<story><title>Amazon sues employee for taking Google cloud job, in new test of non-competes</title><url>http://www.geekwire.com/2014/amazon-sues-employee-taking-google-cloud-job-new-test-non-compete-laws/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mixologic</author><text>Companies seem to want to view employees as somewhat disposable and have shifted the burden of taking care of somebody long term (pensions, retirement, career progression etc) onto the employees themselves. But in doing so they&amp;#x27;re encouraging labor mobility, and seem strangely shocked to find out that employees would take with them the expertise, history, and network of contacts that they had accumulated and move that value somewhere else.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really interesting how they have resorted to strong arming their engineers with these shot in the back non-competes, and couple it with salary collusion and hiring agreements. Throw in the golden handcuffs (that turn into golden dental floss after a few funding rounds -- long after they&amp;#x27;ve gotten their 60-70 hour work weeks out of the true believers) and you see how they are trying to stymie that labor movement.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really a wonder that technology workers haven&amp;#x27;t started forming some sort of union.</text></item><item><author>bcantrill</author><text>This is a pattern for Amazon:  I work for a competitor to Amazon, and they went after us for violating a non-compete after we hired an AWS engineer.  Our counsel had reviewed the non-compete before we hired the engineer, and concluded that the non-compete didn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; prevent an engineer from working for a competitor, but rather prevented much narrower activity like poaching customer lists or supplier relationships.  We were somewhat surprised that Amazon aggressively pursued the matter because it seemed so obvious to us that they wouldn&amp;#x27;t prevail.  After Amazon sent us (and, it must be said, the engineer personally) a very nasty letter claiming that the non-compete was being violated, we retained local counsel and sent them an even nastier one back, making clear that we had no intention of backing down.  Ultimately, they backed off, but in this process, I learned that Amazon has pursued this particular non-compete &amp;quot;hundreds&amp;quot; of times, and has never (to the best of the knowledge of our local counsel in Seattle) prevailed once.  In part this is because Washington allows non-competes, but also doesn&amp;#x27;t like to infringe on the free flow of labor -- temporary restraining orders preventing an individual from working for a company are extraordinarily rare.  (This is in contrast to states like Texas and Massachusetts, where non-competes are infamously enforceable.)&lt;p&gt;So if Amazon never prevails, why do they do it?  One of the peculiar attributes of Amazon&amp;#x27;s action against us is that it was well publicized &lt;i&gt;within&lt;/i&gt; Amazon -- and was apparently a result of outrage by a high-ranking executive after he learned that the former AWS engineer not only was working for a competitor, but had the gumption to open source a technology that he developed here.  (Ironically, the executive only learned of all of this when the technology itself became a top story here on HN.)  My conclusion from this:  this action wasn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; directed at us -- Amazon is smart enough to know that nothing would come of it with respect to our actions -- but rather at &lt;i&gt;their own&lt;/i&gt; employees.  That is, Amazon&amp;#x27;s pursuit of the non-compete against our engineer was their way of shooting an escapee in the back -- and sending a sharp message to any other AWS inmates with similar ambitions.&lt;p&gt;In terms of an immediate effect, Amazon&amp;#x27;s move worked to a degree: our next few hires from AWS were slowed a little bit by fear of similar action.  That said, the fact that we had prevailed against Amazon also gave these engineers the confidence that we could and would do so again -- and ultimately, it didn&amp;#x27;t prevent anyone from matriculating.  It did, however, have one lasting effect:  the engineer that was pursued went from thinking fondly of his years at AWS to hating AWS and Amazon with a white-hot passion that still burns today.  In the end, enforcing a non-compete is like erecting a Berlin Wall:  if you feel you need it, you have much deeper problems...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>whybroke</author><text>They are not shocked when it happens. The attempt to force employes to stay on using non-compete agreements among other things is exactly because they know employees must move on to survive. They know very well that the failure to provide pensions and career progression will drive employees away so they use force and, quite frankly, terror to keep them with the company.&lt;p&gt;Particularly lovely is the near universal marriage of at will employment agreements with non compete agreements.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;It&amp;#x27;s really a wonder that technology workers haven&amp;#x27;t started forming some sort of union.&lt;p&gt;-The average age kept perpetually at about 28 (meaning only about 5 years work experience)&lt;p&gt;-The perpetual threat of tech labor imported from overseas.