Why the Feds Want to Kill Noncompetes
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4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2023
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
You might think of noncompete agreements as mostly limited to highly skilled, highly paid tech workers to protect trade secrets. But one-third of workers bound by noncompetes make $13/hour or less: fast-food workers, security guards, and the like.
Noncompete clauses not only give employers leverage over their employees—both during and after their employment—but studies have shown the agreements are a weight on the economy, which is why the FTC is angling for a federal ban.
Guest: Elizabeth Wilkins, director of the Office of Policy Planning, Federal Trade Commission
Host: Lizzie O’Leary
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | New Year, new me. Nah. I'm fine just the way I am. Doing the things I love. Like enjoying |
| 0:07.7 | a latte on the bus with some music or on a walk with a friend. My only resolution is |
| 0:14.8 | to enjoy more of what I love. Like switching up my usual with oat, soy, almond or coconut. |
| 0:22.0 | All delicious non-dairy alternatives available at Starbucks. For no extra charge. While stocks |
| 0:27.9 | last, subject to availability. Greetings. I hope everyone is staying safe and well. As you know, |
| 0:43.4 | these are some difficult times that we're going through right now. Times that were actually |
| 0:48.0 | quite unimaginable just a couple weeks ago. But together we will get through this. |
| 0:52.2 | Credential Security has an active Facebook page. It's filled with everything from videos like this |
| 1:00.5 | one about COVID in the spring of 2020 to post celebrating the holidays. Thanksgiving, |
| 1:06.7 | Christmas, Veterans Day. Even pictures of its security guards being recognized for their work. |
| 1:13.4 | But what Facebook doesn't show is that those guards who worked in a handful of different states |
| 1:18.6 | were forced to sign non-compete agreements that restricted who they could work for once they |
| 1:23.4 | left the company. Minimum wage security guards who had non-compete that prevented them from |
| 1:28.6 | working for a competing company within a hundred miles and with threatened damages of $100,000. |
| 1:36.5 | That's Elizabeth Wilkins, who runs the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, |
| 1:41.1 | which sued Credential Security last week, saying the company imposed illegal non-compete restrictions |
| 1:47.0 | on its workers. This was a company that enforced those provisions against the security guards |
| 1:52.4 | and against the companies that tried to hire them. So, you know, when we're talking about these |
| 1:57.3 | things can be potentially coercive or exploitative of like an unequal relationship of power between |
| 2:03.9 | a worker and an employer. This is real life stuff we're talking about. Real life stuff that affects |
| 2:09.2 | an estimated 30 million workers. That's how many people the FTC thinks are likely covered by |
| 2:15.0 | non-compete agreements. Now, the commission wants to go further than just filing suit against |
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