RIM Accuses Motorola of Blocking Job Offers 353
theodp writes "Taking a page from the insanely-jealous-husband-playbook, Motorola management has adopted an if-I-can't-have-you-nobody-can stance on its fired employees, reportedly blocking RIM from offering jobs to laid-off workers. In a complaint filed in state court, Motorola is charged with improperly trying to expand a previous agreement 'to prevent the RIM entities from hiring any Motorola employees, including the thousands of employees Motorola has already fired or will fire.' Through its Compete America membership, Motorola has repeatedly warned Congress that failing to accommodate the lobbying group members' 'principled' demand for timely access to talent would not be in the United States' economic interest and would make the US second-rate in education and basic research."
Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you aren't playing with your toys, you have to share with the other children.
If they really want to keep RIM from having their castoff engineers, just keep paying their salaries.
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Insightful)
If they really want to keep RIM from having their castoff engineers, just keep paying their salaries.
Can we get a +6 insightful?
I hope Motorola's lawyers get spanked so hard, the stockholders have hand prints on their butts.
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Funny)
So, in punishment for preventing people from getting RIMjobs, you hope Motorola gets spanked? Aren't you just all in the butt.
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Cant say im surprised after reading their letter to congress.
They want to keep Americans unemplyed and sell our jobs overseas.
I truly hope that teh execs at motorla rot in hell with ken lay. (keep people hungry to pad your own bonus, dante didnt even have a layer of hell for that!)
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:4, Insightful)
and sell our jobs overseas.
What reason do you have to hate the rest of the world so much? If theres someone that can do your job better or cheaper, shouldn't he get it, regardless of what shithole country he is forced to live in?
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and sell our jobs overseas.
What reason do you have to hate the rest of the world so much? If theres someone that can do your job better or cheaper, shouldn't he get it, regardless of what shithole country he is forced to live in?
Short answer: no.
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:4, Funny)
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Can you condense that for me a bit? I don't have a lot of time for reading...
Sure. No.
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:4, Funny)
Can you condense that for me a bit? I don't have a lot of time for reading...
In binary: 0
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Insightful)
"Cheaper" is just another word for exploitation. I think you're the one displaying hatred -- why do you think that workers in other countries don't deserve the rights, benefits and salaries that you get? I got mine, fuck the rest!
How's this: companies can outsource to people from these "shithole countries" to reduce their costs as long as they also reduce their salaries and bonuses to what execs in that country get.
We as a society need to remember that corporations exist at the pleasure of society, and must not be allowed to destroy society to make a buck.
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No they don't, at least no more than you exist for the "pleasure of society". Corporations exist because it's a convenient way to organize a group of people. Society has nothing to do with it.
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, the worst of capitalism results in our exploitation of less developed nations. However, the worst of consumerism is why people in the US "need" the high salaries/wages/benefits that drive companies overseas for their labor. In then end, it comes down to the greed and gluttonly of everyone.
I support a family of four (myself, wife, plus two kids). This year, my year-end gross from my job: $9243. I work 2 hours a day, from home. A small real estate investment a few years ago grosses me about $1200/year, and that will be gone in maybe 5 years. In total, we live comfortably on under $12k/year.
How do we manage this? We live cheaply, humbly, and within our means.
I'm $1000 away from having our 1000-ft^2 fixer-upper (cost $40k) home paid off, which is the last of our debt. No consumer debt -- never again. Our single beater of a car is paid off, and it gets good mileage. We raise much of our own food, and hunt a little to supplement. Between the garden and livestock (meat, eggs, milk), we produced 90 days' worth of calories for the entire family this year. Not bad for 1/4 of an acre. Sure, there were some inputs (grains, hay, straw, etc.), but the cost of animal feed is far cheaper than people feed, plus you get a healthier, tastier product. What we do purchase, we buy staples in bulk and cook damned near everything from scratch. Store-bought white flour is "convenience food" in our house (yes, we grow and mill wheat for some of our flour needs). We use whole, unprocessed foods as much as possible. We don't indulge in health insurance, as there's no need -- we enjoy a very healthy diet and we never get sick.
