The Federal Trade Commission has proposed a new rule to BAN non-compete clauses for workers. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Federal Trade Commission is proposed a new rule to ban non-compete clauses for workers. Thank goodness. I, you know, I know where this came from. It came from a just, just old business. You come to work for us, we train you, and you can’t go to work for anybody else after that. The problems, it’s fraught with problems. First of all, there’s no comp, no competition for wages. It keeps wages down. It keeps innovation down. Pick it up from there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And what we see a lot too now happening as the tech industry booms, a lot of these tech workers have to sign these clauses. You know, you cannot go and make your own tech company. You can’t go work for our competitors. If you do, we’re not gonna share the secrets with you. Which is what they use to try to scare them into submission.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: But it, it really does hurt competition. And to be honest, we have seen this so many years now, and this has contributed to the major problem with our healthcare industry.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: You get these doctors that basically have no choice but to sign up with a hospital corporation, and they have to sign saying, you will not open a private practice. You will not go work at the other hospital. You have to be with us, or you cannot work in this city.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Anywhere.
Mike Papantonio: You gotta go somewhere.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: It’s, it’s a ridiculous old rule that we have, have allowed to stand. The only problem, and I, I hate to say this, but if I’m analyzing this, I don’t know that the FT, FTC had authority to do it. I feel like probably it’s gonna fail. The US Chamber of Commerce is putting huge money, you know, here again, we talk, people think the US Chamber of Commerce is mom and pop warehouse or mom and pop store on the corner. It’s not. US Chamber of Commerce is 19 of the biggest mega corporations on the globe. So they’re fighting this tooth and, and nail. They’re saying, gee wiz, we’re gonna, we’re gonna lose trade secrets if we do that. We’re gonna lose, we’re gonna lose sensitive information. We’re not gonna spend the time training employees if you make us do this. Which is all ridiculous argument. But the point is, it’s unfair. You know, first of all, it, it, it’s, it’s, it’s certainly unfair. And it does, if you think about it, it holds wages down.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Because that person who’s working for this corporation may say, well, right down the street, they’re gonna pay me $10 more an hour. Well, I’m sorry, Joe, you can’t go there and if you do, we’re gonna sue you and we’re gonna sue them too.
Farron Cousins: And, and, and you make a great point here too, because I thought the same thing reading through this, this is a wonderful proposal. It would be great to have it go through. It’s gotta get killed in court.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: If it makes it all the way to our corporate controlled Supreme Court or any of the corporate district courts, there is no way they are gonna let this stand.
Mike Papantonio: No, it won’t.
Farron Cousins: It, it, it will die, unfortunately. But it’s a step in the right direction.
Mike Papantonio: Well, that doesn’t mean Congress can’t take care of.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: You see, they won’t. Again, because again, the US Chamber of Commerce are thugs. They’re absolutely thugs. And I don’t know what it takes the American public to understand it, but, this is a great example. It should happen. It’s not gonna happen. They’re gonna lobby it to death. They’re gonna put more money behind it. But in, because they’re gonna argue that the FTC simply doesn’t have any written authority, either apparent authority to be able to do this.
