The headline kind of has the valence of government activity backwards, though I agree with its policy proposal.<p>Other states don't restrict job-hopping, they just stand by and don't interfere as the free market ends up having the effect of restricting job-hopping. Employees end up signing restrictive employment contracts, and states don't prohibit them from doing so. California has made a conscious decision that the economy overall works better if some kinds of private-sector contracts are prohibited, so it's restricted what can go into an employment contract to a greater degree than other states have (every state has <i>some</i> restrictions, e.g. in the modern era you can't sell yourself into indentured servitude, but some states are more restrictive than others).
This is absolutely an underappreciated feature of SV, and prior to this article I had also heard it held up as one of the reasons SV has a relatively more active and larger startup environment than Boston.<p>Given the nature of startups and the surprisingly high turnover I've seen of people coming and going at all sorts of companies, it seems impossible to me to create a vibrant, innovative economy with strong non-competes. This is particularly true because the most powerful non-competes are signed by the most senior management, so those with the most experience and best view of a sector are the least able to start something new after leaving their previous gig.
I've worked in SV my entire career and had never even envisioned other states allowed no-compete contracts in this day and age. Everybody I know and have worked with has had multiple jobs and wouldn't have it any other way. Yet one more way CA is far in front of every other state in basic worker rights.
> He was thrilled when he got an offer for an $18-per-hour cleaning job in the Seattle area — a big step up from the $15-per-hour job he had taken a few months earlier<p>> After Almeida switched jobs, a lawyer from his old employer, ServiceMaster, sent him a letter threatening a lawsuit<p>> The company told the Seattle Times that the noncompete agreement was necessary because ServiceMaster had provided Almeida with valuable training<p>So require that the employee stay with the company until they recoup the investment. If the employee leaves before the term is up, charge the employee the cost of training.
What California used have was worse than non-competes. They had secret covenants between manor tech companies not to hire each others employees. I don't know if that has been completely eliminated.
As for other states, you could ask why they have lots of stupid laws. As for California, you could ask why they have that stupid Proposition 13.
Non-competes, whether formal and legal, or shady and illegal like Google-Apple, are restraint of trade, suppression of competition. They drive wages down. Nothing to back that up, but why else would sandwich makers be subject to these?
> The best argument against noncompetes is about freedom
> [...] there should be a presumption in favor of preserving people's freedom to join a new company or start one of their own.<p>Alas, as nice as it is to cloth an issue we care about in the language of moral superiority, banning noncompete agreements does in fact impact the freedom of contract. (In the same way, but to a lesser extent, than the ban on being able to sell yourself into slavery.)<p>Pragmatically this is the right thing to do. But there's no Freedom argument for it.
Repugnant policies like this are an ongoing evolution of the profit motive. It's such a simple mechanism: profit motive -> investment in policy support -> weakened economic standing for the weaker players.<p>What is the corrective mechanism, the courts?
What would happen if an employer in Massachusetts offered me a job and asked me to sign a non-compete clause, and I said I wouldn't take the job if I had to sign a non-compete? Do you think they would back down? Or do you think they would say "too bad" and withdraw the offer?<p>My gut says that most of the time, they'll back down and take that off the table. But I guess it depends on whether you have a huge legal team backing you up...<p>Personally, I'm not in the habit of signing my rights away in return for a paycheck. I'll look around for another job, thankyouverymuch.
Here's what keeps me from job-hopping:<p>The 6-12 month gap that's created when I can't participate in a new employers retirement or healthcare plan. These benefits should start immediately.<p>Losing accrued vacation time also sucks.
Here's an honest question. Knowing that non-competes are bogus and unenforceable in California - why do most employers (including mine) feel the need to tack them onto offer letters?<p>Is it a matter of intimidation?
Here is the thing about non-competes. If you are smart about it, they can be basically impossible to enforce.<p>If you've signed a non-compete and jump ship, you can simply NOT tell your old employer that you got a new job.<p>What are they going to do? Sue you for working at a company they don't know about? There is nothing they can do if you are subtle.
I've always wondered why Boston doesn't have a larger tech scene, seeing as we're home to MIT and Harvard (and more great colleges). Seems like many of the big tech companies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, etc) have been opening offices here lately which is a good start.
Errm, anyone who thinks the Massachusetts hub didn't work hasn't been to Boston in the last three years. Wander round Kendall and Cambridge and look at the vast Biotech labs.
In an era of outsourcing and globalization, gig-economy and minimum wages that don't guarantee a living above the poverty line, it is stunning what politicians will do for support from rich lobby groups ( read corporations). About time the federal government intervened and banned what amounts to a non-free market for job seekers.
It wasn't about the PC vs the minicomputer. Ok Intel is based in Santa Clara, but the PC story was really about Microsoft.<p>It was the internet. Sun among others were pushing open standards, TCP/IP, and the internet while DEC tried to go proprietary with DECNet. It might not have paid off for Sun in the long term, but the industry in Bay Area was definitely pointed in the right direction.