We buy most clothing from second-hand stores. We haven't paid for broadcast TV in 8 years, opting to view select shows via Netflix or sites like Hulu. Related to the no TV stance, we avoid advertising, thus our kids (as well as ourselves) are not enticed to by useless crap, and we are quite happy with a few occasional luxuries (coffee, internet, movies, and PC games). We don't celebrate Christmas (the wife and I being atheist, and the kids not indoctrinated to any religious philosophy), so we don't buy anyone anything. For "the holidays" we treated each child to $20, and they get a few things from extended family. No cell phones. We cut our own hair (well, the kids -- the wife and I have long hair). Wife doesn't get her hair or nails done, and she doesn't wear makeup. I telecommute, and don't incur the costs of dressing nicely, commuting, and eating out for lunch every day. We home-school our kids, so we don't need to pay pointless school fees.
Our unavoidable (for now) monthlies are: $50 for landline+DSL, $25-to-$200 (depending on the season) for electricity, $20 for auto insurance (I hardly drive, so I get "pleasure" use rate, state minimum coverage), and $15 for county trash pick-up. At the worst of times (dead of winter), we spend $200/month for food and livestock feed. At the best of times, we spend almost nothing for food. Maybe $20/month for gas, even when it was $4/gallon.
I don't expect everyone in this country to go as hard-core with the simple living as we do. Somewhere, though, there should be a balance between the $12k/year I enjoy now vs the $55k/year at my earning peak (with all the expense, hassle and stress that lifestyle mandates) to support a family. If the majority of people lived without consuming so much, this world would be a far better place, and we'd all be able to live well without demanding so much in income. And if that happened, companies wouldn't need to outsource. Of course, if much of the population scaled back their living, companies would be forced to scale back what they would accept in profitability.
In summary, wage disparity between the typical US worker and the typical third world worker isn't always about exploitation. Some people -- like myself -- just live simpler lives. If a worker in another country has a roof over their heads, access to food and clean water, and isn't under duress to perform th
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Insightful)
Just one question: Where did you find a woman willing to marry you?
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Somewhere, though, there should be a balance between the $12k/year I enjoy now vs the $55k/year at my earning peak (with all the expense, hassle and stress that lifestyle mandates) to support a family. If the majority of people lived without consuming so much, this world would be a far better place, and we'd all be able to live well without demanding so much in income.
Heck, if everyone just scaled back and lived without TV, fancy cars, hairdos and nailjobs, fine clothes, or processed food, we'd all live happier, simpler lives.... unless we're TV installers, auto workers, hair stylists, garment workers, or food service workers, in which case wed be unemployed and living on $0. "Scaling back" is fine on a limited, individual basis, but you can't have the majority of people living "simplified" lives without actually reverting to pre-industrial subsistence farming. You're ad
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What makes you think they can compete with everyone else in the world?
You did actually read the post right? Uh how about that they can keep overhead down much lower then everyone else while still having a comfortable life? Seems to me they would be better able to compete with low cost workers overseas.
What disadvantages would they have? Thrift stores aren't that bad, what does not having a TV have to do with education? Home school kids are usually smarter anyways than the homogenized product our pris..school system puts out
The hardest thing for me when I started working f
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Exploitation doesn't last forever. My mother worked as a child laborer in an third-world Asian country in the past, and it is with that hard-earned pittance that she was able to go to school and get an education. As opposed to if the "workers' champions" of the world got their way, she'd have been stuck in that shack in the mountains somewhere in Asia even now.
Just look at China - they are seeing a surge in interest in workers' rights. Once income improves to a certain extent, people will start looking at q
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Really? So if, say MySQL AB (formerly one of the most widespread open source companies with employees in over 25 countries) were to employ some programmers in India or Russia (which they do), then, according to your wisdom, their Swedish executives should have their salaries forcibly reduced?
Obviously no executive would then employ foreign workers - you might as well just go the whole hog and make outsourcing illegal, which would effectively end global trade, since the production of practically everything r
Adam Smith is Outdated (Score:5, Insightful)
From a more practical perspective, we are already running a huge trade deficit. Some economists say this doesn't matter, but others say it risks nasty bubbles and major instability. If the US continues being the dumping ground for cheap products and services, this bubble risk grows as the trade imbalances create credit bubbles. Economists tend to under-estimate bubbles, perhaps because they are overconfident in their ability to "fix" them, so I will take the view of the "bubblers".
Further, many times those countries are cheaper because they lack regulations that keep us safe and healthy. They may have 60-hour work-weeks in asbestos-festered offices or work with dangerous chemicals and pollution in factories. It's unfair if we have to compete with regulations that they don't have.
