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I skimmed the document and missed that part. That's disappointing. Why bother making the distinction? What's different about salaried employees that they should

I skimmed the document and missed that part. That's disappointing. Why bother making the distinction? What's different about salaried employees that they should be subject to non-competes but hourly workers shouldn't? I understand that lower paying jobs need protection, but I have never heard of a minimum wage worker at a fast food restaurant having to sign a non-compete. This law seems to only have an impact on skilled hourly workers who likely aren't in a different situation than salaried workers.

Hello71 8y ago
https://www.google.com/search?q=fast+food+non+competes https://www.google.com/search?q=fast+food+non+competes
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
There are companies that value their trade secrets. If you employ an engineer for ten years and they know the ins and outs of your process and then go to work for a competitor, soon the competitor has a better product because they have all their own secrets plus yours. In theory you could try to use an NDA, but the problem with an NDA is that if the employee goes to work for the competitor and then suddenly they have all your secrets, there is no easy way for you to actually prove that they weren't independently rediscovered by some other person at the other company, and nobody there has any incentive to tell you different. You may not even know that they now have any specific one. The restriction is obviously unreasonable to the employee, because it prevents them from switching jobs to another that uses the skills they're trained in, but now it's politics. Who has more political power when a bill prohibiting non-competes comes before Congress? Excluding professionals makes it so those companies no longer really care and makes it a lot easier to actually pass the bill.
- lisper 8y ago
  But the situation is symmetric: your risk of losing secrets to your competitors is exactly balanced by your prospects of gaining secrets from your competitors. This tends to flatten the playing field and make secrets relatively less valuable, which promotes the spread of knowledge, and makes everyone better off in the long run.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    All of what you said is only beneficial to the employer if the employer believes that the competitor's secrets are as valuable as the employer's own secrets. Which is almost never the case. Especially not for the largest employers. The likelihood of some startup's secrets being as valuable as Google's secrets is remote in the extreme.
    - lisper 8y ago
      No, the symmetry necessarily holds in general. It is not dependent on anyone's belief. Now, it is true that some company's secrets will be more valuable than others, and it's also true that most companies think that their secrets are more valuable than their competitors. But because of the symmetry, most companies are simply and necessarily wrong about that. It is also true that some companies will lose money as a results of losing secrets. But society in general will be better off. Which of those is preferable is a matter of taste, of course. Some people are perfectly fine with a legal regime that enriches them (or that they think enriches them) at the expense of everyone else. But if people are making rational decisions, most people should prefer enriching society at the expense of the wealthy rather than the other way around.
      - bilbo0s 8y ago
        >It is also true that some companies will lose money as a results of losing secrets... That's the point though, how do Google's stewards square their pottential support for losing secrets, with their fiduciary duty to numerous teacher, firefighter and police officer pension funds? That duty to the investment funds backing heaven only knows how many 401k's? Their duty to countless other pension funds and retirement accounts? "Society will be better off in the future your honor." Is only gonna go so far. This is part of the problem, society might be better off at some undefined and uncertain point in the future. But for investors in Google, they will be better off right now, and in the short term future. So we're always in this position of trying to argue an idealistic future, that never turns out the way you plan it in any case, against an optimal present. I think as techies we have to start presenting arguments for the changes we'd like to see in the world that are a bit more practical. Not only on labor issues like non competes, but also on issues like tech's relationship to labor, tech's relationship to fundamental rights, tech's relationship to children, etc etc etc. At present, a lot of our arguments sound a little tone deaf at best, callous at worst, and out of touch at the mean. I've said before, in my neck of the woods, if I tell people, "Amazon treats their employees like crap." They get it. If I say, "Google can track your location with android phones so don't bring your phone to see your weed man." They get it. I can even say, "Facebook is full of Ruskies trying to influence the election." They'll get it. They'll know what I mean and everything that entails. But if I come at the people in my small town with, "Big Tech is what drives wealth inequity by disrupting traditional labor markets and causing data privacy issues. Which, of course, concert to cause knock on effects in the larger economy." Yeah, that's the kind of post-graduate parrot-speak that makes them look at my mother disapprovingly for raising such a pretentious ass-hat.
- cabalamat 8y ago
  > soon the competitor has a better product because they have all their own secrets plus yours Then that helps the economy as a whole and is therefore a good thing.
  - ivanbakel 8y ago
    That doesn't matter to that particular employer, and "the economy as a whole" isn't a lobbying group. A big company benefits itself, and does so by protecting its trade secrets.
- cryptonector 8y ago
  Did you read the Bill? It does not eviscerate any contractual restrictions regarding trade secrecy.

