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Why Are Fast Food Workers Signing Noncompetes?
- explodingman 5y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20210929201944/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/opinion/noncompete-agreement-workers.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210929201944/https://www.nytim...
- dddw 5y ago"Typically low-wage workers aren't privy to trade secrets"
- biaachmonkie 5y agoHey now, the "Secret Sauce" is super secret and deserving of extensive protections!
- theandrewbailey 5y agoIt comes off the truck in a bag. Heat it. Squirt it. Serve.
- chunkyfunky 5y ago>Heat it. Squirt it. Serve Hey, that highly technical process is valuable Intellectual Property owned by the McDonald's corporation, careful they don't come after you!
- nasmorn 5y agoI don’t think they need to be outright banned but for the duration of the non compete the employer should have to keep paying the salary. They can then keep workers from joining a competitor if it is important to them. But the cost associated will prohibit its use as a scare tactic.
- inglor_cz 5y agoAlternatively, they could only be allowed for highly paid jobs, say, 10x minimum wage and more.
- cratermoon 5y agoThat sounds like a really powerful way to put downward pressure on the minimum wage.
- inglor_cz 5y agoAn interesting retort. I did not think about this scenario. Wages are notoriously sticky, but there could be pressure to keep the minimum wage stay put in periods of great inflation. Such as the one that we might face soon. Possibly, we are already in. Maybe the limit could be derived from the median wage. Such as "only jobs that earn 4x or more median wage can be subject to noncompetes".
- cratermoon 5y agoCounterpoint: noncompetes should not be allowed at all. Employers shouldn't be able to control the livelihoods of people who don't work for them. If they fear theft of trade secrets, there are already laws in place for that.
- idiotsecant 5y agoI think it's OK for highly compensated employees and employers to have these agreements, as long as the power balance is relatively equitable in the beginning. It allows a certain level of employer investment with assurances that those investments wont immediately be used to boost their competitors and presumably the employee is able to extract some concessions from the employer for signing it. In cases where it's literally just a soulless corporate chain bullying employees into being serfs it's completely immoral.
- 5y ago
- aaron695 5y agoThis is a lie Biden made up - https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/bidens-false-claim-about-mcdonalds/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/bidens-false-claim-about-m... Good work NYT
- DerekL 5y agoHow is this relevant? The article does not mention McDonald's. Jimmy John's used to use noncompete agreements (not just no-poach), until they got sued.
- aaron695 5y agoYou are confirming Jimmy John's also does not ask worker to sign oncompete agreements then? Also confirming if anyone does in Fast Food they will get sued? Crazy talk..... do you have any evidence anyone uses noncompete agreements in fast food per the headline? I understand why on Reddit they need a 'evil' world on every corner fed by the media and politicians to justify their shitty lives. Not on HN though. People fighting to help the media lie to them I find so messed up.
- cafard 5y agoAccording to the Chamber of Commerce, "They are contracts freely bargained for before or during a period of employment. The employee gains something valuable in exchange for the voluntary commitment." Back in my brief employment in the fast food business, I gained something valuable: minimum wage. Are today's milkshake makers and pizza schleppers earning something more valuable? "Where concerns go beyond antitrust, the chamber says, they should be judged by courts under contract law or “left to state legislatures.” In military terms this is called "defeat them in detail," I believe.
- Joker_vD 5y agoAh, the idea that "contracts freely bargained" are fair. Sure, most people do think that working 10 hours in exchange for minimal wage is a better proposition than starving under open sky at full leisure, so such employments are (mutually) beneficial market transactions. They are. But the question is not if they're mutually beneficial, the question is are they fair? There is quite some gap between the minimal wage that's enough for subsistence and the maximal wage that still won't ruin the business, so the actual wages land anywhere in the middle as a result of those conflicting constraints.
- gruez 5y ago>There is quite some gap between the minimal wage that's enough for subsistence and the maximal wage that still won't ruin the business, so the actual wages land anywhere in the middle as a result of those conflicting constraints. Source? My impression is that fast food restaurants run on thin margins.
- ziddoap 5y agoMcDonalds had a gross profit of ~10B and net income of ~6B in 2018. Maybe we have different ideas of thin margins.
- gruez 5y ago1. what's their revenue? Walmart has 13 billion in net income. That might sound like a lot, until you realize that they make 559 billion in revenue, which works out to a relatively thin margin of 2.4%. 2. not an accountant, but the fact that mcdonalds licenses their brand to franchisees probably messes with their profitability figures. They might be making 50% margin on franchise fees, but that doesn't mean the actual restaurant has 50% spare cash to spend on employees.
- thepenis 5y agoHarrumph! This is the fag talk I want to see on HackerNews! Harrumph!
- davidgerard 5y agoarchive: https://archive.is/d4pnt https://archive.is/d4pnt
- crocodiletears 5y agoI've never heard of a fast food worker signing a noncompete agreement, and the only evidence that the author provides is that 12% of workers earning under 20k annually are under some form of noncompete without any context or breakdown by industry sector. Noncompete clauses are awful imo, but the framing seems disingenuous.
- larrybud 5y agoFrom a few years back, but here's an example: 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...
- idiotsecant 5y agoThis is absolutely a thing. I suspect your experience with fast food work might not be very extensive.
- Mikeb85 5y agoIf it's true, they're probably doing it out of desperation. Or perhaps just the knowledge that no judge anywhere in the western world would actually uphold a non-compete clause in a fast-food worker's employment contact.