Further, it would push us to all be Walmart greeters and shoes salesmen as "non-face" jobs shift to where the labor is cheaper. Diversity in careers would diminish, and lack of diversity is also a bubble-risk.
The "open borders" labor thinking just has too many unsolved problems. Adam Smith's equations need a rewrite to reflect risk and uncertainty better. Maximizing an economy based over-simplistic models is partly what got us into the current mess.
Re:Adam Smith is Outdated (Score:4, Insightful)
Further, many times those countries are cheaper because they lack regulations that keep us safe and healthy.
I think this is right on. I'm in favor of letting jobs move around the world, but in order for this to work and be fair, the countries around the world need to operate at a common level of protection for workers, environment, etc. I think in equilibrium, this means that the US and Europe need to back off some, and Asia/Mexico/etc need to step up.
I'd like to see the first world countries motivate this through a differential level of tariffs that equalize costs for businesses between the countries.
This is not a quick or easy solution. You have to have it, though, or we'll get a race to the bottom as production flees to countries with the lowest regulatory costs.
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:4, Insightful)
NO.
There are not enough good jobs to go around. That's why globalization is bad for everyone except the rich. It's a race to the bottom for everyone else, and if people in the USA have to compete for jobs with people living in the third world who would do the same job for peanuts, everyone ends up living in squalor and no one gets ahead. I'll go as far to say that I would rather see a job go unfilled forever than see it outsourced.
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You want to be fair, and have no protectionist practices? Okay, when does India stop being protectionist? In case you didn't know, India is extremely protectionist.
And maybe India isn't wrong. I think it can be argued that it is the right, and responsibility of any nation to protect it's own national interests.
At the very least, it would be nice if US corporations stopped lying about the severe shortages of US workers. For example Microsoft wants to lay off Americans, and hire unlimited h1bs.
Microsoft Plans To Cut Jobs By 10 Percent
The reality is, this should be no surprise to anyone currently in the technology sector. The industry is bleeding and other companies such as Yahoo, Google, Sun, and Sony recently had massive layoffs.
http://www.new [newsoxy.com]
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Funny)
Wal-Mart after a payday?
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Reference desperately needed. Thx.
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:5, Funny)
Sigh. It's bad enough that I can't get my girlfriend to give me a RIM job.
Re:Sorry Motorola (Score:4, Funny)
Sigh. It's bad enough that I can't get my girlfriend to give me a RIM job.
We already know that. I mean, if you could, you'd be too busy to be hanging out here.
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But if you aren't playing with your toys, you have to share with the other children.
If they really want to keep RIM from having their castoff engineers, just keep paying their salaries.
Nah, they just don't like it when their engineers get rimmed.
You never go ass to mouth.
Move to CA (Score:5, Interesting)
If RIM had a division in California, they could hire anyone they wanted since California law essentially forbids non-compete clauses [wikipedia.org].
There was a recent Slashdot discussion about this when a Former IBM Exec Ordered To Stop Working For Apple [slashdot.org].
Re:Move to CA (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, this could easily pave the way for legislation to make every state like California. In this age of rising unemployment, legislation that removes arbitrary restrictions of this nature on employment only makes timely sense. Sure, it would make some businesses angry, but they don't vote. And truly, anyone who preaches "free market society" and at the same time seeks to "limit the competition" doesn't know what the spirit of the free market is about.
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In this age of rising unemployment, legislation that removes arbitrary restrictions of this nature on employment only makes timely sense.
So how do you prevent someone from quitting or being poached and taking their technical or company specific knowledge to a competitor?
Re:Move to CA (Score:5, Insightful)
So how do you prevent someone from quitting or being poached and taking their technical or company specific knowledge to a competitor?
Pay the person what they are worth to your company!
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Nonono, not rising wages, that's just one of the mechanisms of worth parity. For monetary instance, if a company would fail entirely and the company's entire fortunes rests on the shoulders of one developer, and if this developer were to leave and join the competition, then that would be the end of the company, then what is that one developer worth? I'd say a fair sight more than the CEO.
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Yes, but how would this be any less reactionary and ill-advised (i.e., to negate the freedom to contract) than passing the PATRIOT Act because of terrorism, etc.?
If we criticize Congress for passing overreactive laws in response to the fear of a terroristic death, shouldn't we also rightly criticize Congress for passing overreactive laws in response to the fear of an economic death?
