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Is Jimmy John’s Bullying Workers With Non-Compete Agreements?

Is Jimmy John’s Bullying Workers With Non-Compete Agreements?

According to legend, it happened because he didn’t want to leave the gaming table. Maybe he was riding a hot streak.

Whatever the reason, he couldn’t be bothered with going to eat, so he told his servants to bring him a piece of meat between two slices of bread instead. Thus was gastronomic history casually made by John Montagu, an 18th-century British statesman and the 4th Earl of Sandwich.

In the centuries since Montagu inadvertently invented it, the sandwich has made many strides. Peanut butter came along in 1890, sliced bread in 1930. Dagwood Bumstead, who first conceived of the sandwich as a high-rise structure, was born that same year.

But Jimmy John’s, a sandwich maker with 2,000 outlets in 43 states and the District of Columbia, has come up with the greatest advance in sandwich tech since Montagu himself. It must have. Why else would it require its frontline workers to sign non-compete agreements as a condition of employment?

That’s the kind of contract typically required of the high-ranking executive whose annual compensation could retire the debt of a developing nation. It’s not something one would expect to be required of a kid working after school or a downsized mother trying to keep the lights on, making and delivering sandwiches for the somewhat more modest wages for which fast-food jobs are famous.

As reported by the Huffington Post, the contract says that for two years after leaving Jimmy John’s, the employee “will not have any direct or indirect interest in or perform services for any business which derives more than 10 percent of its revenue from selling submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches” and which is located within three miles of any Jimmy John’s.

On the face of it, it seems the kind of callous, arrogant, mean-spirited corporate mistreatment of low-wage workers that low-wage workers complain about all the time. But we know low-wage workers are not to be trusted, right? If they were trustworthy, wouldn’t they be making more money? That’s just logic. Don’t you watch Fox? Besides, corporations are people, my friend — a great man once said that — and decent people don’t treat other people that way, so what looks like petty bullying of vulnerable workers must actually be an attempt to protect some new sandwich innovation those workers are privy to.

I’m thinking: crumbless bread. Or a new kind of relish that promotes weight loss. Or maybe they’re about to unveil a creative menu where customers are no longer stuck with the same dull options they have at Subway. Maybe chunky penguin salad on rye?

Senator Al Franken (D-MN) is not persuaded by that logic. He’s co-sponsored a bill to end the practice of requiring low-wage workers to sign these agreements. I called his office for comment and received a written statement decrying what Franken called an “unfair practice” which erects “hurdles and barriers” and robs low-wage workers of mobility.

I knew he had to be mistaken, so I contacted Jimmy John’s to hear how this policy is actually needed to protect corporate secrets. A person who declined to be identified by name wrote that the company does not “currently” require its workers to sign non-compete agreements.

Obviously, that was a typo. Obviously, what the person meant is that Jimmy John’s “does not, never has and never would” do such a thing, unless, of course, it was necessary to protect privileged information. Otherwise, it’s just petty tyranny and as we all know, no American corporation would behave like that.

I emailed Jimmy John’s for clarification. I’m still waiting, but I’m sure they’ll get back to me any minute.

Meantime, who’s up for lunch? Dibs on the penguin salad.

—

(Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL, 33132. Readers may contact him via email at lpitts@miamiherald.com.)

Photo: Nate Grigg via Flickr

To Keep Good Workers, Some Employers Are Trapping Them

To Keep Good Workers, Some Employers Are Trapping Them

In olden days, the way you kept good workers was to pay them more. That’s no longer the case in many jobs. Companies have been using “noncompete” agreements to stop these workers from seeking better compensation at rival companies.

Originally designed to stop tech whizzes from taking company secrets to higher bidders, these noncompete agreements are being forced on workers loading boxes at warehouses or assembling sandwiches so that they can’t go to the warehouse or sandwich shop down the block.

Such agreements have been challenged at Jimmy John’s sandwich franchise and Subway, among others. According to The Huffington Post, the Jimmy John’s contract forbids an employee to work at any company making more than 10 percent of revenues “from selling submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches” within 3 miles of a Jimmy John’s (anywhere in the country) for two years.

The practice is outrageous, and a new bill before Congress would bar noncompete contracts for jobs paying less than $15 an hour. Introduced by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT), the legislation is aptly named the MOVE Act, which stands for the Mobility and Opportunity for Vulnerable Employees Act.

