- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
The Federal Trade Commission narrowly voted Tuesday to ban nearly all noncompetes, employment agreements that typically prevent workers from joining competing businesses or launching ones of their own.
I’m going to go against the crowd and say that while I think it’s a good move to make it official non competes were effectively already declared unenforceable via the court system. It’s rarely used for the average worker unless something truly fucky was going on and the courts would usually side with the employee no matter what unless something truly fucky was going on.
Even if unenforceable, they likely had a huge chilling effect. Most people understandably prefer not risking going to court, even if they’re in the right.
Right, I can’t afford to take a corp to court, even if I would win.
I can’t afford to have my new employer balk at hiring me if they don’t want to risk defending themselves, even if it doesn’t happen often
The threat of lawsuit is usually enough to get an employment offer rescinded. It’s rare for a company to want to take on a legal defense just to hire someone new. Even though they weren’t actually legally binding, non-competes still limited options for a lot of people.
Overall I agree with you that this isn’t as big of a deal as people make it sound, but it’s easy underestimate their influence if only looking at the result of cases that go to trial. In many situations, the damage is done well before a case can go to trial.