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This was the first time I actually came across a clause of this type in an employment contract. I knew of their existence but had never found them in the wild.
by cassianoleal 5y ago
This was the first time I actually came across a clause of this type in an employment contract. I knew of their existence but had never found them in the wild.
I sincerely hope enough people refuse to sign those that it becomes a problem for companies.
When I go into an employment, I'm agreeing to rent a certain number of hours of my skills to the company's benefit. I'm not agreeing to give the company any kind of control of what I do or don't do outside of those hours. Mind you, I'm not saying I would _never_ sign such a clause, but that would be a lot more expensive. I would probably agree to it if I could work 3-5 years and retire comfortably.
- dcow 5y agoWe have the same problem with terms of service. Someone wants something (salary, product) and all that registers is “I can have it if I sign/accept”. The only way to fix these things would be for some sort of organization (union) to exist that puts pressure on the industry, or legal simplification/ground rules protecting generally people’s rights.
- rahimnathwani 5y agoNot the only way. California and Washington have legal protections for employees. IP you create outside working hours, on your own hardware, and wholly unrelated to your job, is your own.
- tingletech 5y agoThe question becomes what is wholly unrelated. If I'm hired to program, some might argue that any code I write is not wholly unrelated to my work.
- rahimnathwani 5y agoRight, but the law is written better than my comment :) https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2870-2872/2870/ https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/...
- chii 5y agoI think the idea of wholly unrelated cannot be easily avoided, esp. with mega-corps of today that does everything. Imagine if you worked at microsoft - you would not be able to make a game in your off time, because microsoft owns a game studio too. You'd be hard-pressed to find something that is both software, but unrelated to microsoft. The clause ought to be that your off-hours, personal work must not have a direct conflict of interest with your job.