There is no excuse for allowing less than 100% compensation, and that should include not just salary, but projected bonuses.
Well, you could take the American option where you're not allowed to work in that field, so you get 0% of your salary... (California excluded, if I understand correctly)
and i dont need a gofundme page in case someone in my family gets cancer ...
20 days if you work 5 days/week + holidays
16 days if you work 4 days/week + holidays
Sounds pretty smart to me.
Should one side be made happy when they have an unreasonable ask?
If companies do not want you to work for competitors, they should be paying your salary for that time. Employees still lose out on things like keeping their skills sharp through work, or career growth, but they are at least getting compensated for the job
When poliicians pass laws though, there are often unintended consequences. Good politicians will intentionally create loopholes out of humility, realizing that they don't understand the entire issue and how it will affect everyone.
If the loopholes are too big, then thr policy will be ineffective and they will either need to tighten the loophole later, or scrap the whole policy as unworkable.
Do you think the ban is ineffective? Are there hordes of unhappy German citizens drawing 60% of their salary because they are unable to find better work without violating the non-compete? And tons of greedy companies making zillions of euros by paying people to not work?
It literally is not a ban since it is allowed, and for less than the full compensation the employee would receive by working.
I am not discussing the efficacy as I haven't seen any numbers on how many non-competes are in effect in Germany. I am discussing the ethics of it
But for your argument to be complete I think you need at least some example of someone doing something unethical or wrong because of the policy. The policy exists today so hypothetical arguments fall a bit flat.
To illistrate my point, consider that it is legal (as far as I can tell -- not a lawyer) to walk around in California with a sword as long as it's neither concealed nor being brandished. But it doesn't make sense to argue that the lack of a law against carrying a sword is unethical because of what people might do. Theoretically people might do horrible things while carrying a sword; but empirically they do not, because few people even have swords, fewer still walk around with them, and approximately zero deaths result from it.
It is not a hypothetical situation, unless you are trying to claim that no company anywhere is using a non compete, in which case I just need to pull up the associated paperwork for pretty much every offer letter I've gotten. Alternatively I can go and poll just my social circle and compile the list of non competes.
Anything less than the full salary is unethical to me, and I'm partial to arguments that it should be more as the employee under the non compete is losing out on career growth and raises
They are also making that money while doing nothing.
They don't. They very specifically can not ask an employee to "give up their right to work", only in the US does that shit happen.
German law (and most european law around NCC in various fashion) requires that the NCC ne limited in time and not have "unreasonable clauses" e.g. can't prevent working in the field throughout the country.
As a result enforceable NCCs are extremely rare and only happen for actual business interest reasons, it's not a sword over the employee's head as it is in the US.
Also it's at least 50% of gross, so closer to 65~70% of net.
Not only is 100% not too much, but it’s the minimum that should be required. The cost of requiring a NCA should be high; that ensures they are only used when they are really worth it to the employer.
Exactly. So per the non-compete, you'd have to take a position where you are only 40% as valuable as you could be—and the 60% noncompete makes up the difference.
It's probably a bad deal for people who are extremely specialised and want to stay that way, but it'd be a pretty good deal for people like me, who love an excuse to learn something new.
If an honest engineer sees a problem which is exactly the same as one she solved at a previous company, and it is still the best solution, she will solve it in the same way. This has nothing to do with company secrets, it’s basic tradecraft. But it’s covered in many of these agreements. They’ve got to go, plain and simple.
(I was of course being a bit facetious with the 40% metric—real life isn't quite so simple—but saying the noncompete should have 100% compensation is silly. That would only make sense if your ability to work was being completely taken away)
For me the key word here is "most". I interpreted the previous comment as implying that previous employers should pay for the opportunity cost of you not maximizing your value.
Unless you are prevented from getting job that leverages _any_ of your previous experience...such as requiring a new career shift. In that case 100% compensation could be merited. Otherwise 100% is not likely to equal the opportunity cost to the employee.
If you don't choose to retire a year later, the year you sit out is costing you what you would have been making in the last year of your career.
To explain in more detail, starting with the year you return to a career job, your pay may be reduced by a differential representing one year less experience, for every year until the end of your career. You miss out on the pay for the year you didn't work, plus all the raises between years, and the one raise you never got, because your career was one year shorter. All that adds up to the pay you would have otherwise received in the last year of your career.
The problem is that 60% is not about making you whole. It’s about discouraging NCs in general.
You can sue but it's so expensive you probably won't and the company knows it.
That's funny, I've never had a job that was exactly like any of the other jobs I've had. Depending on how picky you are, I've never had a job that was even particularly similar to any of my previous ones.
I'm surprised to see such a narrow view about this issue on this forum.
The company was acquired, (and that in turn), when the new parent tried rolling out new contracts per employee, with a short turnaround to sign. Among other things, the new version basically would have prevented me from working in my field for a year.
I told them I needed time to have it reviewed by my lawyer, and I did too. Sure, the backlash had them rolling back the demand forthwith, but it convinced me that the ideal time to leave was immediately, under my old contract.
This forum oddly has some anti-labor sentiment. It is seen in this thread and also in threads related to unions, where the tone is quite obviously anti-union.
Me, I'm very anti-union in that I never want to be part of one, but OTOH, I fully support their right to exist as simply the collective extension to the individual members' right to bargain.
Personally, I won't negotiate for bonuses, or equity equivalent, though... just salary. I'm happy to use that time to invest in myself. It gets too complicated otherwise. I tend to negotiate for max salary anyway, as I don't trust bonuses or equity. YMMV.
I think I've only ever had one company actually pay me NC compensation, though. Usually they realise that they are paying for nothing and strike it from the contract.
That bullshit would not fly for a single second in germany. The NCC couldn't even prevent working for a direct competitor.
same in Italy. a contract that has no reciprocity is easily nullable hence non compete are separate from employment contracts and include a monetary compensation. they also have to be restricted in scope to actual competition (ie.e same customers or exact market), because you can't contract away the constitutional right to work from people.
there are some interesting side effects too: it's good for the employer because this allows non compete to extend longer than employment, and good it's for the employee because you get payed for all the time the non compete is valid even if no longer employed at the company.
(And I think it's unlikely that most people would choose to sit on their butts and collect their 60% salary, as opposed to taking that compensation and also finding a new job that doesn't directly compete with their old one. So the overall harm to society doesn't seem that severe.)
NC are antithetical to natural rights because they are slavery. If there is payment contingent on performance, than there isn't slavery. Given payment is required, firms that would ask for NC go way down.
Other place serf originally were peasants farming communal property who had they're rights taken away bit by bit over hundreds of years until they were bound to the land and had no rights.
Basically, "This NC is so burdensome I can't pay my mortgage if I obey it. I'm petitioning the court to release me from it and cease payment so I am not forced into foreclosure."