Hourly workers should be free to move up and on as they choose

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Pedestrians pass by a Jimmy John’s sandwich shop in 2015. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

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Moving from job to job for better pay or working conditions is generally considered to be admirable, a sign of ambition.

But an increasing number of companies in Illinois apparently don’t think so. They are requiring even their lowest-level hourly workers to sign “noncompete agreements,” barring them from walking across the street for a better opportunity.

It’s Horatio Alger in reverse, and it has no place in American free enterprise.

Noncompete agreements, in which an employee agrees not to work for a competitor within a particular geographic area for a certain amount of time after leaving a company, are often entirely understandable and appropriate. They routinely are used by companies to protect trade secrets or their training investment in highly skilled workers. Noncompete agreements typically are negotiated — not unilaterally imposed — at this level.

Now, however, some companies are forcing workers in low-level jobs in warehouses, restaurants and elsewhere to sign noncompetes. And the bad practice is spreading, according to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, who has taken the matter to court.

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Camp counselors are not privy to proprietary information. Delivery drivers know no trade secrets, except maybe how to use GPS. The Onion, the satirical newspaper, has joked about noncompete agreements at sandwich shops: “The sandwich biz is cutthroat. You can come out with a great new sub on Monday, and by the end of the week it’s already been reverse-engineered by your competitors.”

The value of noncompetes to employers at this level is clear: It costs them nothing and makes it harder for their employees to move on if they don’t get a raise. And the unfairness to ordinary working people is just as obvious. Consider the absurdity of a college student who cannot take a job at the campus food court because he or she signed a noncompete agreement when employed at a similar job back home.

And yes, as The Onion joked, the job can be as basic as making a sandwich.

On Wednesday, Madigan filed a complaint against Champaign-based Jimmy John’s, saying the sandwich chain required low-level employees to sign noncompetes that barred them from working at many places that serve food within two miles of any Jimmy John’s for two years after leaving the company.

The company says it stopped using the agreements in April 2015 and that it wouldn’t enforce an existing one against any hourly worker. But Madigan’s office says many new employees who were hired after April 2015 continued to sign non-competition agreements. Jimmy John’s says that was just a mistake.

Truth is, the courts won’t enforce noncompete agreements imposed on workers who don’t know inside secrets. But low- and moderate-wage workers can’t afford lawyers to assert their rights. Also, employers don’t want to hire someone if it means a legal battle with a former employer.

Last month, the White House issued a report saying about 15 percent of workers without a college degree are working under a noncompete, as are 14 percent of people earning less than $40,000 a year. Those noncompetes limit worker mobility, entrepreneurship, regional economic growth and the efficiency of labor markets, the report said.

Many folks have a tough enough time finding paying work in Illinois. Indefensible noncompete agreements put them up against it even more.

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