In regards to companies not owning employees — gee, hmm.. Well that may be a case of semantics..

Cause you see, Contracts and a term Intellectual Property, inevetible disclosure, and suchlike can put a damper on what an employee does, where they go, and how they leave…

They may not own you, but they do own their information and they do own the right to their information, including the information that is in their employees computer, Ipod, blackberry, notes, and even in their head.. And they can have rights to that information or even what you do with that information for several Years..

So, I guess, they may not own their employees, but they sure can mandate their Actions… As long as they are working for them, or even after.

Don’t like it, then I guess you don’t have to sign the agreements. Ah shucks, sometimes you don’t even have to sign an agreement, guess that is when an Implied contract may come in..

Oh well.. I guess one doesn’t need to worry about it, isn’t it worth your ROI, and set aside money as insurance for lawsuit?

Ah, but then I guess, is there an explanation to the Shareholders and the board when the massive lawsuit becomes public and the stock starts shooting down the tube?

Hey, didn’t that recently happen to H.P.. in their recent scandle.. Guess the Chairperson thought she was justified and was worth the ROI of H.P to hire private investigators to Pretext and obtain illegaly phone records of other directors and even 2 employees based upon recent documents..

Okay, she is being asked to step down, there is enough evidence to indict.. and yes HP’s stock dropped 13 cents, or 0.36 percent, to $36.24 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange Today alone- due to this fiasco..

Lawsuits get expensive, even to defend when you are ‘right’ — so, why encourage behavior that can cause damage? Is it really worth the ROI? Do you think the StockHolders, the Board, the employees who may get fired due to the expense.. do you think the General Public will all think so?

Oh, by the way, that is not the two lawsuits of which I speak of.. H.P is not the company either.

It is always interesting to hear your perspective on such issues. My comments in response are thus:

1. The infamous case you reference has been settled, both parties realized that it was in their best interest not to push the issue. (Nothing sends a bad employer branding message than an employer suing a former employee who accepted a better opportunity!)

2. Corporations do not OWN their employees, they provide them with opportunities. If one organization can provide an individual a better opportunity, it is that person’s right to choose the situation that best rewards them. Non-compete agreements are interesting, but get tossed out more often than not in most states!

3. The FTC does govern unfair business practices, and hiring to uncover the ‘trade secrets’ of another business would certainly qualify, but that is not what this article is advising. Hiring for skill depth and capability is within any organizations right. If the hire comes from a competitor, and the absence of that individual hurts or retards the competitor’s business, all the better.

The HR profession is full of individuals who scream legal impropriety when in fact none exists. We live in a free market system, one where competitive business practices can and often are more brutal than what appear in our articles.

Our work is targeted towards corporations. We view it as our responsibility to advise organizations how they can do something to build capability and capacity, not how they can’t do something. Incidentally, most labor attorney’s view this as their responsibility as well!

this case is totally different — it is about directly poaching and predatory recruiting and Predatory hiring/recruiting.. THIS is NOT the same as Hiring a competitors recruiters because we are Doing business as usual..

AND again you miss my point – telling someone to RECRUIT TO HARM OR SLOW DOWN A COMPETITOR is indeed unfair business practices.

Please consider looking up unfair competition, tortious interference, business interference, impeding business profit, contractural interference,
Lets’ use an example from Colorado that writes it really well. Sherman Antitrust Act (federal law) – The Tenth Circuit, which helps determine law for Colorado, has held that predatory hiring practices are illegal if they (1) impair opportunities of rivals and (2) aren’t competition on the merits or (3) are more restrictive than reasonably necessary and (4) the conduct appears reasonably capable of contributing significantly to creating or maintaining monopoly power – (well GEE wonder if you when recruiting to impede someones busines is considered doing such)

But the Tenth Circuit has noted that ‘the hiring of a rival’s employees is not ordinarily exclusionary.

Oh, and whilst you are at it, look up also Inevitable Disclosure – which was what the case you were probably discussing was going with, which has nothing really to do with the topic I am discussing –

Hiring to HARM Competitors – Recruiting to harm competitors.. UNFAIR competition..

Based upon other quotes from Sullivans Articles- Cut and Pasted – ‘Raiding during a traumatic event, Recruiting an entire team, A poaching emphasis, Warlike tactics, hiring to slow down the rate of improvement of your competitor’ would you not find it a fair assessment that this would be what the FTC would consider UNFAIR competition? Especially as these Practices can and will restrain healthy business competition

Karen Mattonen

I wont’ even address anything but Number 16 – Hire to learn/hire to hurt: — well unlike what you said, hiring to hurt a competitor or to put them out of business, is NOT a strategy..

A company who has to reduce themselves to that type of behavior is not a ‘COMPETITOR’ as you mentioned.. And deserves to be sued..

Currently there are two great lawsuits about this Predatory type of hire, both are involving the Same Large IT company.. VERY Famous Web Based Company..

See – I am not going to address ethics.. nah, just the flippin Law.. See this behavior is Illegal. Recruiting to retard business of your competitor is illegal..

But, outside of that the word that comes to mind is class bully, scumball, unfair competition, and such like..

Yikes.. if a company has to resort to that type of behavior, one should ask, what is wrong with this company? Why can’t they attract talent based upon reputation Alone? Why do they have to resort to such Gregarious behaviors?

My 2 cents, Not really, thank goodness more individuals feel like I do, or they would never have made this a law near centuries ago..

Addressing your other comments.. not worth my time.. The only reason I even address this is due to my concern of individuals gaining inaccurate information.

Karen Mattonen

Karen Mattonen
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