Economy

While China and India are often accused of having lax labor standards, non-competes are one area where their laws are stronger than in Massachusetts. Perhaps we should consider their laws as a model for Massachusetts: Re China, from http://www.chinalawblog.com/2010/01/employee_noncompete_agreements.html “Employers simply need to face the fact that non-competition agreements have very limited utility under Chinese …

Continue reading “Non-competes of "very limited utility" in China, unenforceable in India”

will, thanks for sponsoring such an important piece of legislation. i’ve signed over a dozen non-competes in software and life science industries on both coasts. too often they lead to ill-will and excessively long legal discussions leading to acceptance of a intentionally vague document, because its “standard” and/or “un-enforceable” i’ve come to understand, however, that …

Continue reading “employers have other ways to protect themselves that make more sense”

If the purpose of non-competition agreements is to preserve companies’ ownership of specific technologies or intellectual property developed by and legaly ownable by them, then non-competetion should be STRICTLY limited just to those items, and not allowed to effect a blanket and open-ended suffocation of further innovation by the employee (once he/she leaves the company). …

Continue reading “Balancing company rights vs. employee’s rights”

In technical fields, scientists and development engineers are subject to NCAs, but so are quality engineers, technical writers, and UX people, to name a few, often because they work in the engineering part of the organization. However, non-engineers are not about to apply what they know about their last company’s products to those of the …

Continue reading “Job Descriptions Matter”

Employers, large and small can be damaged by employees moving to the competition. When this happens, it is not only the “employers” that are damaged, but also fellow employees, co-workers and team members who may be damaged by both losing the expertise of the co-worker and by potential weakening of the overall company effort in …

Continue reading “There Are Several Dimensions to Non-Competes”

Perhaps some form of disclosure should be added to regulations on employment contracts thus creating greater transparency from the start. I fully agree that in the 21st century, 6 months should be adequate but am concerned about the exemptions at higher levels . In areas such as art or music where unique talent is present, …

Continue reading “Non-competition additions”