the ftc s office ol sit pl planning. nice to see you. in what profession have you been most surprised to find there are noncompetes? well, as you say, there s a lot of people who are subject to these clauses. think about people in the board room, folks who might have access to confidential information, but honestly, to my mind, hairstylists, as you say, construction workers, security guards. we had a case about security guards subject to a noncompete not to work within 100 miles of their job site with a penalty of $100,000. these are minimum wage security guards. so there s really kind of a wide swath. the penalties tb severe. and folks think if i leave this job, i m going to have to move or change professions to be able to work again. i can t afford that. so people feel really trapped. i know that the u.s. chamber
the ftc s office of policy planning. nice to see you. in what profession have you been most surprised to find there are noncompetes? well, as you say, there are a lot of people who are subject to these clauses. folks, think about people in the boardroom, folks who might have access to confidential information, but, honestly, to my mind, hair stylists, as you say, construction workers, security guards. we had a case about security guards who were subject to a noncompete not to work within 100 miles of their job site with a penalty of $100,000. these are minimum wage security guards. there s really a wide swath of people who are subject to these and the penalties can be severe. as you said, folks think, if i leave this job, i m going to have to move or change professions to be able to work again. i can t afford that. people feel really trapped. i know that the u.s. chamber of commerce has come out against
within a 50-mile radius of station. that is a noncompete pulled from an old radio contract of mine. it would have kept me unemployed for six months, and i fwagreed it. i thought i had to. i thought it was the cost of being a radio host or a television personality. but like the president, i have since come to realize that noncompetes are much more pervasive than just among media folk. those 30 million americans that the president referenced in his state of the union include ceos and construction workers, hospitality employees, chefs. i even had a guy call my radio program this week and tell me he was subject to one as a new jersey gas station attendant. but as the president said, the federal trade commission is proposing banning all noncompete clauses and rescinding all existing ones, saying they hurt workers and competing businesses. the proposal is currently in the public comments stage. so joining me to discuss is elizabeth wilkins, director of
this was 10, 15 years ago, and i guess this comes with the territory. i didn t realize that one in five americans are treated the same way. thank you so much for being here. appreciate your time. thanks for having me. let s check in on social media, reaction to this issue. we re in the midst of, i guess it s a 60-day comment period. there are reasonable noncompetes and there are oppressive versions. let s not throw the baby out with the bath water. i think i just brought one up at the end. the whole intellectual property argument to me seems like a valid justification. and with no disrespect to hairdressers, i can t imagine that there s proprietary information that goes with that turf. so as is usually the case, in certain circumstances it s warranted and in the extreme cases of all or nothing, it probably doesn t make sense. still to come, have you voted yet? more to come on social media and the result of this week s poll