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> Either side can stipulate anything they want in that contract, other than what is disallowed by contract and labor laws (and of course your rights). Guess wh

> Either side can stipulate anything they want in that contract, other than what is disallowed by contract and labor laws (and of course your rights). Guess what this is disallowed by! You can write "oh yeah by the way we're not going to pay you for ~75% of your working hours because we're cheap bastards" in the contract all you want, that doesn't make it legal. If they want you to work for them 168 hours a week, they need to pay for it.

kbenson 6y ago
That's not what they said, and that's not what I said. They didn't say the personon the clock doing a task for them of the time, they said the person was employed by them of the time. They were. You are employed right now by whoever signs your paychecks (assuming you have an employer). Employment is a contract, not a state you go into and out of on an hourly basis day by day. You may start work and stop work at different times on different days, but you are employed that entire period (this is also why you can't collect unemployment just because you haven't worked because you haven't been scheduled over a weekend). People have been primed to assume some things about the statement presented (as with the root comment), but if you really examine it critically and rationally, you'll see it's not nearly as ludicrous as it sounds. Employers often put things in contracts that we take as obvious and most would agree should be allowed. At it's simplest level this is a non-compete agreement while that person is employed. Whether they are disallowed from offering their services to a competing company, or an open source project, IBM does not want them plying their skills elsewhere while they've contracted to ply them with IBM, and presumably as put that into the contract. Whether it's for an open source project or not is irrelevant, if that's what they agreed to in the contract (let's not act like an open source project can't provide competition, whether or not this one was). I've outlined my thoughts on this in detail other places in this thread. I don't agree with contracts like this, and would attempt to not sign one if it was possible (but maybe if I was paid enough, it would be worthwhile). But I do think this is a case very easily handled by contract law, and better handled by it than some ham-fisted legislation that is easy to work around and has unintended consequences.
- sellyme 6y ago
  > this is also why you can't collect unemployment just because you haven't worked because you haven't been scheduled over a weekend Presumably this works differently in your country, but I could 100% collect unemployment benefits were I to work less than 25 hours in any given week, regardless of whether or not I had an active employment contract. > if you really examine it critically and rationally, you'll see it's not nearly as ludicrous as it sounds It is exactly as ludicrous as it sounds. A company pays you to do 8 hours of work. You go there and do the 8 hours of work that they paid you to do. You then go home and do something else in your free time, and they phone you up and tell you to stop doing that because they don't like it. This is not acceptable behaviour. > At it's simplest level this is a non-compete agreement while that person is employed. Despite being legal, non-compete agreements are equally scummy, and I'm not sure why you think that this comparison is favourable to IBM. It's also important to note that non-compete agreements are only enforceable if there's demonstrable harm to the business that employs you, or you're taking intellectual property from said business to use yourself. IBM very clearly has no intention to respect those limitations, so they can get bent. I don't understand how anyone could possibly read the sentence 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' and think that it sounds okay. No matter how much nuance or context you want to add, any company policy that results in someone typing those words is a gross overreach.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    > I could 100% collect unemployment benefits were I to work less than 25 hours in any given week That has nothing to do with that I said. > You then go home and do something else in your free time, and they phone you up and tell you to stop doing that because they don't like it. If you agreed not to do something in a contract, you shouldn't do it. There are obviously ways overreaches that should be protected from, but if someone comes to you and says here's a contract for $10,000, all you have to do is agree not to write any code for any companies or submit any code to open source projects and you sign that, should you be able to ignore that contract? If so, should you have to give the money back? In what way is this different than if it's an additional stipulation on your employment contract? > Despite being legal, non-compete agreements are equally scummy, and I'm not sure why you think that this comparison is favourable to IBM. Non-compete agreements for after your employment has ended are scummy. I see no problem with a company making your employment conditional on you not also working for a competitor at the same time, as long as that is clearly outlined up front. > 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' and think that it sounds okay. Because, contextually, what they are saying and is being left out is along the lines of "you agreed not to do this when we employed you. Stop doing this. It doesn't matter whether you use a work email or personal email to do this thing you agreed not to do, as long as you are employed by us. Stop now. If you don't stop, we'll fire you, and then you can do it all you want, but we won't be giving you the paycheck we agreed to, because part of that agreement was you would not do what you're doing now, because then you won't be employed by us." I think that's an okay thing to request if the employee agreed to that stipulation in advance. I would try not to agree with anything like that, but if they offered enough money, I might. I don't think there's some fundamental right of mine to contribute to an open source project that should be prevented from being negotiated in a contract. You either believe that someone should be able to offer you some amount of money for you to agree to behave a certain way by not doing some things, or you don't. If you think that shouldn't be allowed, then you disagree with a huge chunk of contract law. If you propose we change contract law at such a fundamental level, I suggest you also provide for how you don't collapse the economy at the same time.

