Non-Compete Agreements And Unqualified Applicants

       I’ve been looking for a job for over 8 years now.  Maybe your’e thinking that I’m having trouble due to the fact that I may be unemployed or it’s a tough market out there.  I guess that the best way I can answer those questions is to say that the answer is no to both points.  So, why is it taking me so long to look for a job when I already have one?  

       I’ll give you a good example.  I had called a search firm and applied for a sales position where I would work with lawyers.  The woman said that I have a great resume with a background with no gaps since I have never been unemployed in my life.  The problem is that I need to have industry related skills in order to work at this job.  

        So, I fired back and said “aren’t people who are applying for this position on non-compete agreements?.” She said “Absolutely.  We received a ton of resumes for this position and we had to eliminate most of those people because they could not work their way around their non-compete agreement.  We were lucky enough to find two people though who could so they are being considered for the job since they understand Discovery.”  
         In the end, she also said that "we deal with people who are on non-compete agreements all the time.  That's the way it is."  

         In case you’re thinking “well Ron, why don’t you just apply for jobs in your industry even thought you’re on a non-compete agreement.  It’s not like the company can’t do anything about it.  

          My answer would be that it would be a waste of time.  First of all, my company could take an injunction out to stop me from working at that job.  Sure, I can go to court and fight this but the legal fees would be over $10,000.  

         In addition, I would tell you that I have met with hiring managers who had reviewed my resume and my non-compete agreement and all of them said that they didn’t want to hire me due to the fact that they could be sued for any lost business since that is also covered in my non-compete agreement.  As a result, I am locked out of over 95% of potential jobs in my industry.  

          With that said, thousands of people who are non-compete agreements that are like mine have to apply for jobs that we are unqualified for.  Now, since we don’t know how many people are on non-compete agreements across the country, there may be in indication of this based on some of the links that I have listed below.  

           Take the first one which is a survey of people in Indiana who are looking for a job.  “Of the 532 participating employers, 39% (202) said they recently have left jobs unfilled due to unqualified applicants.”

           Now, let’s take a look at the second link, which is another survey from Beyond.com.  “Following a national survey of nearly 4,000 job seekers and HR professionals, 75% of the HR respondents said they were having trouble filling open positions because too many of the candidates were unqualified. Meanwhile, the same survey found that 55% of job seekers felt they were not getting those open positions because they were competing with too many qualified candidates.

             “Reading further, there seems to be a reason for this.  “One reason why HR professionals might not think candidates are qualified is because of their resumes. 73% of HR professionals feel that job applicants do a "bad job" of tailoring their resumes to specific positions. In fact, only 28% of candidates said they always customize their resumes for a position, which means the majority of candidates may not be taking advantage of the opportunity to highlight their most relevant experience.”

               Yes, it’s very easy to dismiss people like me from this survey.  It’s not like we can figure out how many people are on a non-compete agreement.  That can be done by putting a question on the unemployment application.  Are you on a non-compete agreement and having trouble finding work in your industry because of it?  Yet employment applications have this question on a non-compete agreement.  Are you on a non-compete agreement?  So much for bringing the unemployment application up to date from the 50’s.  

                If anything, there is a disconnect regarding non-compete agreements.  Sure, we see newspaper articles from large newspapers like the Boston Globe, The Washington Post, or even the Huffington Post on low wage workers being on non-compete agreements yet we never see a news report on a national or cable network other than Fox News, who in the past has put a positive spin on non-compete agreements.   

                So feel free to read these articles and jump to your own conclusions about why people are applying for jobs that they are unqualified for.  Believe that it has something to do with the applicant’s resume.   The truth is that for many people, the future of being on a non-compete agreement means that you have to learn how to hop from job to job so I have put a link there for you as well. 

                 Reading these articles below only makes the truth easier to understand about non-compete agreements.   A tree can fall in a forest and no one will hear it.  For a lot of people, we may or may not know that non-compete agreements even exist but we still go out of our way to hide from them because we don’t want to know about them.  

Ron Hummer 

                  

http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/Survey-Many-Indiana-employers-left-jobs-unfilled-due-to-under-qualified-applicants-265539651.html

http://about.beyond.com/press/releases/20140910-National-Survey-Reveals-75-percent-of-HR-Professionals-View-Job-Seekers-as-Unqualified

http://mashable.com/2014/10/19/recruiters-versus-job-seekers/

http://www.tonawanda-news.com/opinion/wallace-on-the-job-hunt-now-online/article_22acebd7-4b0f-52c6-a9b5-a4c7d0fce618.html

http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/human-resources/busting-the-burning-myths-about-job-hopping-2-01869874

The Camp Bow Wow Saga Continues

          So, here I am at home, going to check my e-mail, and here is a representative from Connecticut, giving me a response to my thoughts on Camp Bow Wow and their non-compete agreement.   Yes, the one that states that their employees can be fired at any time for any reason and they can’t work within a 25 mile radius of a competitor.   

