5 ms·

Unfortunately sometimes laws are made not for the best benefit of society as a whole but for the benefit of a powerful or well positioned minority. Now check ou

Unfortunately sometimes laws are made not for the best benefit of society as a whole but for the benefit of a powerful or well positioned minority. Now check out the Colorado law. It says that non-competes are forbidden except for four exceptions. Check out the fourth exception: 4. Contracts with executive and management personnel and employees who constitute professional staff to executive and management personnel. There is an actual clause covering secretaries! So you can be sure your secretary will not go working for a competitor. You do not have to think hard to guess who had this law written for themselves.

binkHN 5y ago
In relation to the exceptions: Even when one of these exceptions applies, Colorado courts insist that the non-compete provisions be reasonable in duration and scope.
- forum_ghost 5y ago
  the word "reasonable" is the largest loophole ever invented, aside perhaps from "interstate commerce".
  - kube-system 5y ago
    This is a common misconception. “Reasonable” does have a specific meaning in many legal contexts, and courts typically have a more specific test for what constitutes “reasonable” For example, a state that has a law which says non-competes much be “reasonable”, may be enforced by the courts as “1 year in duration and within 50 miles”.
    - garciasn 5y ago
      The problem is that 50 miles seems reasonable on its face; however, it ignores context. Let's say you work for a consultancy in a large metropolitan area covering 5MM+ people and this area has 100+ consultancies. There are many groups of these consultancies and they all service different verticals. There are no other major areas with concentrations of business within hundreds of miles (see middle America). A person may have been working exclusively within the healthcare vertical at one consultancy and would move to another to work in a completely different vertical (e.g., retail). Would 'reasonable' cover this nuance? Probably not, particularly not in the favor of the worker.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        Yes, I have lived that exact situation before and I think non-competes should be outlawed entirely. I’m just saying that the word “reasonable” doesn’t make a law open-ended.
        forum_ghost 5y ago
        Not open-ended. just subjective enough to drive a trucking convoy through it.
        kube-system 5y ago
        It's only subjective until the judiciary establishes a standard test or interpretation. Which they have done in every state that has language like this in their laws. In practice, you can call up a lawyer in any state that requires non-competes to be "reasonable" and they can tell you more specifically what the court will enforce.
tekacs 5y ago
… or it could (reasonably) be that secretaries to executives tend to have access to highly privileged information, much more so than most employees of the company, on a level similar to the executive themselves.
- adewinter 5y ago
  You're right, instead of treating them(secretaries) like a trusted confidant and rewarding them well financially - thus ensuring their loyalty (even after their employment!) and compensating them for their truly valuable contribution - we should instead create a law that hamstrings an entire industry and continue to bend the knee to the rich and whatever is convenient for them.
  - tekacs 5y ago
    I’m no fan of noncompetes — and I would also rather generate (and have previously generated) loyalty through compensation, goodwill and camaraderie, but this entire argument strikes me as disingenuous. - The almost conspiracy-esque malice of bending ‘to the rich’ that the grandparent poster was talking about is much more easily explained by ‘these people also have unusually privileged information’. - I think the thinking (perhaps unfairly) went like this: Whilst there is such a thing as domain skill, a noncompete should affect a secretary or assistant minimally in practice, as they generally have a broad, non-domain-specific skillset, unlike the executive they report to.
    - JohnTHaller 5y ago
      > Whilst there is such a thing as domain skill, a noncompete should affect a secretary or assistant minimally in practice, as they generally have a broad, non-domain-specific skillset, unlike the executive they report to. These aren't what people think of as 'secretaries'. These are highly skilled executive assistants with WAY more domain-specific skills than you're giving them credit for. I have friends that do this for C level executives. Including at $100bn+ companies. A non-compete within a given industry would severely hamstring their future career.
Digory 5y ago
Too clever by half, I think. Why would rich and powerful executives lobby to make sure there is an 'exception' that keeps them bound by these contracts? One answer: It helps them. If you're in demand, you can extract more money by promising to keep the secrets. This gives "executives" and "secretaries to executives" a special way to extract a little more.
HWR_14 5y ago
I'm pretty sure secretaries know a great deal about their boss's business. It behind that, I assume executive staff can transition industries a lot easier than most employees.
rhacker 5y ago
> professional staff to executive and management personnel I don't see how that's just secretaries. As a programmer I am: a. A Professional b. Staff c. I work for Executives and Management Personnel. So this basically means programmers are also in this bucket?
- Talanes 5y ago
  I'm not versed in secretarial terms-of-art, but given the unusual grammatical construction, I believe the "to" you left out of that list is actually doing the heavy lifting. Assumedly there is a difference between working under executive and management personnel and being staff TO executive and management personnel. Though a real quick search did turn up a case where what the lawmakers intended by "management" was in question, so there is a distinct possibility they wrote their terms badly. It's weird reading a law that introduces terms like that without defining them.
  - rhacker 5y ago
    Sounds like bad law whether I say FOR or TO, both programmers and secretaries work for them. I am still professional staff to their whims. If they want me to dump medical records in this way or another way, I am required to do so towards their whims. I feel like the lawyers writing the law felt bad about saying: The people directly responsible for scheduling lunches and making sure executives have time to poop between calls. I think the reality of it is that secretaries are a form of excessiveness and they are afraid of losing that.

