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The 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 no

The 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 ago
A 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 ago
Just 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...

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

A 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 ago

Just 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...