NYT: ‘Quit your job for a better one? Not if you live in Idaho’
The New York Times over the weekend featured a controversial 2016 Idaho law that makes it easier for employers to sue former employees over non-compete contracts; when it passed, opponents said it would make it difficult for employees to leave a job to start their own business or join another firm, and could hurt business expansion in Idaho.
Here’s how the Times framed it: “Quit your job for a better one? Not if you live in Idaho.”
That was the headline. Here’s the opening of the story: “Idaho achieved a notable distinction last year: It became one of the hardest places in America for someone to quit a job for a better one. The state did this by making it easier for companies to enforce non-compete agreements, which prevent employees from leaving their company for a competitor.
“While its economy is known for agriculture — potatoes are among the state’s biggest exports — Idaho has a long history as a technology hub. And the new law landed in the middle of the tech world, causing a clash between hungry start-ups looking to poach employees and more established companies that want to lock their people in place.
“’We’re trying to build the tech ecosystem in Boise,’ said George Mulhern, chief executive of Cradlepoint, a company here that makes routers and other networking equipment. ‘And anything that would make somebody not want to move here or start a company here is going to slow down our progress.’”
You can read the full New York Times story here. The bill was HB 487 in 2016; it passed the House 40-27 and the Senate 22-13, and Gov. Butch Otter signed it into law on March 30, 2016; it took effect July 1 of that year.
Among those quoted in the NYT story is Idaho Rep. Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, who was among the top critics of the bill when it passed and debated strenuously against it in the House. “This bill was a giant thumb on the scale in favor of old established business at the expense of start-ups,” Rubel told the Times; the newspaper reports that she’s now drafted legislation to repeal the law and is enlisting tech executives to help.
Among problems the story cites with laws like Idaho’s is that it depresses wages.