I worry about Congress, in the current climate, passing an overrestrictive law destroying much of the freedom to contract.
Campaign Contributions (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought campaign contributions were considered more valuable than individual votes.
And that's exactly why political campaign contributions coming from anyone other than individual registered voters needs to be outlawed.
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I thought campaign contributions were considered more valuable than individual votes.
And that's exactly why political campaign contributions coming from anyone other than individual registered voters needs to be outlawed.
This is exactly what the Liberal party did in Canada a few years ago when they were in power: capped the amount that an individual could donate to a political party to just over $1000/year, and outright banned contributions by organizations (e.g. companies, unions, special interest groups, etc).
In return, parties could draw on taxpayer subsidies; the total pool is about $30 million a year, and each party's share is roughly proportional to the popular vote they received in the previous election.
I had only a
Re:Move to CA (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-compete agreements are nothing short of employee abuse. When people are in need, they will sign just about anything to get that need taken care of. And when people want to earn money, these are exactly the people we don't want abused. Sometimes I think people honest enough to work for money are a rare breed of people indeed. There is no way you can honestly connect anti-competitive activities like that with free market. Such agreements need to be fair and balanced. For that arrangement to be fair, they should be paid for the duration of the contract whether they work or not.
In the end, it should be only fair that if an employee, especially one that was terminated for reasons that are NOT his fault, should be free of any restrictions to find new work and feed his family. The rights of individuals should trump the rights of companies each and every time. There used to be a thing called loyalty to the employee. You are probably too young to remember that ideal ever existing. Meanwhile, people are expected to be loyal to their employer regardless of how they are treated. And beyond all other reasoning, it is fair free market idealism to be able to choose not to work for someone who no longer offers "a good deal." You shop for better deals when you go shopping don't you?
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Of course if they did that, then they'd lose their own non-competes. Which, I doubt is something they are all that interested in.
So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting to see how the paragons of capitalism don't believe in the free market.
A company I once worked for once had a written policy that anyone who had ever worked as a direct employee could not be hired at a later date as a contractor (contracting is very lucrative in this industry). I always thought that sounded legally dubious but despite some efforts the media had no interest in pursuing it.
I eventually left that company to contract at a competitor. On my last day the director of engineering told me "You realize I can't approve of this." To which I did not reply, but always wished I had "I can not approve of the way you accept public subsidies and then exported my job to Ireland."
Can't wait until I get a little older so I can name names.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As for responding to that clown on your last day, I tend to say something along the lines of "your approval is neither sought nor required" in such a situation.
-jcr
It's too bad circumstances have led you to have a "tend to" regarding this kind of conversation.
Re: (Score:2)
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I say "tend", because I wouldn't necessarily deliver that line verbatim.
-jcr
True ... something along the lines of "fuck off" is often more appropriate. Feel free to interpret the general sentiment to suit your particular situation.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Motorola is no paragon of capitalism. They've been part of the military-industrial complex for a very long time.
Yes, and China suckered them out of a lot of money and technology too. Motorola is only reaping what they've sown, so far as I'm concerned.
I tend to say something along the lines of "your approval is neither sought nor required" in such a situation.
Back in the mid-eighties I worked for an outfit that really tried to nail their developers to the wall, contract-wise. When I was hired, I was given a bunch of papers to sign ... one of them was this completely outrageous non-complete/non-disclosure agreement. It said (among other bits of obnoxiousness) that any software I wrote, any products I developed, whether relevant to my work or the industry, or not, even if done on my own time, for a period of five years after I left employment with the company was the property of the company. In addition, I was not allowed to work as a software developer during the same period. I mean, what the Hell? Was I supposed to just switch careers after leaving the place? Anyway, that incredible document went on for some time in the same vein ... I'm not even a lawyer but I could see the ridiculousness of it. Probably it wouldn't have been enforceable, but I had an attorney look it over. He didn't even finish reading it before he said, "You'd be nuts to sign this." So I didn't.
... was that stupid NC/NDA. Sneaky. But I told her I had no intention of signing it.