- muttled 5y agoThey're just hoping they can scare the inexperienced person by telling them that they signed a non-compete, so they can't just leave and go across the street. They're not going to take it to court. They just hope the employee doesn't know better.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoYes my thoughts exactly. It's completely uneforcable. IIRC non-competes are only legal if you literally cannot just hire anybody off the street. The simple fact that restaurants near me are moving over from english to spanish speaking staff is evidence that you don't even need to speak the native language to get the job.
- cardiffspaceman 5y agoThe FA says this is the kind of non-compete that your server at Burger King might have to sign: "The contracts prohibit employees who quit from taking a job at a competitor for a period ranging from months to years." This is definitely intended to keep chain-A employees from defecting to chain-B for better working conditions. The final tool in a person's toolbelt for labor negotiations is the resignation. This type of agreement is intended more to prevent resignations than to prevent leaks of valuable business strategy or similar.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoThese non-competes are 100% illegal and unenforceable. The NLRB would back the employees in a heartbeat and companies are just using it as a scare tactic cause they know they can't defend it.
- spoonjim 5y agoThe McDonalds employees are not likely to know this. The contract itself is abusive, and its unenforceability is not a defense.
- brewdad 5y agoIs McDonalds really suing min wage workers who leave for Wendy's to get a better schedule or 25 cents more per hour? I get that they could but I can't see how that's ever a reasonable business decision.
- LegitShady 5y agoMaking examples of a few is a more efficient option than suing everyone. But this is insanity, and should be legislated against.
- spoonjim 5y agoThey most likely aren’t. But putting that in the contract can make workers think they can’t take that Wendy’s job. I cannot think of two entities with a bigger power gulf than McDonalds and a McDonalds worker, so the expectations must be calibrated accordingly.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoI thought non-competes could only be enforceable if the purpose of it was to prevent poaching and your knowledge of the company is vital to it's ability to compete, but on a high level (like you're a partner or established something significant). You can't say "we own you, you can't go elsewhere to do general labor."
- Ekaros 5y agoAs consultant I have non-compete for same customer and same project. It seems reasonable to me. My company sells my work to someone, and someone else can't skim the profits from that process. Still, I'm entirely free to work with someone else with someone else.
- vsskanth 5y agoNaive question, but I wonder if non-competes have been tested in the supreme court if they violate the constitution. Seems like the very concept is an infringement on personal liberty and if extended too far comes a bit too close to indentured servitude, especially in this era of specialization where your livelihood is heavily tied to your profession. Edit: Also, NDAs exist for IP and confidentiality, so why non-competes ?
- hemloc_io 5y agoFrom one law class I took the way it was explained is this. The original purpose of non-competes was for people like C-Suite executives, and sales people. The point being that you don't want sales people walking out the door and taking a whole client list with them etc. This makes sense because you want to protect things like IP, strategy etc. The theory goes that companies wouldn't want to build up long term strategies or technologies if those people can just walk out the door and bring those things with them. It's also unfair to the company that a salesperson can walk out the door with a client list. For your standard employee it shouldn't be used, but in 2008 when the recession happened companies got away with it and now it's standard even if they're unenforceable. They get "blue penned" a lot, where the terms of the non-compete get changed in court. IANAL but non-competes have been around forever and I doubt they would violate things like the 13th amendment or something like that. Tbh I think the best of both worlds would be that you force companies to do the thing Wall Street Traders get. If you want to sign a non-compete the company has to pay out the employee's salary for X amount of years the company wants them off the market. Provides a nice balance where the company can't just non-compete everyone b/c now they have skin in the game.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> From one law class I took the way it was explained is this > The original purpose of non-competes was for people like C-Suite executives, and sales people It wasn't; the original purpose of noncompetes was for lower-rank guildsmen employed by guildmasters; we know this because there are British cases adjudicating them back to at least the early 15th Century and statutes restricting them back to at least the mid 16th. So, take any explanation that starts with the “C-suite and salespeople” origin story as suspect.
- literallyaduck 5y agoSome states ban pay day loans. Talk to your state reps and ask them to ban non-competes and fine companies which attempt to do business in the state but block the state from hiring.
- diebeforei485 5y agoFortunately this is not a thing in California
- olliej 5y agoBecause they don't have a choice?
- temporallobe 5y agoTFA is paywalled, but if this is actually practiced, this is awful and immoral on so many levels - treating minimum-wage employees like this isn’t good for anyone. Imagine a young single mother being trapped by, say, McDonalds and is unable to get another similar job for any reason (schedule, working conditions, location, etc.), even if she is fired. How is this not basically underhanded institutional slavery? This really smacks of big powerful companies taking advantage of and beating up the little people. I mean, c’mon, these people are flipping burgers, not key personnel in a multimillion dollar contract. If I had the time and energy, I’d organize a social media campaign and boycott any of these joints that dare to implement such unethical tactics.
- theknocker 5y agoMeanwhile: "~boohoo no one wants to work~"
- mindvirus 5y agoI really think the easy solution (if there's such a thing) is that non-competes should be paid at 200% of the person's previous full time adjusted comp. If a company really wants to bench someone, they can, but it puts a pretty high bar for who they do it to.
- kev2908 5y agoIn Austria, you have to earn at least 3700€ (before taxes) to have noncompetes. https://www.wko.at/service/arbeitsrecht-sozialrecht/Konkurrenzverbot_-_Konkurrenzklausel.html https://www.wko.at/service/arbeitsrecht-sozialrecht/Konkurre...