Noncompete Clauses Are Depressing Wages and Hurting Workers
The proliferation of noncompete agreements in even low-wage jobs keeps wages low by preventing workers from finding new jobs in their field. For a Minnesota couple allegedly fired for unionizing, such agreements may also make them homeless.
A sanitation worker for Downtown Alliance carries his cleaning supplies through Lower Manhattan, February 22, 2018, in New York City. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Kevin Borowske is still mulling it over after being fired last week — and evicted as of February 28. Was he a scientist with the proprietary recipe for a cleaning solution? Was he the holder of a confidential blueprint concealing the secret rooms in the condo?
Otherwise, he’s at a loss as to why the property management company FirstService Residential had him sign a noncompete agreement when he was hired as a caretaker — a job that blends janitorial and light housekeeping services — at a high-rise building in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
A noncompete agreement bars the worker from taking a similar job with another company for a period of time. You might assume that such agreements would mainly be used to keep workers with proprietary information from being poached by a firm’s competitors. But now all kinds of employers require workers to sign them — so many that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering outlawing the practice.
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