Hello71 8y ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=fast+food+non+competes https://www.google.com/search?q=fast+food+non+competes

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

There are companies that value their trade secrets. If you employ an engineer for ten years and they know the ins and outs of your process and then go to work for a competitor, soon the competitor has a better product because they have all their own secrets plus yours. In theory you could try to use an NDA, but the problem with an NDA is that if the employee goes to work for the competitor and then suddenly they have all your secrets, there is no easy way for you to actually prove that they weren't independently rediscovered by some other person at the other company, and nobody there has any incentive to tell you different. You may not even know that they now have any specific one. The restriction is obviously unreasonable to the employee, because it prevents them from switching jobs to another that uses the skills they're trained in, but now it's politics. Who has more political power when a bill prohibiting non-competes comes before Congress? Excluding professionals makes it so those companies no longer really care and makes it a lot easier to actually pass the bill.

lisper 8y ago
But the situation is symmetric: your risk of losing secrets to your competitors is exactly balanced by your prospects of gaining secrets from your competitors. This tends to flatten the playing field and make secrets relatively less valuable, which promotes the spread of knowledge, and makes everyone better off in the long run.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  All of what you said is only beneficial to the employer if the employer believes that the competitor's secrets are as valuable as the employer's own secrets. Which is almost never the case. Especially not for the largest employers. The likelihood of some startup's secrets being as valuable as Google's secrets is remote in the extreme.
  - lisper 8y ago
    No, the symmetry necessarily holds in general. It is not dependent on anyone's belief. Now, it is true that some company's secrets will be more valuable than others, and it's also true that most companies think that their secrets are more valuable than their competitors. But because of the symmetry, most companies are simply and necessarily wrong about that. It is also true that some companies will lose money as a results of losing secrets. But society in general will be better off. Which of those is preferable is a matter of taste, of course. Some people are perfectly fine with a legal regime that enriches them (or that they think enriches them) at the expense of everyone else. But if people are making rational decisions, most people should prefer enriching society at the expense of the wealthy rather than the other way around.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      >It is also true that some companies will lose money as a results of losing secrets... That's the point though, how do Google's stewards square their pottential support for losing secrets, with their fiduciary duty to numerous teacher, firefighter and police officer pension funds? That duty to the investment funds backing heaven only knows how many 401k's? Their duty to countless other pension funds and retirement accounts? "Society will be better off in the future your honor." Is only gonna go so far. This is part of the problem, society might be better off at some undefined and uncertain point in the future. But for investors in Google, they will be better off right now, and in the short term future. So we're always in this position of trying to argue an idealistic future, that never turns out the way you plan it in any case, against an optimal present. I think as techies we have to start presenting arguments for the changes we'd like to see in the world that are a bit more practical. Not only on labor issues like non competes, but also on issues like tech's relationship to labor, tech's relationship to fundamental rights, tech's relationship to children, etc etc etc. At present, a lot of our arguments sound a little tone deaf at best, callous at worst, and out of touch at the mean. I've said before, in my neck of the woods, if I tell people, "Amazon treats their employees like crap." They get it. If I say, "Google can track your location with android phones so don't bring your phone to see your weed man." They get it. I can even say, "Facebook is full of Ruskies trying to influence the election." They'll get it. They'll know what I mean and everything that entails. But if I come at the people in my small town with, "Big Tech is what drives wealth inequity by disrupting traditional labor markets and causing data privacy issues. Which, of course, concert to cause knock on effects in the larger economy." Yeah, that's the kind of post-graduate parrot-speak that makes them look at my mother disapprovingly for raising such a pretentious ass-hat.
cabalamat 8y ago
> soon the competitor has a better product because they have all their own secrets plus yours Then that helps the economy as a whole and is therefore a good thing.
- ivanbakel 8y ago
  That doesn't matter to that particular employer, and "the economy as a whole" isn't a lobbying group. A big company benefits itself, and does so by protecting its trade secrets.
cryptonector 8y ago
Did you read the Bill? It does not eviscerate any contractual restrictions regarding trade secrecy.