Here's what a really, really bad non-compete agreement looks like; make sandwiches, lose all bargaining power
From the lawsuit posted at HuffingtonPost (click for more)
Mass-produced non-compete agreements are anti-capitalist, anti-free market, and decidedly un-American. I've covered the topic extensively before, but it needs little elaboration. Preventing a worker from changing jobs, even after quitting or being fired, is unconscionable. Worse, it's nearly always done by corporations who engage in all sorts of free market rhetoric when it suits them. And it's only possible because these clauses are imposed on low-wage workers who don't understand them and have no little leverage to fight them.
They are also the worse kind of fine print, presented to most workers on a take-it-or-leave-it basis -- sign this, or we won't hire you -- known as a contract of adhesion. (Courts results have been mixed on this last point, but only because some cases brought have been muddled.)
Anything we can do to raise awareness of offensive non-compete agreements is worth doing.
So I was angry, but pleased, to read the Huffington Post shine a light on Jimmy John's sandwich shop and its non-compete agreement recently. Workers who wish to make $10-an-hour or so from the place must first agree to not work in sandwich making -- or any restaurant, really -- almost anywhere else for a full two years after they leave the chain. TWO YEARS! Here's the language, culled from a lawsuit by HuffPo.
"Employee covenants and agrees that, during his or her employment with the Employer and for a period of two (2) years after … he or she will not have any direct or indirect interest in or perform services for … any business which derives more than ten percent (10%) of its revenue from selling submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches and which is located with three (3) miles of either [the Jimmy John's location in question] or any such other Jimmy John's Sandwich Shop."
Heaven forbid that someone working in a deli for $10 an hour leave because another deli nearby offers $12 an hour. This "agreement" would actually forbid that worker from getting a job at a high-end restaurant that had sandwiches on the menu, too.
About the only opportunity left for a worker is to entirely leave the food business, or move. And that's easy when you are working in food prep.
As I write in The Restless Project about all the reasons that Americans feel this horrid mixture of economic uncertainty and technologically-driven disruption, the "new way we work" is atop the list. Right now, the natural arm-wrestling between worker and employer is entirely out of balance. Non-compete agreements are exhibit A. No one in their right mind would sign one, were there any other choice. This just demonstrates how incredibly unfair the marketplace has become.
Of course, if an employer wants to *pay* a worker to sign a non-compete agreement, that another matter entirely. Of course, highly-paid executives with access to really valuable intellectual property can negotiate over such agreements -- both before they take a job, and after they leave one. That's not this.
This is strictly a power grab designed to prevent employees from having any bargaining power. It's time to stop the insanity. Stop blanket non-compete agreements, if you have and shred of fairness. Non-competes are already unenforceable (in most cases) in California. It's time the rest of the country caught up.