Well, I got hired anyway, and apparently nobody noticed that I hadn't signed the thing because a few months later the HR guy's secretary comes by with a bunch of papers on a clipboard, and asked me to sign it at the bottom. "Just routine", she said, or words to that effect. I immediately noticed that there were several rather innocuous sheets on top, and underneath
She went away, and back comes the HR guy himself. He was nice enough, but he tried to convince me that I had to sign it, "Why is it a problem? Everyone else here signed it." I told him that if my continued employment was dependent upon that "agreement", that I would happily clean out my desk right then and there. He went away, and that was the last I heard of it. I was serious, however, and if they'd pushed the matter I'd have walked out right then and there. As it happens, I work in an "at-will" State: sometimes that sucks, but sometimes it works in your favor.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
She went away, and back comes the HR guy himself. He was nice enough, but he tried to convince me that I had to sign it, "Why is it a problem? Everyone else here signed it." I told him that if my continued employment was dependent upon that "agreement", that I would happily clean out my desk right then and there. He went away, and that was the last I heard of it. I was serious, however, and if they'd pushed the matter I'd have walked out right then and there. As it happens, I work in an "at-will" State: sometimes that sucks, but sometimes it works in your favor.
Thank you. It's tough to do the right thing sometimes, and you took a big risk. Your integrity helps all of us, and our entire industry.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
No one who is a paragon of "Capitalism" believes in "Free Market" regardless of the mouthings their PR tasked people make. The aim of any successful capitalist is to leverage yourself into the position of having all the capital and therefore controlling the market. The only time free market is observed as a "good thing" by true capitalists is when forcing their competitors into one gives the capitalist an advantage.
Economic theorists aside, only failed capitalists actually follow the theory of modern capitalism. In a way, it's much like Scientology in that respect. The initiates believe and the 'true believers' don't.
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We have similar "No-Compete" clauses in our contracts here.
They basically say that we are not allowed to enter competition with our (then former) employer for 5 years after the employment has ended.
Is such bullshit even enforcable anywhere in the world?
I mean it's obvious that I cannot work at, say, motorola, take a blueprint from them and start selling a knockoff later.
But I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to start my own mobile phone business after having worked in one.
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5 Years?
That's ridiculous.
Non-competes are unethical in the first place, and 5 years is just stupid. Frankly I'd just ignore it.
As long as you aren't actually taking designs, code or other property with you, they have no call to stop you and (AFAICT) no legal basis to do so either.
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I always thought it would be brilliant if the Democrats developed a policy platform based on competition. Real competition.
Where the vision would be a marketplace where the small guy could take down the big guy based on brains and good ideas. The only tool the big guy would have to fight back would would be brains. Not legal shenanigans based on deep pockets, old boys clubs and family fortunes.
The policy should proudly proclaim that today's underprivileged are encouraged to drive today's upper class back to
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You don't have to. I know who your employer was.
I won't rat them out, though. Despite their penchant for odd employment policies ( I contracted with them for a few months - that makes me a pariah for a while), they are still not so nasty as some.
And they still make stuff in the U.S., which is something I will not damage now.
out of work and a place to go (Score:2, Interesting)
What bothers me most about Motorol's behavior here is that there are people who are not drawing a paycheck. Some are on unemployment and they could be back in the ranks of the employed, spending money and helping our economy... not to mention the personal ramifications of no longer being unemployed...
However, Motorola wants to keep these people unemployed. they want to flare their feathers no matter who is hurt in their little a pissing match.
We all wonder what went wrong when some ex husband dresses p as s
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:out of work and a place to go (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Motorola wants to keep these people unemployed.
I see a massive and expensive class-action suit in the offing. Motorola shareholders should contact the company's general counsel and tell him in no uncertain terms to cut that shit out.
-jcr
I doubt the shareholders give a damn, in fact, it's the shareholder's general lack-of-interest in ethical behavior that has bought corporate America to its current state. All Motorola's management would have to say is, "by doing this we're going to raise the share price." That would be the end of the matter so far as the shareholders are concerned.
You're right though: it would certainly be in the employees best interests to get organized, talk to a good law firm, and apply for class-action status.
Does anyone know exactly how many people we're talking about here? The articles linked were rather skimpy on details (in fact the first two were links to the same text.)
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I think where this will actually hurt them is when Motorola can't find employees willing to work under crap contract conditions. Though that's unlikely
fired vs quit (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe that anyone is even allowed to fire someone and then to prevent them from attempting to get another job anywhere they want.
One thing is when someone quits and there is a non-competition agreement, another thing is when someone is fired. Has anyone ever lost in court to a company that fired them when they started working for a competitor?
Everyone: if you are a 'permanent' employee, don't sign non-compete clauses, and if you do, at least modify them to say that if the company terminates your employment, then this clause does not apply.
