I agree that contracts can be intimidating, but they shouldn't be. Non competes, like most things, can be spelled out in totally ordinary English that anyone can comprehend. Rather than having to create 1 law against every possible employee-adverse thing an employer might put in a contract, I would much prefer a law that mandates employee contracts be easily understood by an average employee.
Yes, we would! And they try really hard to do that.
> I've seen non-competes in contracts with 150k+ compensation. Getting 150k to do something is not coercion, it's an exchange.
When you're generating value in excess of double that amount? It's coercion, you aren't get paid your worth. We've actually seen this with the big tech companies like Intel, Google and Adobe. They kept salaries down for over 4 years so that 150k and a non-compete actually is a huge hindrance and it is coercion.
In other words, the problem is that they are coercive. Employees usually sign because the company has more legal power and can be intimidating or because they could be homeless.