A bill proposing restrictions on non-compete agreements in employment contracts in Massachusetts will have its first hearing on Beacon Hill next week, after nine months of discussion, revision, and compromise.
The state legislature’s Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development will hear comments on the bill, introduced by State Representatives Lori Ehrlich and Will Brownsberger, on October 7. Called the Noncompetition Agreement Act, the bill would make non-compete agreements unenforceable for employees of Massachusetts companies who earn less than $75,000 per year. The agreements—which are often used by employers to prevent former employees from going to work for competitors or from starting competing firms during the first year or so after they leave—would still be enforceable for employees who make more than $75,000, but only when employers can show the agreements are needed to protect trade secrets, confidentiality, or goodwill.
It’s the third such bill to circulate on Beacon Hill this year. Two related bills, one from Ehrlich that would have prohibited non-compete agreements for employees making less than $100,000 a year and one from Brownsberger that would have banned the agreements altogether, will technically be up for discussion at the hearing. But Ehrlich and Brownsberger are focusing their reform effort on the new, joint bill, a revised version of which was released this week.
The bill itself hasn’t changed much since the previous revision, which we wrote about in July; the big news then was that Brownsberger, in an effort to round up more support for non-compete reform and head off objections from the business community, had joined with Ehrlich in calling for restrictions—rather than an outright ban—on non-compete agreements. Russell Beck, an attorney with Boston-based Foley & Lardner who has been helping Ehrlich and Brownsberger