&lt;p&gt;-The belief that professional association and (gasp!) unions are pure socialist evil or at least are for low paid looser.&lt;p&gt;And if you think salary collusion and extra legal hiring agreements are shocking, just watch the response there would be to an effective professional association.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon sues employee for taking Google cloud job, in new test of non-competes</title><url>http://www.geekwire.com/2014/amazon-sues-employee-taking-google-cloud-job-new-test-non-compete-laws/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mixologic</author><text>Companies seem to want to view employees as somewhat disposable and have shifted the burden of taking care of somebody long term (pensions, retirement, career progression etc) onto the employees themselves. But in doing so they&amp;#x27;re encouraging labor mobility, and seem strangely shocked to find out that employees would take with them the expertise, history, and network of contacts that they had accumulated and move that value somewhere else.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really interesting how they have resorted to strong arming their engineers with these shot in the back non-competes, and couple it with salary collusion and hiring agreements. Throw in the golden handcuffs (that turn into golden dental floss after a few funding rounds -- long after they&amp;#x27;ve gotten their 60-70 hour work weeks out of the true believers) and you see how they are trying to stymie that labor movement.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really a wonder that technology workers haven&amp;#x27;t started forming some sort of union.</text></item><item><author>bcantrill</author><text>This is a pattern for Amazon:  I work for a competitor to Amazon, and they went after us for violating a non-compete after we hired an AWS engineer.  Our counsel had reviewed the non-compete before we hired the engineer, and concluded that the non-compete didn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; prevent an engineer from working for a competitor, but rather prevented much narrower activity like poaching customer lists or supplier relationships.  We were somewhat surprised that Amazon aggressively pursued the matter because it seemed so obvious to us that they wouldn&amp;#x27;t prevail.  After Amazon sent us (and, it must be said, the engineer personally) a very nasty letter claiming that the non-compete was being violated, we retained local counsel and sent them an even nastier one back, making clear that we had no intention of backing down.  Ultimately, they backed off, but in this process, I learned that Amazon has pursued this particular non-compete &amp;quot;hundreds&amp;quot; of times, and has never (to the best of the knowledge of our local counsel in Seattle) prevailed once.  In part this is because Washington allows non-competes, but also doesn&amp;#x27;t like to infringe on the free flow of labor -- temporary restraining orders preventing an individual from working for a company are extraordinarily rare.  (This is in contrast to states like Texas and Massachusetts, where non-competes are infamously enforceable.)&lt;p&gt;So if Amazon never prevails, why do they do it?  One of the peculiar attributes of Amazon&amp;#x27;s action against us is that it was well publicized &lt;i&gt;within&lt;/i&gt; Amazon -- and was apparently a result of outrage by a high-ranking executive after he learned that the former AWS engineer not only was working for a competitor, but had the gumption to open source a technology that he developed here.  (Ironically, the executive only learned of all of this when the technology itself became a top story here on HN.)  My conclusion from this:  this action wasn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; directed at us -- Amazon is smart enough to know that nothing would come of it with respect to our actions -- but rather at &lt;i&gt;their own&lt;/i&gt; employees.  That is, Amazon&amp;#x27;s pursuit of the non-compete against our engineer was their way of shooting an escapee in the back -- and sending a sharp message to any other AWS inmates with similar ambitions.&lt;p&gt;In terms of an immediate effect, Amazon&amp;#x27;s move worked to a degree: our next few hires from AWS were slowed a little bit by fear of similar action.  That said, the fact that we had prevailed against Amazon also gave these engineers the confidence that we could and would do so again -- and ultimately, it didn&amp;#x27;t prevent anyone from matriculating.  It did, however, have one lasting effect:  the engineer that was pursued went from thinking fondly of his years at AWS to hating AWS and Amazon with a white-hot passion that still burns today.  In the end, enforcing a non-compete is like erecting a Berlin Wall:  if you feel you need it, you have much deeper problems...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joshAg</author><text>What would you think of a profession instead of a union?&lt;p&gt;This piece does a good job explaining: &lt;a href=&quot;http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/programmers-dont-need-a-union-we-need-a-profession/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;michaelochurch.wordpress.com&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;18&amp;#x2F;programmers-d...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>