kbenson 6y ago

That's not what they said, and that's not what I said. They didn't say the personon the clock doing a task for them of the time, they said the person was employed by them of the time. They were. You are employed right now by whoever signs your paychecks (assuming you have an employer). Employment is a contract, not a state you go into and out of on an hourly basis day by day. You may start work and stop work at different times on different days, but you are employed that entire period (this is also why you can't collect unemployment just because you haven't worked because you haven't been scheduled over a weekend). People have been primed to assume some things about the statement presented (as with the root comment), but if you really examine it critically and rationally, you'll see it's not nearly as ludicrous as it sounds. Employers often put things in contracts that we take as obvious and most would agree should be allowed. At it's simplest level this is a non-compete agreement while that person is employed. Whether they are disallowed from offering their services to a competing company, or an open source project, IBM does not want them plying their skills elsewhere while they've contracted to ply them with IBM, and presumably as put that into the contract. Whether it's for an open source project or not is irrelevant, if that's what they agreed to in the contract (let's not act like an open source project can't provide competition, whether or not this one was). I've outlined my thoughts on this in detail other places in this thread. I don't agree with contracts like this, and would attempt to not sign one if it was possible (but maybe if I was paid enough, it would be worthwhile). But I do think this is a case very easily handled by contract law, and better handled by it than some ham-fisted legislation that is easy to work around and has unintended consequences.

sellyme 6y ago
> this is also why you can't collect unemployment just because you haven't worked because you haven't been scheduled over a weekend Presumably this works differently in your country, but I could 100% collect unemployment benefits were I to work less than 25 hours in any given week, regardless of whether or not I had an active employment contract. > if you really examine it critically and rationally, you'll see it's not nearly as ludicrous as it sounds It is exactly as ludicrous as it sounds. A company pays you to do 8 hours of work. You go there and do the 8 hours of work that they paid you to do. You then go home and do something else in your free time, and they phone you up and tell you to stop doing that because they don't like it. This is not acceptable behaviour. > At it's simplest level this is a non-compete agreement while that person is employed. Despite being legal, non-compete agreements are equally scummy, and I'm not sure why you think that this comparison is favourable to IBM. It's also important to note that non-compete agreements are only enforceable if there's demonstrable harm to the business that employs you, or you're taking intellectual property from said business to use yourself. IBM very clearly has no intention to respect those limitations, so they can get bent. I don't understand how anyone could possibly read the sentence 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' and think that it sounds okay. No matter how much nuance or context you want to add, any company policy that results in someone typing those words is a gross overreach.
- kbenson 6y ago
  > I could 100% collect unemployment benefits were I to work less than 25 hours in any given week That has nothing to do with that I said. > You then go home and do something else in your free time, and they phone you up and tell you to stop doing that because they don't like it. If you agreed not to do something in a contract, you shouldn't do it. There are obviously ways overreaches that should be protected from, but if someone comes to you and says here's a contract for $10,000, all you have to do is agree not to write any code for any companies or submit any code to open source projects and you sign that, should you be able to ignore that contract? If so, should you have to give the money back? In what way is this different than if it's an additional stipulation on your employment contract? > Despite being legal, non-compete agreements are equally scummy, and I'm not sure why you think that this comparison is favourable to IBM. Non-compete agreements for after your employment has ended are scummy. I see no problem with a company making your employment conditional on you not also working for a competitor at the same time, as long as that is clearly outlined up front. > 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' and think that it sounds okay. Because, contextually, what they are saying and is being left out is along the lines of "you agreed not to do this when we employed you. Stop doing this. It doesn't matter whether you use a work email or personal email to do this thing you agreed not to do, as long as you are employed by us. Stop now. If you don't stop, we'll fire you, and then you can do it all you want, but we won't be giving you the paycheck we agreed to, because part of that agreement was you would not do what you're doing now, because then you won't be employed by us." I think that's an okay thing to request if the employee agreed to that stipulation in advance. I would try not to agree with anything like that, but if they offered enough money, I might. I don't think there's some fundamental right of mine to contribute to an open source project that should be prevented from being negotiated in a contract. You either believe that someone should be able to offer you some amount of money for you to agree to behave a certain way by not doing some things, or you don't. If you think that shouldn't be allowed, then you disagree with a huge chunk of contract law. If you propose we change contract law at such a fundamental level, I suggest you also provide for how you don't collapse the economy at the same time.