Saturday, December 22, 2018

When Business Wants Your Loyalty, Life Blood, and Your Balls/Mammary Nozzles

My son was asked to sign a non-compete agreement for a company (which does business in his area of study) with which he landed a non-paying internship this summer. This agreement purports to restrict him from working for any similar business in the entire continental United States for one year after his internship is finished.

Besides the fact that the contract is unenforceable (because there is no consideration and it is over-broad [Business Law 101]), I find it ridiculous that a business which is not only not paying him, and is offering him no loyalty, wants him to be loyal to it! In essence, for a summer's worth of slavery, it wants him to agree to be unemployed for one year, thereafter!

Yes, I know he may get some great experience, but this company should show some decency as an American business and make the non-compete both legal and fair by restricting its application geographically to Utah and contingent upon them making an offer of employment after the internship.

(The contract is also unenforceable because my son will most likely not be in a position in which he is building good will for the company or learning its trade secrets.)

Loren M. Lambert © April 30, 2013

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