           Yes, the employees should be on non-compete agreements because the standard is that these employees are being trained to take care of dogs.  It wouldn’t be fair to allow them to take those skills and work somewhere else.  Yes, it doesn’t matter if these employees are abused.  It doesn’t matter if they can make more money somewhere else.  

            Anyway, this was the response that I received from an aid who represents a state Senator in Connecticut. 

The latest legislation concerning non-compete clauses have been in 2013- HB 6658  (actually passed but was vetoed by the governor) and 2007-HB 6989 (enacted – codified at 31-50a & b). I also saw that there were proposed pieces of legislation as far back as 1999 that were variations on these bills. At least one was aimed  at prohibiting non-compete agreements for employees making less than $200,000 annually.

As you can see we have attempted to address this issue in the past. If you’d like additional information I suggest reading the information provided in the two bills I mentioned above.

HB6989

http://cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&bill_num=6989+&which_year=2007&SUBMIT1.x=0&SUBMIT1.y=0

HB6658

http://cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&bill_num=6658&which_year=2013&SUBMIT1.x=0&SUBMIT1.y=0

Please let me know if you have any additional questions,

        So, I guess I’m supposed to read this and say okay, if I have a problem, then I should take it up with Governor Dannel Malloy.   I had already spoken to someone in his office.  Yes, she didn’t know about the story in the Huffington Post either.  All she could tell me was that new legislation would have to be brought up.  

         Maybe Governor Malloy should think about all this the next time he goes into Subway to order a sandwich.  Maybe he should talk to his friends and see they have their dogs being taken care of at Camp Bow Wow.  Yes, you can’t be embarrassed about something that you don’t know about.  

          I guess you can say that I don’t accept a lot of things about non-compete agreements.  I don’t accept it when some reporter from the New York Times says that companies are squeezing their employees.  You see, I have met with employment lawyers about my non-compete agreement.  Let me tell you what they said.  

         “Companies like yours have an attitude that they’re doing you a favor by giving you a job because they can fire you at any time for any reason and they don’t have to give you anything, not even a severance package, because the only reward you get from this contract is a job.            

         “These agreements should be illegal but they’re not illegal.  It’s up to the government to do something about this.  As long as they do nothing, then this will continue.” 

          So, you see, there is your answer in a nutshell.  In the meantime, we have dog groomers, cat groomers, maids, employees at Subway, PotBelly, Jimmy John’s, and even Camp Bow Wow have to be on non-compete agreements.  In addition, this also included a 16 year old teenage girl who was on a non-compete agreement in order to work at a summer camp in Massachusetts.  

           You think this is the first time that people have talked about lower level employees being on a non-compete agreement.  Watch the video from Fox Business News and see how Melissa Francis puts a positive spin on non-compete agreements when the CEO tells her that I do this to protect all of my employees.  Watch how his opponent reacts when he says more than once that this isn’t fair to lower level employees, only to have Ms Francis cut this man off.  

           Take a look at the video from Subway on a woman that was fired from her job because she was sick and was told that she could not work within 100 miles of another sandwich shop.  What does Fox say to this video.  Be careful what you sign.  Yes, blame the employee for getting themselves into this mess.  

             Yes, unemployment rates are at their highest in this country and here are companies, putting employees from all walks of life on a non-compete agreement, an agreement that only leads to a career of indentured servitude.  

              In the end, we only know about this if we have a search on google news or we’re on Twitter.  Then we get to read these stories on Twitter and retweet them.  Yes, employees are the ones who are supposed to be outraged since we are the ones who are working all day long and the only thing we get is advice from Michael Bloomberg who says, get in early, stay late, and hold it in.  

               This is our corporate world and for thousands of employees across the country, we are going to be on non-compete agreements.  Blame whoever you want but in the end, it’s like a tree in a forest because when it falls, no one hears about it since we can’t have any stories on any news or cable networks about how our livelihoods have changed over the past 15 years.  

