This isn’t just a labor issue, it’s a healthcare issue.
The FTC is now taking comments for their rule-making on noncompetes.
Non-Compete Clause Rulemaking, Date January 5, 2023, Matter Number P201200
About one in five American workers—approximately 30 million people—are bound by a non-compete clause and are thus restricted from pursuing better employment opportunities.
The Commission invites the public to submit comments on the proposed rule. The FTC will review the comments and may make changes, in a final rule, based on the comments and on the FTC’s further analysis of this issue. The comment period is open through April 19, 2023.
Submit a comment:
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FTC-2023-0007-0001
The comment period is open through Mar 20, 2023.
A 2019 analysis by the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimated that 36 million to 60 million workers could be subject to noncompete agreements, which the group said companies have increasingly adopted in recent years. While such agreements are most common among higher-paid workers, the study found that a significant number of low-wage workers were subjected to them. The study found that more than a quarter of responding establishments where the average wage is less than $13 an hour use noncompetes for all their workers. On Wednesday, for example, the FTC took action against three companies for unlawfully imposing noncompete clauses against workers, including low-wage security guards who were threatened with a $100,000 fine if they violated the agreement. The EPI study found that many companies still impose noncompete clauses in several states that already ban or restrict them, including in California, where the practice has been prohibited for a century.
I had to switch therapists multiple times because the therapists couldn’t take patients with them when they left a practice because, I’m sure they had noncompete clauses, which interrupted my healthcare treatment for medical PTSD. At a time I had considerable work-related stress. Apparently so did my therapists because they left the practice even with a noncompete.
There was a doctor here in Scranton that got fired by Geisinger and then they sued him in court over a noncompete clause! People were very upset about losing him as a doctor and many came out to support this doctor for his day in court because he was well-liked. There were rumours at the time that the bean counters were just looking for a reason to get rid of him because he didn’t meet unreasonable quotas.
It’s inappropriate for a huge health system to do this when they have such a monopoly over healthcare in our area and we have a shortage of primary care doctors.
This isn’t just a labor issue, it’s a healthcare issue.
The Economic Policy Institute hosted a virtual panel discussion on the proposed rule to ban noncompete clauses and how it may impact worker power across the country.
