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Right-to-work laws only affect employees' relationship with a union if one exists in their workplace, not employee<->employer relationships. So “living in a right-to-work state” has no relevancy to your anecdote.

I'm guessing OP probably meant an "at-will" employment state [0], which is rather more relevant.

Those two terms are frequently confused, and I place a lot of the blame for that on the blandly Orwellian naming of "right to work" laws, which actually take away rights instead. Specifically, it outlaws any group of workers and employers from making a certain kind of voluntary agreement between one-another.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

Unless they lived in Montana, they lived in an at-will state; it's reasonable shorthand to simply say the US is on the whole at-will.

You are correct. I meant "at-will", not "right to work"

1) Can you explain specifically how living in an "at-will" state (or "right to work" state), assisted you in being able to ignore/defeat your non-compete agreement?

2) Do you think that if you were living in the only state that is not an "at-will" state (Montana) that the outcome would have been any different for you? How so, specifically?

3) Are you aware that many people living in an "at-will" state still have just-cause contracts? My dad did as a school administrator. Living in an "at-will" state does not mean that your employer is forced to use at-will employment contracts, it merely allows them to.

I'm completely failing to see any connection at all between "at-will", "right-to-work", and non-compete agreements. While at this point I think you're simply wrong, I'm sincerely very open to learning what I might be missing here!

For context: 49 states are "at will", which only means that employers can fire you for any (non-protected) reason or no reason at all. The only state that is not, Montana, has a law that employment is categorized as "just cause". Montana's just-cause employment law, unique among U.S. states, requires that after a probationary period, employers can only terminate employees for "good cause." This means that an employer must have a legitimate, job-related reason for firing an employee, such as poor performance, misconduct, or other actions that are detrimental to the business.

At-will is the counterpart to “just-cause”. “Just cause” contracts like the ones in Montana only bind the employer, not the employee. So this explanation still is irrelevant to the anecdote at hand.

People seem to misunderstand 'right to work' states 99% of the time.

That's true, but right-to-work states tend to also have lots of other employer-friendly legislation. In theory, you could have a state with a right-to-work law and good employee protections. In practice, I'm not aware that one exists.

Right-to-work has become an almost sarcastic shorthand for a state that gives employers strong powers against their workers, and then wonders why they don't have more startups.

It's ironic because one could make similar first principles arguments against both non-competes and union security agreements.

You're fortunate you could afford an attorney and successfully argue your case. Most of the folks under a non compete (like hourly restaurant workers!) probably can't do that.

That really is an abuse of employees to enforce non-competes on restaurant workers. There's nothing proprietary or top secret from one place to another, it's just a way to screw someone over if they leave so that they have no choice but to stay. In the UK and EU, we prohibit non-competes specifically to stop this kind of employer power over employees, seeing it essentially as a form of modern-day indentured slavery.

On the other hand, for extremely top-level managers or workers with access to commercially sensitive information, I can understand the desire for non-competes, but we would typically solve that by having contractually agreed long notice periods (putting people on gardening leave for the notice period) and NDAs.

> we would typically solve that by having contractually agreed long notice periods (putting people on gardening leave for the notice period) and NDAs.

Which is what would happen if non-competes were outlawed.

Are they ever really enforced? I've heard it's almost entirely an intimidation thing like cease and desist.

My wife was sued by the very large company she worked for under a non-compete after she went to a company that they saw as a competitor. They sued her in Texas (even though she worked for them in a Northeast state) and the two companies spent $500K battling it out before it even made it to discovery. We were out $20K personally just in legal fees to have an independent lawyer advising us. Neither company cared about her particularly, but were really fighting each other. When the old employer successfully got an injunction against her, then moved the case to Federal court, and laid out what the first year of the case was going to look like (while she was unable to work at all because of the injunction), she pulled the plug and settled with her old company with an incredibly one sided agreement, basically hamstringing her from working in the industry for the next 18 months.

So, yes, they are sometimes enforced.

What line of work was she in? How awful

Product management

Jeez those two companies must have really hated each other. That sort of legal investment is usually a personal thing by CEOs as much as about business.

The new company was in California, where there are stricter non-compete laws, and had been poaching people from the old company. They were at the point, I think, where they both wanted to get federal precedent on non-competes to settle matters. This is what one of the lawyers in Texas told us (we had lawyers in three different states working on "our" team), when he suggested we might not want to play defendant in that game.

That's a form of enforcement, as it comes with the threat of legal action if the worker doesn't immediately quit their new job.

I thought right-to-work is an antiunion mechanism?

Right to work is 100% anti-union. In reality, it's "the right to work without any protections."

The idea used to sell it is that you don't owe your employer any loyalty, and they don't owe you any loyalty; either of you can walk away at any time.

In reality, this creates a completely asymmetric power dynamic. You can be fired at any time, for any reason, which means you have little power to advocate for better compensation, safer working conditions, and so on.

That's not what right to work is at all.

What you are describing is "at will" employment.

Right to work means that you have a right to choose whether or not to be in a union. It effectively makes "union shops" illegal.

Unions don't like it because it makes them less effective.

Which is to say, it's only anti-union if people don't actually feel they get value from being in the union. If people do feel they get value from being in the union they'll join the union.

It exposes the union pretty directly to one of the deadliest problems in political science and economics: the free-rider problem.

But if the majority are in a union and those that don’t join reap all the benefits the union gains in contracts how is that fair for those who are supporting the union.

In a "right-to-live" country, you would only have to pay taxes if the presidential candidate you voted for won.

uhm, what?

That's not exactly it, either. Right to work means unions and companies can't negotiate union security agreements. These are agreements that non-union workers have to pay to support the union, since they are benefitting from the union. Essentially they allow the union to coordinate individuals in a prisoner's dilemma.

Where your comment misses the mark is that workers in non-rtw states don't have to join or even pay for unions. They can work for companies that do not have union security agreements. There is no coercion in any step in the chain.

most of what you've said is pure pro union. propaganda is not necessarily untrue in every regard, but it selectively paints a rosy picture toward a particular agenda. Union workers can always "walk away any time", your "right to work selling point" doesn't even make sense.

right-to-work laws simply say that you can work for a company without being forced to join the union that is representing some/all of your fellow workers. Forcing workers to join unions (and pay dues) in order to get a job greatly enhances the power of union bosses, and as we all know, power corrupts.

> right-to-work laws simply say

It's not that simple. Right-to-work laws say that even if you don't join the union, you can't be left out of the benefits that the union negotiates with the boss. "Right-to-benefit-from-the-union-without-paying-dues" doesn't sound as fair as "right-to-work" though.

On that note, I fell for a union scam. They got an entire day of propaganda to give me, and made it clear I had to sign up if I wanted to keep working there. Turns out they're paper tigers, but it took 1 click to sign up online, and I have to send them a signed certified letter at the start of the year to cancel...

Right to work is an anti-union policy. You probably mean at-will. Meaning your employment can be terminated “at will” by your employer or by you.

Your “or by you” is superfluous. Just-cause contracts in the only state which requires them for most general employees (Montana) only limit what the employer can do, not the employee. The vast majority of just cause contracts allow the employee to leave whenever they want.

So “at will” also has to do the anecdote.

Serious q: what was the basis for that being thrown out? I am anti-"blanket uncompensated non-competes signed by everyone making over 60k", but it would be nice to know what particulars might have helped you out