[ad_1]
WeWork Cos. Has agreed to substantially reduce its practice of forcing most employees to sign large non-compete agreements, under an agreement with attorneys general of New York and Illinois.
The New York Attorney General's Office said on Tuesday that the New York Attorney General's office had asked "almost all" employees, including baristas and receptionists, to sign agreements preventing them from working in similar businesses. for one year. .
WeWork has agreed to release 800 core employees in New York and 600 additional employees across the country from their non-players. 1,800 additional employees at the national level will receive less restrictive conditions for their agreements. In April, WeWork had nearly 3,300 employees in the United States, including 2,300 in New York, the Attorney General's office said.
Many companies use non-competition agreements to discourage senior executives from engaging with competitors. Critics say the agreements even extend to employees who do not have access to trade secrets.
"Too often, non-competition agreements are misused," said New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, "limiting employee mobility and opportunities and preventing companies from hiring the best person for the position" .
A spokesperson for WeWork said the company had welcomed the contributions of the Attorneys General and reorganized the processes employed at the time of the investigation.
If companies have no legitimate interests, such as the protection of customer names or trade secrets, the courts will not generally apply them, said Evan Starr, an economist at the University of Maryland, who studies the effects of non-profits. compact.
"The use of non-composites is sometimes unscrupulous to the extent that they are applied to all employees, regardless of the knowledge or information they possess," he said.
While investigations such as the one conducted by the New York Attorney General are important, a more effective way to reduce the inappropriate use of non-CDs is to have transparent information about the companies that use them, Starr said. .
The investigation began in late 2016 after the Attorneys General of Illinois and New York each received a complaint. Both offices have launched separate surveys, issuing subpoenas on WeWork's recruitment processes, the offices said.
The New York Attorney General's Office has put in place legislation to limit the use of non-compact devices. She has already entered into agreements with the Jimmy John's sandwich chain and the legal publisher Law360.
A handful of states, including California and Montana, have banned most types of non-compact.
-Lauren Weber and Kimberly Chin contributed to this article.
Write to Eliot Brown at [email protected]
Source link
