Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question about employers and non-compete clauses.

I'm not a lawyer, but I own a small building materials supply company with 30 employees. If you're a plumber and work for a small company, I think it's unreasonable to ask a trade to sign a non-compete. I'm not sure how much plumbers are in demand where you are and how easy it is to find another job, but I think your boss might be shooting himself in the foot. Good reliable tradesmen are hard to come by around here.

I look at my employees as an asset and try to take good care of them and have very little turn over. I would never expect a truck driver or forklift operator to sign something like that. We probably should do something like that for our sales staff, but don't. We've had guys leave and go to work for competitors, but have only had one case where we had a guy, that we taught him the business for about 6 or 8 years, and left to go to work for some competitors. He took our customer list and repeatedly called our customers in an attempt to steal them. After bouncing around to a couple of companies, I think he's finally burned most of his bridges with false promises, but is still a stick in my britches. Most of the other sales guys that I've lost, haven't been a problem.

I think you should ask yourself some questions. Can I make it on my own and furnish health insurance? Can I find a job somewhere else? Do I like where I am now? If you sign it, and later on you want to go out on your own, they might come after you and you'd be screwed.

If you are a plumber, and thought you could leave and find another job or go out on your own and be successful, I'd do it now unless you can negotiate a solution to drop the clause. If it's what I'm thinking, your boss might be an idiot. If he's smart, and you're a good technician and good employee, he'll do anything to keep you, but you need some ammo. Hell, you never know, he might drop the clause and give you a raise.

I think non-competes in something like the "trades" are a complete joke. Make sure your boss knows how a bunch of you think, and that it is forcing many of you to question HIS loyalty to his employees. Turn the tables on him immediately, as he is pulling a fast one. Tell him how it undermines YOUR trust in HIM. It makes HIM seem like his shady in hiring employees and trying to make them suffer later.

If you take a new job, simply make sure they give you a different job title then you had previously. It puts all the onus on the former employer to try to screw you over, and it won't hold up in court usually.

I would be gone so fast if my employer tried any of that crap.

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Heed this advice. It's better than spot on.

Signing a no compete clause, as a Plumber, would basically be letting my boss know he has me by the balls,

You're a Plumber, with this clause (which I don't think is enforceable), if he fires you, or you move on,

You're going to get a job as what, a school teacher?

It's your living, it's what you do.

You're not going to compete in the only profession you have?

I wish and hope, you soon find the solution with your career, you've been frustrated for far too long.

I would politely tell them that a no compete clause need to come with a 5 year contract, a raise, and a severance package equal to 3 monthes pay.

Tell your boss to PHUg off. If he lets you go, catch him alone and do what needs doing.

A friend of mine tells a similar story about his parents having a meal with a guy named Edwin who wanted them to invest in a particular chemical process he was experimenting with. They turned him down, and yes, it worked out to be Edwin Land, playing with what would eventually become the Polaroid process. They too threw away some money that day.

I always thought it odd that folks can leave a company on a whim yet expect a company to not do the same and chitcan someone on a whim?

Hire. A. F'kin'. Attorney.

Nothing more! Nothing less!

Land worked at the Naval Photographic Center in Washington (DC) when he was developing the process. He tried to get a lot of people there to buy in. When I was a Navy photographer in the '60's I knew several people who'd wished they had.

Just got back home after a driving downstate yesterday for 200 miles like a maniac. Snow squalls, whiteouts and bad road conditions be damned when your nurse sister calls crying from Mom's hospital bedside. My wife and I got there to find a chipper Mom and perplexed medical staff. Blood oxygen levels low and blood gasses in the danger zone earlier in the day should have been her end. The pulmonary specialist and nurses are just shaking their heads. She should be gone, but instead has rebounded, may be discharged on Monday.

OK, that said, my next step is to shoot a scan of this off to my BIL. Wake Forest grad and legendary scorer on the BAR and what not. He's a very sharp cookie and I'm going to ask his advice on it as advised here.

FWIW, here's some more grist for the mill. I'm in a salaried position and wear many hats due to it being a small company. I work in sales, supervision and also put my tool belt on when things get busy. There's no geographical limitation the the non-compete, just a 2 year limit. It's also a low population area. We, like everyone else, serve a large area of many counties. A big town in the area might have a year-round population of 5-8 thousand people, so it's impossible to not dangle a hook in front of a fish someone else has reeled in previously. The limitations of the non-compete are stifling.

I've been trying to find work elsewhere and 1 company has shown strong interest, but I'm at a level where lateral moves are difficult to find and while I'm hoping something might work out there, probability is low. Financially, I'm not able to start my own business, though I'd like to.

Again, I'll be putting this matter before my BIL and will base my decision on his advice.

Thanks again, guys.

Sounds like a tough position Scott.
A non-compete is totally unreasonable in our area.
Either you call their hand and find out if they are serious about trying the strong arm, or sign it and completely neuter yourself as anything other than their employee and they can continue F'ing with you.
But if they fire you over it, well you just might have to find a way to work for yourself somehow.

I suggest you quit, which has always been an option for you.

Drinking, or just being an ass?

You've got to talk to the boss, and you've got to turn this around to show how it demonstrates HIS problems in trusting good employees. He has created a problem for all current and future employees by creating an atmosphere of distrust from the get-go. Ask him if that is what HE intended, because that is what all non-compete clauses do.

In other words, he won't want the type of employees working for him that are stupid enough to sign a non-compete contract.