Since I didn't see it coming!
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently raised a rule that prohibits employers from imposing non-compete "pacts" on their workers.
Okay for me. I've had to sign no contests over the years, and I've never liked it one bit. Each one of them exaggerated what I would not be allowed to do.
Almost all of them forbade me, as a freelancer, to work for other publishers. For a writer, that's impossible. So I usually write 3-6 posts at a time to keep the body and mind together.
Hardly anyone pays me enough to consider working for someone full time.
So whenever I get a contract that forces me to work only for Publication X, I strike out those clauses. In general, I do not receive any rejection. Usually.
I have found the same thing with full time jobs. Before focusing my sacrifices on writing, I worked as a programmer, system administrator and network administrator. Each time, my employment contract insisted that I couldn't program or anything for a year or so after I left my job.
Come on! I was a developer. If you couldn't write code, what else would you do? Return hamburgers to McDonald's? I don't believe it.
The FTC has summarized my feelings on non-compete clauses.
He called them a "widespread and often exploitative practice that eliminates wages, stifles innovation and prevents entrepreneurs from building new businesses." Therefore, the Commission concluded: "By stopping this practice, the agency estimates that the proposed new rule could increase salaries by nearly €300 billion a year and expand career opportunities for about thirty million Americans."
That's, by the FTC's count, one in 5 Americans. Therefore, it is not only technological or highly qualified jobs that are affected.
As The New York Times noted, it also includes sandwich makers, hairdressers, and summer camp counselors. Then yes. Truly, there are no competitions for teens who work as counselors.
Don't ask me what serious trade secrets their employers are guarding: the proper way to sing Kumbaya?
Of course, there are reasonable caveats. For example, if I leave your company, I have no problem admitting not to discover your secret sauce to a contender or use it in my business.
But the FTC isn't talking about getting rid of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), unless those NDAs are worded so long as to act as a de facto non-compete. It's a different and uglier story.
I see NDA all the time. They are an integral part of my planet as a technology chronicler, and I have no problem with them when they are rational.
But to tell me, as has been done lately, that I couldn't write on artificial intelligence (AI) and search for a year if I had access to this white paper, that was foolish. (And so would a contract telling an AI developer that he couldn't work on AI if he worked for that company.)
While proprietary business information and technological secrets are what people often believe should be protected through non-compete, this is often not the case.
Instead, it's about making sure your workers can't leave. For example, the American fast food chain Jimmy John's used to prohibit its sandwich makers from joining related businesses within two miles of its stores for a couple of years. The courts ultimately forced the company to vacate this non-compete clause.
Silly lawsuits like this highlight the true purpose of most non-compete agreements: to keep workers ready or not ready for the lowest wage.
As FTC Chairman Lina M. Khan stated, non-compete agreements prevent "workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and denying companies the talent pool that they need to build and develop".
Khan is right. Over the years, I discovered that he had never received significant increases. So the only option I had to earn more real money was to change jobs. I am not alone. it's everyone
I have never asked employees or contractors to sign a non-compete agreement in my businesses and never will. But if your company does, think carefully about the message you're sending to workers.
If you want happier, more productive employees, don't chain them to your company with non-compete agreements. It never ends well for anyone.
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