Nice of Motorola, by the way, to attempt and stop people that they fired from trying to find employment, especially in this economy. If anything is going to hurt economy of the USA it's going to be millions of unemployed people.
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Or, how, about, they pay you for the rest of your life. - you are being facetious but I am not certain why exactly, I suppose there is very thick sarcasm somewhere there. Certainly a company should be able to fire someone they don't need, someone who is not doing his/her job, whatever, and there if someone is fired, they are fired. If there is a contract that forces the company to pay compensation for certain types of dismissal it's all good, whatever.
However this does not have anything to do with the a
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I agree with you except for this part: You don't even really need to scratch them out, unless you are inclined to want to point out to your future employer that their contracts aren't entirely legally enforceable (which even if true can easily come across as just trying to show off or be a know-it-all, which of course is probably not what you want to do when you are just starting a brand new job). - I am anti-union, but I am pro-principle. I believe some NDAs and some anti-competition statements and ent
You're horribly mistaken about what I said. (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, how, about, they pay you for the rest of your life. - you are being facetious but I am not certain why exactly, I suppose there is very thick sarcasm somewhere there.
Nope and you completely misread what I wrote. What I meant was, if they're going to fire you, for what ever reason, and still enforce the non-compete, then they should pay your salary for as long as they enforce the non-compete because you can't get a job because of the non-compete. Right?
And this BS about not signing it is completely unrealistic because if everyone demands it, how are you supposed to "not sign it"? I understand NDAs, but other than that, these agreements that employers demand that you sign
heartless (Score:2)
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Yeah, you know, if you had bothered to read the article you might have posted something that makes sense, instead you post that pile.
This is not about employer-employee non-compete agreements. This is about two companies making a legally binding agreement not to poach each other's employees. Now, one of the companies, RIM, wants to renege on the agreement and has been sending job offers to Motorola's employees. Rim is choosing the employees using information gained through the agreement which specifically f
An improvement? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the US is far behind being 2nd in education - most notably math - wouldn't being 2nd be an improvement?
Motorola is an Illinois Tech Company (Score:2, Informative)
I started my tech career in Illinois, and I'm glad I did. It was incredibly competitive in Chicago in the early and mid 90s, and I learned more there in six years than
CorpAmerica (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do not let them make you think they are doing you some huge favor by employing you. It's the other way around.
Ah, so very true. I had to remind my bosses of that just very recently. They seemed to think it was acceptable to treat me like dirt and expect me to take it. When I left early for a day because I had enough of the shit, they were threatening to fire me the next day. Either fire me, or don't. Threats mean nothing. I just told him that the company needed me more than I needed that job (both of which are true). I'm still there. It's nice now as none of my bosses will speak directly to me or even look me in th
This is as Un-American as it gets (Score:2)
How can it possibly be in the economic interest of the US to allow a corporation to lay off/fire workers and then not allow them to accept a job in their own field?
To side with RIM would be to side with forcing the taxpayers to pay unemployment/welfare benefits while the corp gets off scott free. I say make RIM pay these benefits if this is how they want it. In fact, I think that if such "noncompete" crap is to be legal at ALL, it should be allowed ONLY if the corporation pays the worker his/her regular s
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Apparently, you didn't read or understand the write or the articles.
First, RIM and Motorola have/had an agreement not to poach each other's employees.
Second, the agreement in question is not about preventing employees from accepting jobs, but rather keeps RIM from making offers to Motorola employees.
Third, RIM is the company trying to higher people from Motorola. If the court side's with RIM, RIM gets to hire the employees, which is the exact opposite of what you have described.
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How can it possibly be in the economic interest of the US to allow a corporation to lay off/fire workers and then not allow them to accept a job in their own field?
Well, RIM is Canadian, isn't it? Maybe we're just trying to make sure them furriners don't steal our American progress!
Agreement? (Score:3, Interesting)
This sounds like it could very well be due to RIM taking advantage of some information it got from Motorola under NDA.
RIM and Motorola had (have?) an agreement to share confidential information about some unrelated matter. RIM notices that Motorola is going to be laying off people from this information. RIM immediately starts soliciting these people that are likely to be laid off.
Now that doesn't sound entirely reasonable, does it? Especially since these people can be approached on the basis of "we're offering you a job with a 25% cut in pay because we know you are about to lose your job."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You missed this part:
The fact that RIM had already agreed NOT to solicit Motorola's employees makes this the lawsuit very unreasonable.
