A historical prohibition of non -competent agreements is about to die, thanks to Trump

The Federal Commerce Commission Historical prohibition of non -competitive agreements A quiet death could die next month if the new commission of President Donald Trump, appointed by those appointed, choose not to defend it in court.

He prohibition -What would prohibit most companies to demand that workers sign the non -competitor as a employment condition, was blocked by a judge designated by Trump last year after the business groups demanded. The new Republican president of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, has until July 10 to tell the Court if the agency will fight for the survival of the rule.

The perspective is not excellent for support supporters.

When the FTC led by the then democratic Voted 3-2 To issue the regulation last April, Ferguson was one of the two Republican commissioners who opposed. Later argued in his dissent that the rule was “illegal”, describing it as “the most extraordinary statement of authority in the history of the commission.”

“By releasing workers to move from one employer to another in search of a higher salary, the FTC estimated that the rule would increase the profits of US workers by more than $ 400 billion for a decade.”

The former president of the commission who directed the elaboration of the rule, the progressive antimonopoly executor Lina Khan, said there were “great economic bets” in the case. Khan was appointed by former President Joe Biden and resigned from the commission in January in Trump’s possession.

“This was a rule that followed an exhaustive study and an evaluation of how the non -competitor affects people in their daily lives,” Khan said about a recent call organized by the American Economic Liberties project, a group of experts. “Our team reviewed economic analysis reams that shows how workers are worse.

“Of course, I am disappointed that there is the possibility that it does not advance,” he said.

Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concern about non -competitive agreements in recent years due to the way they contain workers in their work, preventing them from taking their talents to the highest bidder. Most non -competitive prohibit employees from working for a competitive company for a certain period of time after leaving, apparently to protect employer’s investment in training and commercial secrets.

Although for a long time they associated with executives and workers with greater remedy as software engineers, contracts finally proliferated throughout the economy, even covering some workers with low wages such as Jimmy John’s Sandwich Makers.

The FTC rule considers it an illegal “method of unfair competition” for an employer to enter a non -competitor with a worker. The integral prohibition would cancel almost all those agreements in which the Commission of Commerce has authority, although it allows existing contracts for high -level executives to remain in place until they expire.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds through Getty Images

By releasing workers to move from one employer to another in search of a higher salary, the FTC estimated that the rule would increase the profits of US workers by more than $ 400 billion for a decade. He also projected that the rule would lead to the creation of more than 8,500 new businesses every year, allowing workers to leave their companies and create new ones without legal threats on their heads.

Vote He showed that most Americans supported the idea of ​​an uncomposed prohibition.

Employers and United States Chamber of Commerce They filed demands against the FTC to prevent the rule from being implemented. Although the agency prevailed in a federal court in Pennsylvania, a judge appointed by Trump in Texas issued an order that blocks the rule throughout the country, qualifying the non -competitive “arbitrary and capricious prohibition”. The FTC is supposed to indicate for July 10 how it plans to advance in that case. (A separately original demand in Florida is also in appeal).

The majority of the leftist group, most small businesses, which advocates entrepreneurs, tried to intervene in the case to defend the Ferguson FTC is a rescue. But the group’s motion was denied.

“It really is in the Court of the FTC under the Trump administration to discover what is happening with this rule,” said Alexis d’Amatato, director of Government Affairs of the group. “I think our hands are quite linked to him [time] be.”

The FTC said he received 26,000 comments from the public, since he was developing the rule, and more than 25,000 of them supported the concept of prohibition. Khan said that many of the stories stayed with her a year later, including some about the people who took work throughout the country, uprooting their families, because the non -competitors locked them out of the work near the home.

“The regulation of the FTC is full of all kinds of academic evidence of how our economy would improve,” he said. “But this is also about people’s lives in a very fundamental way, and if people can carry free and decent lives.”