The need for such protections is truly a sign of these times. It reflects the increasingly skewed balance of power favoring top dogs over their delivery truck drivers.

Hotshot execs keep telling us that their companies have to pay them a zillion dollars an hour to attract rare talent such as theirs. You know, the supply and demand thing. When brilliant execs themselves are in short supply, you have to pay more for them.

But somehow, respect for the labor market’s law of supply and demand fades the lower down the corporate ladder you go. So here you have guys making $15 an hour and doing a good enough job that a company across town might pay them $17 an hour to do the same thing, but they can’t go.

Rather than give them a raise, employers wave these agreements workers had to sign as a condition of being hired. Lower-skilled workers rarely challenge them, although they can. (The employer has to demonstrate that the workers could expose privileged information to its competitors.)

Some companies are paying off former employers to get higher-skilled workers out of noncompete agreements. California has virtually banned all types of them.

Over 19 million workers are now covered by such contracts, according to a working paper by Evan Starr at the University of Illinois and Norman Bishara and James J. Prescott, both at the University of Michigan.

For obvious reasons, knowledge-intensive positions are likeliest to come with noncompete agreements. But the paper found that over 10 percent of repair jobs also require “noncompetes,” as do 11 percent of jobs in production (tailors, machine operators) and nearly 12 percent in personal services (barbers, gym instructors, manicurists).

Noncompete agreements do reduce worker turnover, an expense for businesses. But so do higher wages and superior working conditions.

Companies demand these agreements because, why not? Only 10 percent of job applicants try to negotiate for higher pay in return for accepting restrictions on their ability to seek employment elsewhere, according to the working paper. Those with more ordinary skills are assumed to be less combative and more accepting of whatever they’re offered. They just want the job.

They may get the job, but it’s one with rather tight strings. The MOVE Act would cut the strings for those lower down the pay scale. If it passed, many employers wanting to keep their most prized workers would have to do it the old-fashioned way — by paying them more.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com. 

Photo: Thomas Heylan via Flickr

Best Teachers Can’t Get Hired By Public Schools

Best Teachers Can’t Get Hired By Public Schools

By Francis Barry, Bloomberg News (TNS)

To understand why the U.S. education system is mired in mediocrity, start by listening to Scott McKim’s story.

McKim can claim a master’s degree in watershed science, an undergraduate degree in meteorology, with minors in math and physics, and statewide teacher of the year honors for his work as a math and science teacher at a middle school in Alaska. In his free time, he led a student club that installed a wind turbine, started a cafeteria composting program, and built a greenhouse. He also helped develop a charter school devoted to outdoor education and STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering, and math — and managed to get a second master’s in teaching, with a focus on science and math instruction.

As STEM subjects become increasingly important, McKim is exactly the kind of teacher the U.S. needs more of. Yet now, at least in New York state, he can’t get a job teaching at a public school.

McKim and his wife wanted to move from Alaska to the Adirondacks in upstate New York. But it was easier to get certified in Vermont than New York, so McKim moved to Vermont, figuring he would teach for a year there and then transfer his certification to New York. Initially, the plan worked — he got his teaching certification from Vermont and taught middle school science and math. But when he tried to get certified in New York, he was told, in effect: Go back to school.

In New York, McKim could have taken exams to become certified to teach Earth science — but nothing else. That presented two problems. First, there were no Earth science openings where he wanted to live. Second, in rural areas, schools often don’t have enough students to employ a full-time Earth science teacher, so getting a job can require teaching multiple subjects.

But to teach math and physics in New York, McKim needed ten more credits in physics and eight more credits in math — even though he has a minor in each and experience teaching both. For McKim, investing the time and money necessary to prove his academic credentials — after all he had already achieved inside and outside the classroom — “wasn’t too appealing.”

Tom Dunn, a spokesman for the state education department, declined to comment on McKim’s case, but said that certification requires coursework equivalent to an undergraduate major: “Strong content preparation in undergraduate coursework is an essential element in teacher preparation and certification.”

