Skateboarding Non-Competes
AThe thing I miss most about living in the city is skateboarding to work. See, because if you live one mile or so from your office (and not on a gravel driveway in rural Missouri), a skateboard is the ideal form of transportation. That’s because:
You get where you’re going faster that if you were running or walking; but
You don’t sweat through your work clothes; and
You can keep that mode of transportation under your desk; so
You can commute home quickly in the evening even if traffic is backed up into the parking garage (true story).
But the problem with skateboarding to work back when I lived in Alexandria, VA, was that it was illegal. Skateboards were not allowed on the roads, nor in the bike lanes, nor on the sidewalks, which made for a bit of a kerfuffle about where they were allowed. And while very few police officers enforced those limitations, few is not zero, and so therefore I had a number of awkward encounters with badged men with strong opinions.
Thankfully, nothing ever escalated to the level of prison. But I mention this all here in reference to the recent FTC decision to nullify and ban non-compete agreements.
Bear with me…
I wrote that one way I’m inspired to write these missives is by talking through things with my son on the way to school in the morning. And so this came up the other day when we were listening to NPR and Morning Edition reported on this story in between reporting on how abortion restrictions are contributing to global warming (I kid, I kid). He was interested in the issue (non-competes) and knew that it had relevance to me and asked what I thought about it. I said something like, “Most non-competes are unenforceable anyway, but that said I’m all for free markets, but that also said, I’m also for contracts.”
I get, of course, that the idea here is that some number of these so-called non-competes have been thrust on people who don’t understand what they agreed to and also may not have the firepower to litigate them (and therefore are already unenforceable!). But provided there is thoughtful negotiation between informed parties, what about leaving us negotiators alone? Because I didn’t see anything in the FTC’s ruling about reducing compensation or severance for eliminating the non-compete even though those things would have been agreed to right around the same time. And if that’s true, this would be a long-term drag on wages and business valuations (particularly for those whose main asset is intellectual property) even as it might be a near-term election year talking point win.
Imagine that.
-Tim
