Quote:
Originally Posted by Wormius
How enforceable are those non-compete clauses anyway? From what I understood, even if you sign them there isn't much a former employer can do.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy89
Probably can't prevent someone from taking a job with Telus, but they likely could seek a judgement against you for the amount of the package taken.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigNumbers
No effing way there is a non-compete in a 1yr package for an installer or any other non-executive level Shaw employee. I'd eat my hat if that was true.
"Sorry Mr. Installer - here's your package, but you can't go do your job for a year"
|
The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.
Non-Competes seem to fail spectacularly in exactly these types of situations where there are really only 2 places to ply your trade or expertise and you've just been paid to leave one.
You have the right to earn a living based on your skills and if theres only 2 places to do it and one let you go its unreasonable to bar you from working at the other.
Then again, as Cowboy indicated, some of the severance is there specifically to make it so that you dont
have to work at the competitor to make a living during the indicated time-frame.
So Shaw probably couldnt prevent it completely but would likely be entitled to repayment of a portion of the severance that was in place to deal with that contingency.
At the end of the day though enforcement of the Non-Compete is insanely expensive and unwieldy so they might do it once or twice to try and set an example, but if somebody's severance was like $20K thats not enough to live on for a year so they'd take the job and risk the consequences.
I was speaking with a Shaw (now former) employee today and the buyout packages were pretty generous, especially for longer term employees. That being said, I didnt hear about the Non-Compete clauses.