dumb suit
We need the US Courts to ban noncompete agreements, not mutually agreed upon cold calling. Now, i could see if the agreement was "we won't HIRE youre employees," yea, that prevents me from getting a job. The "no cold calling" thing is simply an honest thing to do. Don't shoot for stealing the competitions hand picked staff. If that staff is looking for a new job, let them be open, but I'd actually like to prevent job offers from ringing my desk line when I'm NOT looking for a new job. That's just good business.
Non-compete agreements? That I won't go work for the competition for 6 months to as long as 3 years? In my business, I have few eployers to choose from. I left a job recently at a major medical data company, and per my agreement, i could not go work for any company that handled medical records, insurance processing, or that in any way competed with my previous employer. Well, that eliminated about 50 opportunities, leaving me with banking, law firms, and tax services. Now I'm with one of those, and if my contract expires in 6 months, I still won;t be able to work in medical, and now I won;t be able to work in one of the others either, further limiting who i can work for.
To an extent, I can agree with non-compete, especially in sales organizations. Taking my customer list with me to the competition and cold calling my former clients? that should be verbotten (unless they were "my" clients before I worked with the other firm). However, being a systems analyst for one firm or another? What does saving a company money in their server architecture have anything to do with "competing" yet I'm bound by SIGNIFICANT financial panalties if they find out i took a job with the competition.
Yes, i checked, it IS legal in my state for them to do this (even if I take a job in another state!), and some people I call collegues actually got sued for violating their terms.
Preventing mutuial cold calling agreements? this is not a big deal. Mutual agreements to not hire at all, or binging contracts preventing current employees from seeking jobs with the cometition? thats an issue we need the courts involved in... .