Helpful, beneficial, useful — sure. But essential? The author Jonathan Franzen, who received a B.A. in German with an English minor and once taught fiction writing at Swarthmore College and Columbia University, wouldn’t be eligible to teach American literature to middle school students in New York. Similarly, New York is working to recruit computer science teachers, yet if Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg applied for jobs, the state would tell the Harvard dropouts to finish college first — and after that, they would need to complete a master’s degree to obtain a permanent certification.

Of course, a successful career does not a great teacher make, and it’s reasonable to require professional development work for those without traditional qualifications. But rather than ruling them categorically unqualified, if they can’t cut it as teachers, allow them to be fired, as would happen in any other profession. But rather than making it easier to fire bad teachers, states are making it harder to hire good ones.

McKim supports high standards for teacher certification: “Much of what is wrong with our educational system can be traced back to colleges/universities not adequately preparing teachers,” he wrote in an e-mail. That’s a problem that New York and other states are tackling. But there is a world of difference between a certification system that is intellectually rigorous and one that is bureaucratically rigid.

As states move toward a set of common standards for students through Common Core, they ought to do the same for teachers, allowing them to move from state to state without difficulty. At the same time, principals ought to have the flexibility to hire teachers based on their ability and experience, not their academic credits.

The problem can also run in the opposite direction: In some states, teachers can actually be penalized for having too many credits. In Vermont, for instance, a master’s degree isn’t required, and since union contracts usually mandate higher salaries for teachers with advanced degrees, “instead of hiring based on merit,” McKim says, “districts are forced to hire based on cost.”

Despite being deemed unqualified, McKim decided to move to New York anyway, where he eventually found a teaching job — as an adjunct college professor. That’s a loss for the local middle school students and a troubling sign for the future of education in the U.S.

Photo: wecometolearn via Flickr

Hirers Bemoan Wasted Time With Some Job Applicants

Hirers Bemoan Wasted Time With Some Job Applicants

By Diane Stafford, The Kansas City Star (TNS)

A paid summer internship at a Kansas City, Mo., consulting company remains unfilled as of this writing because applicants haven’t followed instructions.

A veterinarian at a small-animal hospital is frustrated because one-third to one-half of applicants scheduled for interviews failed to show up.

For all the justified complaints among job hunters about sending their applications into the “black holes” of corporate human resource departments, there’s a flip side.

Small businesses, in particular, simply don’t have time to continue to pursue applicants who express interest but don’t follow through with paperwork or appointments.

The director of administration at the above-mentioned consulting office was blunt about being disappointed in a promising candidate: “After prompting him twice, he’s not sent back the completed application. I’m not going to chase these kids down! If they can’t follow simple instructions in a timely manner, we don’t have time to mentor them in our office this summer.”

The veterinarian is wondering whether applicants are taking advantage of the unemployment system by professing to have applied for work but aren’t completing a real application. He said his office schedules interviews with candidates who submit online applications but, “They don’t call, they don’t email, they just disappear. Of course, we don’t pursue them after this happens.”

The Internet has made it easy to apply for jobs; shoe leather not required. Many employers are inundated with both qualified applicants who deserve thoughtful consideration and incredibly unqualified applicants who are simply pushing buttons. When hirers find a good candidate, they’re understandably interested in moving forward with the application process — just like job hunters who believe they’re right for the position.

But, as is the case in so many ways, bad apples taint the barrel. Applicants who follow the rules in the time frame allotted are penalized by employers’ suspicions that they, too, don’t really want the job or won’t justify the employer’s time and expense vested in them.

In a perfect world, applicants — even those frustrated by a longer-than-expected period of job hunting — would be more judicious about applying only for jobs that truly are right for them based on their experience, talents, and interests. And, if they hear back from a prospective employer, they would respond promptly, and clearly express their intent to pursue the hiring process or back away.

In an equally perfect world, employers would have more time and a terrific culling system to separate promising, credible applicants from those who are merely fishing or abusing the system.

Clearly, perfection isn’t going to happen on either side. It’s up to individual conscience and business conditions to decide how much serious effort goes into any workplace matchmaking. Despite the odds, some matches will be made.

ABOUT THE WRITER
To reach Diane Stafford, call 816-234-4359 or send email to stafford@kcstar.com. Follow her online at kansascity.com/workplace and twitter.com/kcstarstafford.

(c)2015 The Kansas City Star, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Kathryn Decker, Flickr