Morale at work has been super low for the past few years, ever since the CEO/President bragged about how well they did in 2021 “record profits, over and beyond anything we ever expected” and 2022 “we barely made more than we did last year”, but none of that success trickled down to the people responsible for that success. I’m surrounded by people actively looking for work elsewhere. So, to keep people from quitting, the company forced everyone to sign the agreement in the Imgur link I’ve attached. Of course it gives all power to the company, and of course we had to sign it under penalty of losing our jobs immediately.
This of course is in addition to Top Management blaming the Bottom Management for the morale issue, and rebranding poor morale as an “engagement issue”. They’re also forcing the workers to come up with solutions for the “engagement issue”, going so far as to put it on our annual reviews. Part of our “goals for the upcoming year” is to deal with “low engagement”. That’s right, if we don’t come up with solutions for our own morale problem, it will look poorly on our reviews.
I have worked for some brain-dead companies before, but I’ve never seen such myopia in Leadership. At least previously I knew I was getting fucked on purpose. Right now I’m not sure if it’s an accident.
These are “non-enforcable” in some states.
I was typing up a long reply basically saying this, but you summed it up. In most cases, it’s pure nonsense. Unless you’re actively sharing legitimate trade secrets that you were especially privy to, which could reasonably tank the company’s position or competitive advantage based on your actions, it’s trash talk. Change roles to your biggest competitor and tell your CEO/president to eat a side of juicy cockroaches alongside their breakfast of profits while your new employer values your particularly meaningful “suggestions”.
Michigan is just passed rules about these and that’s the state listed.
I’m not complete opposed to non -competes. I think they should have to pay you the whole time.
Due to being overbroad, these kinds of boilerplate agreements are largely unenforceable of challenged.
However most folks can’t afford the lawyer.
It’s not even necessary to challenge it. You quit, go work for a competitor, they send you an angry lawyers letter threatening you, you ignore it and the company backs down. Unless you are legitimately stealing their customers, it’s not even worth the cost of filing a lawsuit for an employer to go after an employee for violating a non-compete, so they just stop at the angry lawyers letter.
Most are not in a position to afford such a risk. Council may be able to give advice aligned with your suggestion, but access remains a barrier.
Liberal systems are framed as giving freedom to everyone, but in fact they simply support the preexisting conditions of social stratification and marginalization. Unfortunately, unless workers support each other directly, the few will remain powerful and many more will remain disenfranchised.
Love all of the folks saying these are unenforceable with confidence.
A non-compete cost me a job offer once. Some states have “selective enforcement” as a defense against suits from corporations towards persons. In short: this means that a company may weaken their ability to enforce the non-compete if they don’t pursue litigation against you for violating their non-compete. Even going to litigation or arbitration against a corporation could bankrupt a white-collar citizen before getting a verdict on such a case.
I recommend trying and put off signing the agreement as long as you can and look for new opportunities if you can (feign ignorance if ya have to). I wish I would have delayed signing, as I probably could have bought myself 6 months with how sloppy the company was run.
Referred to as restraint of trade clauses where I am, and they aren’t enforceable under most circumstances. Any other job where I’m able to apply my specific experience could be considered a direct competitor, doesn’t matter. Similar clause was in my amended contract a few years back, I raised it with my boss and he told me not to worry about it for that reason. I said just remove it then if there’s no reason for it and they did.
Italian here. This kind of non compete agreement are legal here as long as the employee gets compensated with a raise high enough to justify the terms. So a judge may rule in favor of the employee if the contract is too strict or if the pay raise was not high enough.
It seems fair enough doing that way.