Ron Hummer 

                    

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/2619366929001/do-non-compete-agreements-stifle-innovation/#sp=show-clips

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/23823034/woman-fighting-to-work-at-another-restaurant-after-subway-enforces-non-compete-contract

The Twitter Wave On Non-Compete Agreements

         Over the past few weeks, there have been stories regarding low wage workers that have been put on non-compete agreements.  The first one was the employees at Jimmy John’s, followed by a maintenance worker in Seattle, then the employees at Camp Bow Wow.  

          Of course, this is nothing new since employees at Subway and Pot Belly have also signed non-compete agreements in the past.  A manager at Subway was fired at her job in Michigan for being sick and found out that she could not work within 100 miles of a sandwich shop for one year after she was terminated.  

           If we want to add to this list, we have maids, dog and cat groomers, and hairdressers as well that are on non-compete agreements.  In addition, people who work at a summer camp in Massachusetts were also told to sign a non-compete agreement.  One of those employees was a 16 year old teenage girl.  

           In any case, the most recent sighting of a non-compete agreement took place in Stamford Connecticut at Camp Bow Wow.  The story was in the Huffington Post on November 24th.  I decided that I would call some of the state representatives in Connecticut to see what their reaction was to the story. 

            I guess the first thing I can tell you that I called four representatives and none of them knew about this story.  I don’t think it would have made a difference if it ran in the Hartford Courant since none of the representatives in Seattle knew of the story in the Seattle Times about Benny Almeida’s non-compete agreement that he signed as a maintenance worker at ServiceMaster.  

             Other than that, the first representative started giving me a history lesson in non-compete agreements by telling me that this started with TV news anchors and celebrity journalists who were griping about their non-compete agreement.  My response was that I don’t have any sympathy for them since their contracts are much shorter than the others that I have mentioned - 6 months - and that celebrity journalists such as Ann Curry get a reward of $12 million dollars a year for their contract which expires after a few years.  

            The non-compete agreements such as mine or Camp Bow Wow or the others that I have mentioned don’t expire.  Our only reward is that we are allowed to work in these companies.  We can be fired at any time for any reason and we can’t work for a competitor or a company that has a product that competes with my company from 2-5 years.  Other contracts in the media industry for radio and TV stations don’t last more than 6-12 months and they have a Union that fights for them. 

             If you want me to have some sympathy for celebrity journalists or radio and TV personalities, then my answer would be sure, I’ll consider it as soon as one of the network news or cable stations will actually take the time to run a story on TV regarding the stories that I have mentioned.  Obviously, that won’t be done at this point.  Maybe that is part of the reason that state and government officials don’t know about these stories that seem to get retweeted all the time on Twitter. 

             In addition, I did speak with an aide to one of of the state Senators that is involved in labor issues in Connecticut.  His response was okay, I’ll print the story out in the Huffington Post and give it to the Senator but I don’t see us doing anything about non-compete agreements at this time.  

              That’s fine.  No rush on this.  More people can just sign non-compete agreements because when they do, then they’ll be stuck just like I am because if there is legislation in the future, it will only be for people who didn’t sign a non-compete agreement since state laws can’t invalidate a contract.  

               As far as the other State senators were concerned, the answer was the same.  We’ll show the story to the Senators and let you know what we think.  I didn’t get a response from the representatives in Seattle and I don’t expect to get a response from the representatives in Connecticut as well. 

               Yes, these are the people that you vote for, the ones who can create legislation to stop non-compete agreements.  One idea would be to say that employees who make less than $50,000 a year shouldn’t be on a non-compete agreement since they can’t afford over $10,000 in legal fees to hire an employment lawyer to fight this.  Good luck with getting that passed in any state. 

               So, there you have it.  People are on Twitter retweeting these stories and no one in the state and local governments is paying any attention to this.  Eventually, this will all die down until we have another story on non-compete agreements.  Maybe that can be about a chain of restaurants.  After all, if you saw the movie, As Good As It Gets, you know that a waitress can get a customer to go to another diner since Helen Hunt was able do do that with her relationship with Jack Nicholson.  

               In any case, continue to retweet the stories.  Maybe next time, a reporter will take the extra time to get a comment from a state or local representative although I’m sure the answer would be no comment.  After all, if you watch Fox News, you would see that we need to eradicate Obamacare before tackling this problem. 

               I realize that I’m sounding like a Cynic but those are the answers.  Retweeting stories is no different than being at a football game and standing up for wave.  It’s a lot of fun to be outraged about these stories but the fact is that your representatives don’t feel the same way that you do.  

Ron Hummer