| Landguy said: I agree, I veered off the point.
I agree that it should be illegal for companies to stop you from pursuing other opportunities. The reality is that some of the major companies may have had an understanding between them. That didn't stop employees from seeking employment elswhere or in a different job. Was that fair to the employees? My other arguments show that for that particular employee it was probably harming them short term for sure, but the long term we will never know. The "must have now" society that we live in today makes doing business rather difficult. Employees make no effort to earn their way up in a company, they just jump from one company to another draining resources of the companies along the way. Then everyone asks why everything is so expensive? The internet has created a whole new world of pay opportunities for everyone, but also created a much higher cost to employ people. This pretty much pushes the small companies out of the picture, as they can't compete with the larger ones. But, when this law was made, I am sure that people didn't see the long term impacts on the businesses themselves and how the ensured freedom given to the employee would harm the greater marketplace too. |
Now here's where this subject gets interesting, and quite frankly, I think it depends more on the forms you sign upon employment, than it does what any company can do or say about you getting employment somewhere else, for whatever reason. I used to work for EDS (Electronic Data Systems, now an HP company), who was/is the Fiscal Agent for the Medicaid contract in our State. When I was hired, there were indeed forms that I had to sign about not going to their competitors, due to the risk of trade secrets or whatever. But, I think that's a far far cry from no-poaching/raiding or even the wage fixing issue. That's a conscious decision by the new hire, to agree not to go to one of their competitors. In that vein, I don't see that as a bad thing (and I'm sure there are other companies with equal concern over their craft being shared with others).
The interesting thing is though, that I know some folks from my own office who presumably had to sign the same forms, who DID go to a competitor, but nothing ever actually happened to them, you know what I mean? So, I'm not entirely sure about the legal recourse from a business perspective, but such forms do exist and I've signed them. Still, I think it's very important that such terms are openly discussed with the new hire (who then makes the decision themselves), as opposed to the situation we have going on here. It seems very very very shady, and quite prone to abuse.