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If you stop paying someone, they aren't your employee.
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And not one 'non-solicit' agreement I've ever seen uses that sort of definition and if a corporate lawyer of a company as large Motorola did, they'd deserve to join the laid off crew.
Almost every one of those type of agreements have some sort of clause in them counting people who had been employeed at all in the past X years (actively employeed or not) as employees.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Contract boilerplate is viral. Do you know of any case law upholding that? Just because someone signed something saying they wanna be a slave doesn't mean they are one.
Ok, someone is full of shit (Score:4, Interesting)
The agreement has expired, then why the lawsuit?
From one article:
But from the other:
So, both companies agreed not to solicit each other's employees and now RIM wants out of the deal. Why should the be let out of the deal?
Either the writer is incompetent or the above is false because "three months" ago was after the agreement supposedly expired, therefore the suit could not be in violation of the agreement.
From the linked letter to Congress:
How does that apply to anything in this case, in any way shape or form?
To me, this looks like a lot of biased reporting and RIM trying to weasel it's way out of an agreement.
I'm shocked (Score:5, Funny)
This is an outrage! (Score:2, Redundant)
We need to ENSURE ex-Motorola employees' right to get RIM jobs!
Dogs in the manger (Score:2)
These are the same guys who arrogantly rejected digital cellphones for a long time because it would interfere with their market share grasp of analog cellphones.
Aren't these sorts of agreements ... (Score:3, Insightful)
... a form of restraint of trade? A violation of the Sherman Anti-trust act?
If the labor market is similar to any other market and I negotiate with my competitor to split a market between us and not compete with them, I'd get a vacation at Club Fed. Striped pajamas and all.
Re:Pathetic. (Score:5, Informative)
For what? A dispute with Blackberry? Screw you Motorola, you've just lost my business forever.
Motorola is having a lot of troubled times lately. They might be laying off people, but I think they are probably playing the 'end of the year' game I see so many large companies do. Basically what they're trying to do is lay a bunch of people off to make the end of the year budget, but after the first of the year they'll hire a signicant percentage of those laid off back when new budgets kick in. I've seen this pattern a thousand times, especially in the auto industry. Of course, the people they'll hire back will be taking a pay cut.
That's why they want to keep RIM from hiring them off.
Kinda dirty.
Re:Pathetic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless, if you lay someone off and aren't paying their wages, you shouldn't have claim to block them from picking up somewhere else. Regardless of your self serving plans to hire them back at a pay cut a couple of months later.
Re:Pathetic. (Score:4, Insightful)
but after the first of the year they'll hire a signicant percentage of those laid off back when new budgets kick in.
That, and they'll hire some back as part-time or contract workers, and completely avoid the need to provide health care or benefits of any kind. I've seen that happen too: fire a regular full-time worker and then hire him or her back for just under the state's minimum requirement for "full time" status. They only work 39.5 hours/week, say, and the company saves the cost of the benefits. No effective difference in work load, but the employee gets screwed out of benefits. Yeah, it's kinda dirty, and totally violates the spirit of the law.
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Let's see ... we create laws that force employers to do certain things, such as pay a certain wage if someone works a certain number of hours per week ... and in some places mandate expensive "benefits" ... and at the same time "hide" half the taxes taken from the employee's work ... and when the company can't afford to keep said employees ... but will offer them a job working at-will ... which allows the company to continue to survive, and the employee to continue to eat ... we say the company screwed the employee ... and yet the government is the good guy with its short-sighted laws.
Well, I'd have more sympathy for your perspective if said companies hadn't generally mismanaged themselves into the ground. Motorola is a classic example.
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Re:Pathetic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn right. Let's get rid of limited liability too while we're at it since that's another unnecessary government interference in the marketplace.
Re:Pathetic. (Score:4, Funny)
they are trying to make their bonuses
Golden Parachute opening in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
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I think that's the deal. RIM was probably poaching employees that knew the Moto Ship was sinking so they didn't want to be sued directly for the non-competes and cut a deal.
Now Moto is cutting weight but the deal has run out and RIM is ready to snap up all the people they couldn't have before... Moto doesn't like that and wants the court to tell RIM they cant' hire people Moto has cast off under the old agreement.
