FTC Announces Special Open Commission Meeting on Rule to Ban Noncompetes | Federal Trade Commission
Category: News & Politics
Via: hal-a-lujah • 8 months ago • 35 commentsBy: FTC (Federal Trade Commission)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Today, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan announced that a special Open Commission Meeting will be held virtually on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at 2pm ET.
The following item will be on the agenda:
Business Before the Commission:
Rule to Ban Noncompetes Clauses:
The Commission will vote on whether to issue a proposed final rule that would prevent most employers from enforcing noncompetes against workers. The proposed final rule being considered would generally prevent most employers from using noncompete clauses. As the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking explained, noncompetes are a widespread and often exploitative practice that suppresses wages, hampers innovation, and blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses. The proposed final rule the Commission will consider stems from the notice of proposed rulemaking the FTC issued in January 2023, which was subject to a 90-day public comment period.
At the start of the meeting, the Commission will vote on whether to authorize public disclosure of the proposed final rule that is under consideration. Then, Chair Khan will offer brief remarks. Next, if the Commission votes to authorize public disclosure of the final rule under consideration, the Office of Policy Planning will give a staff presentation on the final noncompete rule under consideration. Finally, the Commission will vote on whether to issue the final rule.
After announcing the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FTC received more than 26,000 comments from members of the public. Given the extremely high volume of public input already received and given that the public comment period on the proposed rule closed in April 2023, the Commission will not be taking further comments from the public during the April 23 Open Commission Meeting. The public, however, can watch the meeting via webcast, which will be available on the day of the event shortly before the meeting starts at FTC.gov. The event will be recorded, and the webcast will be available on the Commission's website after the meeting.
The Federal Trade Commission develops policy initiatives on issues that affect competition, consumers, and the U.S. economy. The FTC will never demand money, make threats, tell you to transfer money, or promise you a prize. Follow the FTC on social media, read consumer alerts and the business blog, and sign up to get the latest FTC news and alerts.
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My faith in the federal government finally got a little boost. I thought they were going to cave on this one, but the FTC has sent a message to the sleazebag companies that use these tools as punitive measures to punish those who quit their sleazebag companies.
I really hate non-compete clauses. It keeps you stuck at a job that doesn't pay as much as you could get somewhere else. Companies like these clauses because it created false loyalty
the last company I worked for wanted me to sign one, after I'd been laid off by them. derp ...
assholes
IT comes down to needing a job or not. If you need a job and that's the only thing available I guess you're signing
I saw it coming and eliminated my 14 year old commercial data base and all my files. they went down the chute less than a year later.
I was most proud of locally advertising on twitter the free barbecue that coincided with their sales open house one spring saturday. did I mention that the light industrial area in which they were located bordered a low income neighborhood? apparently the new ownership decided to cancel the event right after it started. I heard the turnout was huge.
my daughter had something similar happen to her. in her job as contract manager for a nationwide contractor she discovered the principals were looting the company. she shared the info with her boss that then decided he would be better off joining the fun and laying her off. then they tried to ransom her final check for a non-disclosure agreement. I told her to call the labor board and her last check magically appeared via fedex 2 days later. in her job she had developed a project cost tracking and invoicing program for them. unfortunately after the layoff, they hadn't restricted her access into the company data base, so she removed her tracking and billing infrastructure. she still has the new iphone and apple laptop they issued her, despite her repeated requests to return them. the company has lost their contractor licenses in several states and the canadian owner is now fighting extradition, since he's already done time in the US for the same type of fraud in the last decade.
Your daughter sounds like a smart cookie
smarter than me. we let her run the family now ...
most employment non-competes in the front end are employer coercion and should be highly regulated. non-competes should always have a cash value to former employees on the back end.
I wonder if the little bitches who are proposing this rule change are the same type of people who have so little personal integrity that they now expect other people to pay their student loans? it appears we have a generation that sucks when it comes to personal responsibility.
What?
Do you really want to stay at a job because of a non-compete clause when a head hunter is knocking at your door offering you a 25% raise?
If a head hunter is offering you 25% more you can go. Noncompete clauses are very restricted, and they have to meet certain criteria,
So the federal government is needlessly stepping into operations of the private sector again.
[✘]
free speech
There are reasons for non-compete and we ran into one. We purchased a business that built equipment for a specific industry, we purchased the patent, blue prints, the right to build, and we took on the LIABILITY for the machines already built and future machines and the original owner and designer knew that he could not compete which he agreed to. Unknown to us, the employees, who were all not interested in moving with the company, copied all the blue prints and took them to the brother of the original owner and started building the same equipment and selling them, the only way we found out was one of their customers, thinking he had bought the machine from us, called for parts. I inquired if he was the original owner, because I didn't recognize him, he was, so the standard model and serial numbers were required, well at least they used the same designated model number but the serial number didn't match not even the prior machines, I inquired the color and it was the wrong color, I inquired if it had the automatic feed system on it and it did, that system we deemed to be too dangerous and never installed it on any of the machines. So even if we could prove we didn't build the machine if any injury occurred on that machine we were liable for it, because they used the prints that were patented which we held the liability on. We still don't know how many machines they built or who owns them.
There are some reasons for non-compete and the FTC admits that. What they are doing is removing those that don't have valid proprietary reasons like yours.
That doesn’t even sound like a non-compete issue at all. This is about hobbling the ability of laborers and professionals to get a new job after leaving another job. It is not possible to know the character of a company until you get hired on and experience them for yourself. If you get an offer, accept it, consequently end your employment with your current company, then show up and get handed a noncompete agreement to sign as a condition for getting hired, then you are essentially jobless and at their mercy. While there are certainly companies who would not abuse this leveraged position, there are also more than enough who do such that the FTC got involved and finally made the practice illegal.
It looks like I actually seeded the wrong article. The one I intended to seed was this one:
Noncompetes are now banned nationwide.
New non-competes are banned. Existing non-competes for senior executives still apply. Nonprofit Healthcare companies are exempt from the rule. I expect legal challenges will delay the implementation of the new rule.
More importantly, old noncompetes for non senior executive positions are to become void upon adoption of this ruling. There have literally been cases brought to the FTC where Jimmy John’s employees have been prohibited from being employed with other sandwich shops. It is the epitome of petty retribution - especially considering how bland and unappealing Jimmy John’s food is.
Again I expect legal challenges to delay the implementation.
I'm totally on the side of workers on most of this shit and if businesses hadn't gone crazy fucking people over we wouldn't need for the rule. I think some of the non-competes may change to NDA of projects and property. Which makes sense.
I dislike non-competes as much as I dislike arbitration clauses.
I saw this impossibly stupid opinion this morning:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has vigorously opposed the ban, saying that noncompetes can benefit both companies, by allowing them to better guard trade secrets, and employees, by giving employers greater incentive to invest in workforce training and development.
Yeah, noncompetes benefit employees. What a crock of shit. Tell that to the tens of thousands of unemployed people who paid massive amounts for college educations and deserve jobs they can’t have, all because some pathetic employer feels rejected. There is an implicit agreement that both parties agree to when getting hired - you can be let go (fired) at any time without cause, and in turn you are free to leave (quit) at any time without notice. Imagine giving three weeks notice, doing everything you can to leave your projects on the best footing possible, and your weasel employer going to extremes of threatening to sue you if you get another job in your field within 60 miles of any branch of their weasel company. It happens.
it's a rwnj reach around on the old "you'll never work in this business again" threat that the wealthy like to use.