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Comment by mixdup | Hacker News Reader

Easy compromise on the noncompete front:

* Have an income limit below which it doesn't apply

* Must be tied to some kind of IP or proprietary knowledge. The fact that an exemption on healthcare workers killed the compromise is nuts. Nurses don't have any proprietary information or knowledge that would harm their former employer

* Must be tied to an employment contract--IE no non-competes for at-will employment. Non-competes should be a two-way street, if the employer is going to get the protection of employee retention and IP privacy, the employee should have some protection against being summarily fired (and then unable to get another job)

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Hochul was trying to negotiate an amendment to the bill to limit it to people making under $250k, but the reason it died is because they couldn't agree on the language of what's included (bonuses, equity, etc)

Nurses don't have proprietary information about the human body at large, but they have proprietary knowledge of the hospitals computer and administrative systems. If you think you own your employees, it's easy to see why they'd want nurses to be subject to non-competes as well.

>they have proprietary knowledge of the hospitals computer and administrative systems

The idea that this is competitive information that would harm the former employer if it walked out the door is absolutely insane. it's more likely than not that any two hospitals will be using the same one of the two or three major EHC systems in the market. At any rate, what system they use, and how it's configured is not something that would or could be used against them in the marketplace

> If you think you own your employees, it's easy to see why they'd want nurses to be subject to non-competes as well.

I think this was their biggest point. I don't think they agree with non competes.

Thank you. I don't personally believe in non-competes, and have the luxury of living somewhere where they're not enforced, but if, as an employer, you believe in non-competes, it's seems obvious that nurses should be just as subject to them as any other field because of their knowledge of the hospitals proprietary systems under that belief system. That's not a general statement on what I believe about non-competes, and the distinction is subtle. Such subtleties are often lost in online discourse.

It was perfectly clear that it wasn't your belief about non-competes. But it looked, and by the wording of this comment still looks, like you believe there actually is proprietary knowledge.

The earlier comment didn't mention your beliefs about non-competes at all. So I'm not sure what subtleties are getting lost here?

Yeah, nothing is getting lost here. There is nothing proprietary in the computer systems of a hospital. It's 100% about keeping employees from being able to leave which results in depressed wages

There's absolutely some situations where an employee has valuable IP in their head--product designers, CEOs, software developers, etc--and they should be covered by an employment contract that also protects the employee

Employees with non-competitive information--basically all healthcare workers, skilled trades employees, typical IT staff (not software developers), etc should be free to come and go as they please, if the employee is free to fire them as they please. There's absolutely no rational reason to limit their employment mobility if we're going to operate under a free market capitalist system

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