people who could operate the cappuccino machine and stay through Labor Day.

InclinedPlane 8y ago

Wage. Suppression. Wage theft alone is the largest form of theft in America. Wage suppression is just as significant, and carried out through a huge variety of means, many of them legally questionable at best.

igneo676 8y ago

We had no poach deals with other franchises when I was a hiring manager. The idea was: 1. Other franchise owners knew each other by name and would call each other up when they found their employee were hired by us. Enough harassment and you tire or worry that they won't help you in situations like running out of product or selling/purchasing stores from you 2. The kind of person looking to sell themselves often were often trouble and weren't what we were poking for. Signal to noise ratio was terrible in these situations 3. Since we paid so little, a wage war was a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction and good employees were worth much more than we were paying them. Why chance that? 4. Training a new employee was a lot of time and money - a week with another employee just to make them somewhat competent in their station and a month so they could reliably hold their own. Then do that for every station the employee was expected to work (5 - 6 for a non-kitchen employee) I only "poached" if I was sure I would withstand a tongue lashing from the office and I was almost told to stop the hiring process on one after I had offered them a job. Glad I'm out of that industry

lovich 8y ago
How is that not illegal collusion? The franchises have set themselves up as separate companies for their own benefit, but when it would benefit employees they work in concert?
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
Point #3 is exactly why the law should have zero tolerance for this type of agreement.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]