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The problem here is information asymmetry. It's hard for employees to know how valuable it is for them to sign a non-compete. It's hard for companies to adver
by aetherson 8y ago
The problem here is information asymmetry.
It's hard for employees to know how valuable it is for them to sign a non-compete. It's hard for companies to advertise their desirability based on, "those other guys will make you sign a non-compete. We won't." So it becomes low cost for people to ask for it.
In the current environment, non-competes should be banned: California proves this is a viable approach. But perhaps a better long term solution that seems within technical reach right now would be some kind of AI legal assistant that could demystify and educate people about the contacts they're asked to sign.
Like imagine if you had a smartphone app. You scanned the contract with your camera and the app said, "This is a non-compete agreement. 60% of the companies in this field use them. Best estimate is that signing it costs you $30k in lifetime earnings."
Then a job seeker could just negotiate to their own best interest.
- konschubert 8y agoIt's also power asymmetry. Some people just can't afford to NOT sign a non compete. That's why laws and regulations are needed to protect the poor.
- ams6110 8y agoThe poor are, in most cases, not qualified to do very skilled high-paying work. That is part of why they are poor. Are the jobs they can get really requiring non-competes? If I take a job at an Amazon distribution center, am I going to be asked to agree that I won't later go to Wal-Mart? And if I do, will Amazon actually bother to enforce that? Last time I had a decision to make on a non-compete, I did consult with a lawyer and he basically said there are no guarantees, but generally a non-compete cannot be enforced if it prevents you from earning a living. Edit: the article implies that places like McDonald's do this. I worked there (albeit years ago), and at that time it was not true. We would have been rightly laughed at if we asked for a non-compete on a minimum-wage job like that. It was hard enough to hire people who were reasonably well-groomed, punctual, and energetic. We would not have added unnecessary barriers like that.
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoA bunch do. Jimmy John's just dropped theirs. https://www.foodandwine.com/news/fast-food-non-compete-agreement-inquiry https://www.foodandwine.com/news/fast-food-non-compete-agree...
- kibwen 8y ago> I worked there (albeit years ago) Define "years ago". Improvements to technology over the past few decades have disproportionately eliminated low-skill jobs, leading to an increasingly desperate job market for low-education workers. Desperate people don't have the luxury of refusing a contract based on something abstract like a non-compete. Hell, if it were legal for McDonald's to pay their line workers exclusively in McDonald's Fun Bux rather than dollars, they would still have a surplus of applicants. Desperation is the ultimate enemy of rational decision-making, and at the end of the day poor people still need to eat.
- knute 8y agoJust because you didn't have to sign a non-compete doesn't mean there wasn't shady business going on. What the article is talking about is franchisees signing agreements not to hire employees from other franchisees in the same brand. So if a new McDonald's opened up across town with higher pay, they would not have been able to hire you. Also there are (or at least were) fast food restaurants making their employees sign non competes. Jimmy Johns had their sandwich makers on noncompetes until 2016 [0]. 0: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compete-clauses-following-settlement.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compet...