OK, but that's REALLY hard to assess for a normal person on their own.

Moreover, it doesn't prevent unreasonable entities from having their retained lawyers draft scary letters. Most people just sign the boilerplate, hope for the best, and try not to poke sticks into wasp nests if they can avoid it.

But at software engineer salaries, it's not that expensive to get legal advice for this. I did it once, when a company I'd worked at for over a decade was bought out, and insisted everyone sign onerous contracts including broad IP assignment. I read the contracts carefully, marked them up with specific questions, and spent $300 on a half-hour consult with a lawyer, who said it was pretty much all enforceable in my state. (So I left the company, which worked out fine.)

One question/comment here, I don't think they can force you to sign a new one in most states without giving you something in return. I know someone who refused to sign a new contract because they didn't give him anything in return, and there was nothing they could do about it, or at least there was nothing they did do about it.

Hah interesting. My lawyer didn't mention that so maybe my state was an exception. Or, our employers can fire us anytime for any reason so maybe he figured it would be impractical to litigate.

It is dishonorable to sign an agreement knowing you won't adhere to your end because it's unenforceable.

After all, we make promises all the time that are unenforceable, but we keep them.

It's even more dishonorable for a company with a legal team to offer up terms in a contract that are explicitly illegal, and then use those illegal terms to conduct unfair and deceptive business practices in the labor market.

In fact, that scenario is so dishonorable that in some states you can ask the court for triple damages if the employer tries to enforce the noncompete

Your having honor is not conditional on others having honor.

There is no honor is dying on an ER stretcher.

For anyone in the US who needs regular healthcare beyond what's provided by Medicaid, the labor market is a war for (literal) survival. If the ownership class didn't want to return to an extremely adversarial relationship with labor, then they shouldn't have gutted the social safety net.

Right on, stick it to the man

Honor is what separates men from animals. Each of us gets to choose which we are.

Did you just insinuate I'm subhuman because I don't bend over when a megacorp insists that I sign an unenforceable noncompete?

Cooperating against a defect-bot is not an indication of honor.

That's like saying, "it's dishonorable to agree to a contract to kill someone knowing full well such a contract isn't enforceable."

If one party holds all the cards in a contract negotiation it's never truly being negotiated in good faith in the first place. Furthermore, one could argue that without having an expert on contract law right then and there available to answer any questions about any given contract means it falls under a "lack of capacity" for basically anyone who isn't a lawyer.

Employee agreements often fail in courts because of:

    - Duress
    - Lack of capacity (e.g. due to overly complicated legalese *specifically written to be hard to understand*)
    - Undue influence (e.g. company says they'll hire someone else if you ask to get the contract reviewed by a lawyer before signing)
    - Misrepresentation (e.g. job was described as "X" but turns out it's "Y")
    - Non-disclosure (e.g. candidate was not told job would require purchasing products or services sold by the company itself or a partner)
    - Unconscionability (e.g. some term or terms in the contract are so unfair that it cannot be allowed to stand... Like a non-compete that says you can't work within 50 miles of your former place of employment if you leave)

The "usual one" is unconscionability: Employers have unfair bargaining power almost all of the time and judges and juries are easy to convince of this. Also, these sorts of things don't usually make it to court unless there's something ridiculous in the contract. What's interesting is there usually is something ridiculous in every employee contract. It's just that those ridiculous things aren't usually the part of the contract a company is trying to enforce so they don't come up as often.

Dishonorable? I don't think so. They're the ones trying to trick employees into immoral and illegal obligations. They only have themselves to blame if it blows up in their faces. They played the game and they lost.

An honorable person would refuse to sign such an agreement, or would honor it, enforceable or not.

Nobody is making you sign it.

If an agreement is unenforceable, it's almost certainly abusive and exploitative in nature. I mean, it actually got to the point that the agreement was overridden by law. Doesn't even make sense to talk about honor in the same context. Would honorable people propose such an agreement?

They're likely banking on that sense of honor to make you hold yourself to obligations they can't legally hold you to.

> Would honorable people propose such an agreement?

Their honor or lack of it is irrelevant to you having honor.

> They're likely banking on that sense of honor to make you hold yourself to obligations they can't legally hold you to.

The honorable choices are:

1. agree to the clause, and stick to your agreement

2. negotiate to remove the clause

3. walk away from the deal

The dishonorable choice is:

4. cross your fingers behind your back when signing it, and later saying "neener neener whatcha going to do about it?" when you renege

You get to choose. It's entirely up to you.