binkHN 5y ago

In relation to the exceptions: Even when one of these exceptions applies, Colorado courts insist that the non-compete provisions be reasonable in duration and scope.

forum_ghost 5y ago
the word "reasonable" is the largest loophole ever invented, aside perhaps from "interstate commerce".
- kube-system 5y ago
  This is a common misconception. “Reasonable” does have a specific meaning in many legal contexts, and courts typically have a more specific test for what constitutes “reasonable” For example, a state that has a law which says non-competes much be “reasonable”, may be enforced by the courts as “1 year in duration and within 50 miles”.
  - garciasn 5y ago
    The problem is that 50 miles seems reasonable on its face; however, it ignores context. Let's say you work for a consultancy in a large metropolitan area covering 5MM+ people and this area has 100+ consultancies. There are many groups of these consultancies and they all service different verticals. There are no other major areas with concentrations of business within hundreds of miles (see middle America). A person may have been working exclusively within the healthcare vertical at one consultancy and would move to another to work in a completely different vertical (e.g., retail). Would 'reasonable' cover this nuance? Probably not, particularly not in the favor of the worker.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Yes, I have lived that exact situation before and I think non-competes should be outlawed entirely. I’m just saying that the word “reasonable” doesn’t make a law open-ended.
      - forum_ghost 5y ago
        Not open-ended. just subjective enough to drive a trucking convoy through it.
        kube-system 5y ago
        It's only subjective until the judiciary establishes a standard test or interpretation. Which they have done in every state that has language like this in their laws. In practice, you can call up a lawyer in any state that requires non-competes to be "reasonable" and they can tell you more specifically what the court will enforce.

tekacs 5y ago

… or it could (reasonably) be that secretaries to executives tend to have access to highly privileged information, much more so than most employees of the company, on a level similar to the executive themselves.

adewinter 5y ago
You're right, instead of treating them(secretaries) like a trusted confidant and rewarding them well financially - thus ensuring their loyalty (even after their employment!) and compensating them for their truly valuable contribution - we should instead create a law that hamstrings an entire industry and continue to bend the knee to the rich and whatever is convenient for them.
- tekacs 5y ago
  I’m no fan of noncompetes — and I would also rather generate (and have previously generated) loyalty through compensation, goodwill and camaraderie, but this entire argument strikes me as disingenuous. - The almost conspiracy-esque malice of bending ‘to the rich’ that the grandparent poster was talking about is much more easily explained by ‘these people also have unusually privileged information’. - I think the thinking (perhaps unfairly) went like this: Whilst there is such a thing as domain skill, a noncompete should affect a secretary or assistant minimally in practice, as they generally have a broad, non-domain-specific skillset, unlike the executive they report to.
  - JohnTHaller 5y ago
    > Whilst there is such a thing as domain skill, a noncompete should affect a secretary or assistant minimally in practice, as they generally have a broad, non-domain-specific skillset, unlike the executive they report to. These aren't what people think of as 'secretaries'. These are highly skilled executive assistants with WAY more domain-specific skills than you're giving them credit for. I have friends that do this for C level executives. Including at $100bn+ companies. A non-compete within a given industry would severely hamstring their future career.

Digory 5y ago

Too clever by half, I think. Why would rich and powerful executives lobby to make sure there is an 'exception' that keeps them bound by these contracts? One answer: It helps them. If you're in demand, you can extract more money by promising to keep the secrets. This gives "executives" and "secretaries to executives" a special way to extract a little more.

HWR_14 5y ago

I'm pretty sure secretaries know a great deal about their boss's business. It behind that, I assume executive staff can transition industries a lot easier than most employees.

rhacker 5y ago

> professional staff to executive and management personnel I don't see how that's just secretaries. As a programmer I am: a. A Professional b. Staff c. I work for Executives and Management Personnel. So this basically means programmers are also in this bucket?

Talanes 5y ago
I'm not versed in secretarial terms-of-art, but given the unusual grammatical construction, I believe the "to" you left out of that list is actually doing the heavy lifting. Assumedly there is a difference between working under executive and management personnel and being staff TO executive and management personnel. Though a real quick search did turn up a case where what the lawmakers intended by "management" was in question, so there is a distinct possibility they wrote their terms badly. It's weird reading a law that introduces terms like that without defining them.
- rhacker 5y ago
  Sounds like bad law whether I say FOR or TO, both programmers and secretaries work for them. I am still professional staff to their whims. If they want me to dump medical records in this way or another way, I am required to do so towards their whims. I feel like the lawyers writing the law felt bad about saying: The people directly responsible for scheduling lunches and making sure executives have time to poop between calls. I think the reality of it is that secretaries are a form of excessiveness and they are afraid of losing that.