This week’s #ThrowbackThursday analyzes non-compete agreements. Featuring two posts by Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris, and a blogcast with special guests Elizabeth Wilkins, Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Office of Policy Planning, and Professor Sanjukta Paul of the University of Michigan Law School, this edition is designed to explore non-compete agreements, their impact on workers, and why they need to be banned.
Death to Non-Compete Agreements (posted January 10, 2023)
We should understand non-compete agreements for what they are: a power grab by employers. Or, perhaps more precisely, an act of massive wage theft. The Federal Trade Commission estimated that its recently proposed rule banning non-compete agreements would raise workers’ wages across industries and job levels by $250 billion to $296 billion per year. A pay increase of that size would have added around 3% to the total amount of wages and salaries paid in the United States in 2021. The benefits would be concentrated among the 20% of employees the FTC estimates are covered by non-compete agreements and the employees blocked from moving into the jobs that would open if employers could not effectively prohibit their incumbent employees from quitting.
Power at Work Blogcast #2: Non-Compete Agreements and Worker Power (posted January 13, 2023)
This in-depth conversation examines the FTC's proposed rule to ban non-compete agreements and other topics at the intersection of antitrust law, labor law, and worker power. Elizabeth Wilkins is a former senior Biden-Harris White House official and currently serves as a top policy advisor to FTC Chair Lina Khan and the other FTC commissioners. Professor Sanjukta Paul is an internationally recognized expert in labor and antitrust and broader issues of law and market governance.
Shorter State of the Union: Which Side Are You On? (posted February 7, 2023)
In his State of the Union Address back in February of this year, President Biden outlined his labor agenda for the rest of his term. He urged Congress to enact the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and legislation raising the minimum wage, even though these bills have little chance of passage in this Congress. He called for raising public-school teachers’ pay. He also enthusiastically touted the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed rule to ban non-compete agreements in employment contracts. This proposed rule will face a gauntlet of legal challenges, but it is more likely to become law in the near-term than expanded organizing rights and a higher minimum wage. Regardless, the President declared that he’s for all of it.