5 ms·
Should be a requirement that, to be enforceable, a non-compete must pay the agreeing employee his salary for the duration of the agreement.
by fallingknife 5y ago
Should be a requirement that, to be enforceable, a non-compete must pay the agreeing employee his salary for the duration of the agreement.
- ghaff 5y agoSome people might think that was a good deal to travel the world but not everyone. So you're at the peak of your career and you need to take a couple years off at significantly lower total comp (because no bonus/equity).
- deregulateMed 5y agoStart a new career, start an unrelated company, do non profit work, do research, etc... I imagine these people have money, so what's making potentially an extra 200k? You make that in a year.
- ghaff 5y agoYou live in a serious bubble if you think the typical person can shrug, say "what's $200K," and casually leave or take a break from the field they've been earning a living in.
- deregulateMed 5y agoWe are talking about people who's company actually used the non compete. These are not typical people.
- ghaff 5y agoThere is absolutely no guarantee of this.
- awsthro00945 5y agoYou really underestimate. Even standard entry-level developers are under NCAs, and I've had a former colleague (who was certainly "typical", and an additional $200k would have been life changing for them) who was hit with one. I have many other colleagues (again, just "typical" people) who lost out on job offers because the new company didn't even want to deal with the threat of an NCA.
- grogenaut 5y agoI had a non-compete when I was making $50k
- deregulateMed 5y agoAnd did the company invoke it?
- hannasanarion 5y agoIf they didn't want to invoke it, they wouldn't have put it in the contract. Would you sign a contract that says I have the right to point a gun at you at all times, with only my unofficial assurances that I won't pull the trigger?
- simcop2387 5y agoThis would mean that you can then also work in a related but not competing industry at the same time. It's not a no-work afterwords contract, but don't compete with us. that won't affect your total compensation then, or your career trajectory usually either. The idea is that a non-compete should only be used for someone it will actually matter to the business the, and not all the low level employees that don't have any impact on anything like that. right now you have tech support and call center employees with year long non-competes that prevents the, from working in another similar role at a new company, https://www.protocol.com/policy/tech-non-compete https://www.protocol.com/policy/tech-non-compete
- ghaff 5y agoSo I'm a senior scientist at a pharma company. I want a new job. Cool. I can't take another pharma or biotech job but maybe I can go to coding camp and get a job mining people's data.
- adventured 5y ago> This would mean that you can then also work in a related but not competing industry at the same time. If they're going to do it at all, and limit cruelty in the equation as much as possible, it should be very limited to directly comparable and competing products (Windows vs MacOS; Google Search vs Bing; consumer desktop operating systems and consumer search as narrow categories), rather than the industry broadly. Most people have a narrow labor specialization and spend their work years building up expertise and reputation in an industry. Any denial of work potential and opportunity that targets an entire industry is akin to labor cruelty and should be viewed as a human rights violation.
- fallingknife 5y agoBut a non-compete doesn't mean that you have to take that time off. It means that you can't work for a competitor.
- alistairSH 5y agoSure, but depending on employer or industry, that could be many/all other employers. Biologist/chemist working on novel drugs - pretty limited field. Developer at Amazon - Amazon does a bit of everything, I bet their legal team would prefer you didn't work elsewhere. As noted elsewhere, it's not even so much about an NDA/non-compete is enforceable - just the threat of legal action is enough to stop employees moving or stop other employers hiring people.
- intricatedetail 5y agoIn the current system you will never get wealthy from salary and bonuses, because companies are being taxed through workers by proxy and the pressure is for keeping salaries as low as possible. Only way to break through is to start own business and become lucky. Big companies keep lobbying for more red tape to keep new competition at bay.
- heipei 5y agoIn Germany, a non-compete can only be enforced for up to two years and pays 50% of the last salary (by law).
- drclau 5y agoI believe this is true in most European countries, with minor variations.
- rytis 5y agonot in the UK
- arcanus 5y agoWhy not 100%?
- radiator 5y agoIt looks like it is "at least 50%" according to the law.
- ghostbrainalpha 5y agoYou don't think there should be any consideration for the fact the person is not performing any labor? They are still able to pursue employment in non competing fields. In a world where non-competes were funded 100% it seems like it should be the GOAL of every employee to be fired from a position where a non-compete needs to be enforced in order to secure extended paid vacations.
- cwkoss 5y agoSociety wants people to contribute productively. Stopping someone from working to protect business secrets is antisocial and bad for society. Really, companies should have to pay >100% salary as a disincentive to idling valuable labor.
- wwweston 5y ago
- Taylor_OD 5y agoYeah the good old garden leave. I wish.
- etothepii 5y agoMy 3 months in the garden was some of the best time of my life.
- 41209 5y agoI'd still rather they be banned. Say you start as a junior at 80k , next year you get an offer for 150k , but you can't take it. You'd end up with a large 1 year resume gap, and losing 70k. The year of career stagnation wouldn't be worth it.
- gibba999 5y agoOr, you take a year to: - Get a Master's degree - Travel and see the world - Do consulting - Take a job in Indonasia - Teach - Develop a new open source project - Etc. The resume gap / career stagnation is a choice. It's rare that you can have a gap year like this. I totally don't feel bad about paid non-competes.
- 41209 5y agoWhat if you have kids to provide for ? You'd might rather have more money. If you desperately need to increase your income even paid non competes are a bad deal
- noitpmeder 5y agoThis kind of leave really doesn't exist outside of finance, and even then most companies would rather let you go unless you actually know some critical secret sauce.
- filoleg 5y agoThat's how it usually works in finance/fintech with non-competes that extend beyond the period of employment (and not just for traders/analysts, it is the case for a good number of engineers and quants as well). You might not be getting the annual bonus (which is a major chunk of pay in finance), but you still get the full salary for the duration of the non-compete (usually 12-18mo). They also usually have a clause that it applies only to jobs in the same industry, so if you go from a finance shop to a FAANG company or another tech startup, then the non-compete is void, and you are welcome to pursue that opportunity without any 12-18mo timeouts (but your non-compete pay stops). That seems to be a reasonable compromise, because if you really want to continue working in finance, you are welcome to wait for 1-1.5 years while getting paid full salary (minus the annual bonus) for doing nothing. And if you want to start working again immediately, you are welcome to do so, as long as it is in an industry other than finance, and the non-compete pay stops (because non-compete at this point becomes void).