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I understand the need for noncompetes in some areas, but this can be solved differently... In my country (slovenia), if the company wants you to sign a noncompe

• hippich 3y ago
  How does it work in practice? Can company write contract saying compensation for non compete is $1/yr?
  • TylerE 3y ago
    What incentive would there be for the employee to sign such an incredibly one sided contract when they could literally go to any other job?
    • JoshTriplett 3y ago
      What incentive is there for the employee to sign a non-compete today that has $0/year compensation for the non-compete duration? However, another comment in this thread suggests that the law in question requires the compensation be the same as that of the job itself, which avoids this issue.
      • tsimionescu 3y ago
        > What incentive is there for the employee to sign a non-compete today that has $0/year compensation for the non-compete duration? If it's the only way to get a job, that's the incentive. If the whole industry does it, or at least the vast majority, then workers don't have an actual choice.
        • JoshTriplett 3y ago
          That was the point of my comment. The comment I was replying to asked " What incentive would there be for the employee to sign such an incredibly one sided contract when they could literally go to any other job?", and my answer was to equate it to the incentive they have for signing existing even-more-one-sided non-competes.
    • fardo 3y ago
      I think it’s more telling to look at the opposite question, “what leverage would employees have to turn such a term down, assuming such practices were considered ‘industry standard’ and all employers of note made sure to include it?” The answer in an environment with a ban on non-competes is “they’d either have legal recourse if someone tried to write them a contract with that term, or the term would be treated as non-enforceable and therefore harmless”. In the current environment, broadly speaking, most employees wouldn’t have leverage to turn such a term down, and generally don’t.
      • somenameforme 3y ago
        It's not most employees, its the employees that an employer would even bother with a non-compete for. And many (most?) of this group would have the leverage to turn down an undesirable offer.
        • reaperman 3y ago
          Arby’s, Auntie Anne’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Carl’s Jr., Cinnabon, Jimmy John’s, McDonald’s, and Subway have all made low-wage workers sign non competes.
          • randomdata 3y ago
            [flagged]
            • reaperman 3y ago
              Not necessarily true in many small towns across rural USA. If the major holding companies, e.g. Yum! Brands, McDonald's, etc. have all of their brands doing non-competes there might be only 2 independent fast-food joints within a 45-minute drive and few other jobs available.
              • deleted 3y ago
                [deleted]
    • distortionfield 3y ago
      In the analogy, I don’t think you could “literally go to any other” rocket science job or whatever. Even within my field, which is pretty broad in tech, it’s not that easy to switch jobs and I’ve had non-competes meaningfully interfere with new prospects because of the subject matter of the new opportunity.
      • ghaff 3y ago
        The existence of a non-compete can be a real showstopper, especially at smaller firms even if the noncompete probably doesn't apply. I worked for a very small company for a number of years and our business office basically wouldn't touch anyone who had a noncompete of any kind.
    • xboxnolifes 3y ago
      Same argument applies to the status quo. Zero pay for non-compete duration, just don't sign.
    • palemoonale 3y ago
      > when they could literally go to any other job? Can they, though? This fight is moztly not about the spoiled tech sector.
    • Broken_Hippo 3y ago
      Some fast food places require these. I'm pretty sure they aren't gonna get literally any other job. Sign it or no paycheck.
  • vlovich123 3y ago
    It sounds like the requirement is that they pay to give you the same salary until the non compete expires.
  • realusername 3y ago
    These laws in the EU countries that apply them are usually stating that the compensation has to be reasonable in regards to the salary the employee is normally getting and the potential loss of money created by the non-compete close so no, one dollar won't work. Also the non-compete clause need to actually protect some company knowledge, a non-compete clause on a bus driver will never be enforceable, regardless on how much extra the company pays.
  • ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    In practice, noncompetes are rare, because noone wants to pay for someone who quit (or got fired). I personally know only one person with a current non compete, he worked at some niche company, that paid a few tens of thousands of euros for specialization in one specific niche branch and one specific software. He can still work in the same industry, just not with that specific software, and he got 75% of his previous paycheck for (i think) 18 months (the length of the noncompete) + of course the current paycheck he earns in a similar industry (with obviously a different software solution). The noncompetes are usually a case of having to invest a lot to educate a worker in the first place (again, niche stuff). General stuff (like a php programmer) would never get a noncompete, because the courses are cheap, anyone can learn that themself, and the monthly payouts are more expensive than udemy courses. On the other hand, there is some abuse, where people get employed, especially in the public sector, to get the expensive (cisco, redhat, microsoft,...) certificates paid by the employer and then quit and do freelance work.
• NotSammyHagar 3y ago
  I don't think there is any reason for noncompetes. They won't pay me if one makes me unemployable. They should be generally disallowed. They only help companies restrict their employee's mobility.
  • lumb63 3y ago
    Maybe those companies wouldn’t have existed without noncompetes, and not have provided those employees with jobs. Would you invest a large sum of money to build a site and hire a team if you knew it could not only vanish but also be turned against you at a moment’s notice? Surely the situation where employees have noncompetes is worse than the situation where there are fewer jobs because noncompetes don’t exist?
    • throwuxiytayq 3y ago
      Would you really want to create a company where the only reason employees stick around is that they literally aren’t lawfully allowed to work anywhere else? An alien, yet common mindset.
      • fauigerzigerk 3y ago
        I would not. On the other hand I have no idea how to deal with a situation where a small tech company develops some highly specialised expertise in house only to have all their employees poached over night by a far bigger competitor that can pay them a salary or signing bonus that would be uneconomical for the smaller company to match. How would you discourage this kind of hostile takeover?
        • kabouseng 3y ago
          A small company handles that by offering equity to the critical employees and having them share in the success of the company.
          • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
• CSMastermind 3y ago
  This is basically how it works in many finance jobs in NYC. Companies pay you for the duration of your non-compete normally at your base salary. The one catch is that 50%+ of your compensation in these jobs is typically a yearly bonus which is not paid during your non-compete period. But pretty much everyone knows this and socks away some money to limit the shock. The system works well both for employees and companies. There's some grumbling here and there but legislation like the one proposed in NYC would have needlessly broken a system that works pretty well.
  • mike_d 3y ago
    > legislation like the one proposed in NYC would have needlessly broken a system that works pretty well. Makes sense. I assume there is a pool all the finance people pay into every month that covers all the people who don't work in finance and are subject to non-competes?
    • JustLurking2022 3y ago
      No, it's up to the individual company to continue paying those employees.
      • foota 3y ago
        Parent is saying that noncompetes affect more than finance companies, and other companies may not pay for them in the same way.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • JackFr 3y ago
      My (possibly incomplete) understanding of ‘gardening leave’ in finance is that it’s based on the idea of specific knowledge of trading positions or specific deal term sheets. It’s not that you can’t compete against us in general or use general techniques, but for 30/60/90 days you have specific knowledge of ongoing operations you can’t use. The hiring firm pays for, but cannot use, the hired person.
• vasco 3y ago
  That's not enough. You're going to be much less likely to find another rocket scientist job after a couple of years flipping burgers. Non-competes should have limits of months, and be paid at normal salary rates.
  • Broken_Hippo 3y ago
    They might have to sign a non-compete at the burger flipping job as well, meaning they can't even get a better foodservice job. They'll have to get stuck in retail if they don't like foodservice. And it'll still be equally hard to find another decent job.
• yieldcrv 3y ago
  there are multiple trillion dollar companies in California, where non competes are banned it has long been seen as related to the success of Silicon Valley and one of several reasons why random jurisdictions can’t compete with merely being excited about attracting tech companies
• hedora 3y ago
  In the US, fast food companies often use non-competes to prevent part time burger flippers from working a second job to supplement their income. The effect is that two restaurants can each hire two people for a total of 40 hours per person, but don’t have to provide either with full-time benefits, like health care, paid time off, reliable hours, etc. I wonder how your law works in situations like this.
  • ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
    >The effect is that two restaurants can each hire two people for a total of 40 hours per person, but don’t have to provide either with full-time benefits, like health care, paid time off, reliable hours, etc. >I wonder how your law works in situations like this. In Europe health care has little to nothing to do with one's employer, and paid time off is mandated by law no matter how much or little one makes.