Neither company wanted to open the secret reason for the original settlement that ran out, so I
Re:Northbound Brain Drain (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps we should retain our high-value educated workforce by preventing them from leaving the country, to make sure they carry out their patriotic duty! Maybe we could set up some sort of iron... curtain... or such, to make sure they stay.
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As much as people like to bitch about outsourcing here in the USA, why should we allow our talent to migrate to Canada? Doesn't allowing High Tech workers to work for foreign companies support Microsoft's contention that we need to increase H1Bs because the talent isn't here anymore?
That is a separate issue. If I fire you, what right do I have to say where you can and can't work? It is that simple. I believe we (U.S.) have a constitutional amendment addressing such practices.
Re:Northbound Brain Drain (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately being fired does not automaticly negate a signed contract. However, on the flip side, most noncompetes are so vauge, over reaching, and one sided that they are unenforceable from the get go, even assuming you don't live/work in a state such as California.
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1. You take special knowledge of a product/design to another company.
2. You use work relationships to bring in clients of your former employer.
Re:Northbound Brain Drain (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as people like to bitch about outsourcing here in the USA, why should we allow our talent to migrate to Canada?
Allow your talent to migrate? Jesus fucking christ, is this the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA or SOVIET RUSSIA?
A FREE COUNTRY does not lock in its citizens and prevent them from leaving. Are you building the new Berlin wall?
Is this the USA? The FREE WORLD? Or did someone cut off your country's balls?
Doesn't allowing High Tech workers to work for foreign companies support Microsoft's contention that we need to increase H1Bs because the talent isn't here anymore?
If you are FIRING the talent, you can't claim that the talent isn't there anymore.
In case you didn't know, RIM has offices all over the world. RIM employs quite a few people in the USA.
I call bullshit on that one. (Score:3, Interesting)
If US companies want to keep US workers in the US, they should offer them so attractive working conditions (this includes working environment, good salaries, and job security for those who are concerned with such) that they don't want to leave. US citizens are free to leave the country if it suits them, and if we are to continue calling this country a "beacon of freedom" or whatever the latest slogan is, then it will have to continue to be that way.
And if Microsoft has such a h
Re:Northbound Brain Drain (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF?
Company A laid off people...
People have no jobs....
Company B said, "hey you know we could use you..."
Company A says, "oh no you can't work there because well we don't want you to kill our business completely..."
GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!!!! Yes I am screaming here, but this patriotic act is completely misguided. The issue here is that people are laid off and they would like to put food and bread on their table. And if they need to travel to Canada so be it! This is what competition and capitalism is all about.
Want to know what might result?
Instead of hiring out of work American workers they will hire out of work workers from some other place. And then what spot is America? With more unemployed bitter people who say the government gets in their way!
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Like an ANON said to you, there is a freedom thing. If you stop the flow of people out of the country, you are stopping the flow of people into the country too. If canada gets pissed at us for quite literally stealing jobs from them, they won't exactly smile through it.
Meanwhile, I seem to recall articles saying that H1B's have been abused/etc so issuing more would solve one problem and create another ripe for abuse.
Maybe they need to come up with a new system that isn't as easy to game as current H1B syste
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As much as people like to bitch about outsourcing here in the USA, why should we allow our talent to migrate to Canada?
Marketplaces are global now, whether you like it or not, and restricting labour to work in their home country is not only holding back the global market but also restricting viable financial options of those workers.
What if Canada didn't let any hockey players play in the NHL that were not originally born in North America (or even Canada)? Wouldn't be as good a league. Restricting how and where people can work only lets the entire industry suffer as a whole.
These people have been laid-off and/or fired. If t
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If they're such "talents", why are they being fired in the first place?
You generally don't see large-scale layoffs for incompetence (although, sometimes that wouldn't be a bad idea.) In most cases, it's because management screwed up, didn't make use of those talents profitably, and had to lay them off. That, or they're just planning on rehiring most of those workers at a substantial salary reduction or loss of benefits.
Re:Northbound Brain Drain (Score:4, Funny)
Wouldn't that be "large-scale layoffs for incompetence"? Just that the incompetent escapes the axe, sort of like GM CEO Rick Wagoner?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd think Motorola would want their competitors taking on those responsible for their vast array of shitheap products.
Depends. If they're firing lots of middle and senior management I'd tend to agree. Engineers design the kinds of products that management wants them to design: if those are shitheap then management is ultimately responsible.