Signage is seen on the Chamber of Commerce building in the Manhattan borough of New York, New York, U.S. April 21, 2021.
andrew kelly | Reuters
A leading business advocacy group has pledged to sue the Federal Trade Commission if it follows through on a proposal to ban non-competition clauses in workers’ contracts — an issue that has bipartisan support among workers. legislators.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents some 3 million businesses, is ready to sue if the FTC continues to push for a proposal banning companies from imposing non-competition clauses on employees, reporters told Thursday. President and CEO Suzanne P. Clark. The organization is the largest US business group and spent nearly $60 million lobbying lawmakers in the first three quarters of last year, according to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan fundraising watchdog. campaigns.
Bedroom called the proposal “patently illegal” and ignoring established state laws where “non-competition agreements are an important tool to foster innovation and preserve competition.” Change would be dangerous raise wages about $300 billion a year for workers, according to the FTC.
The organization is also committed to lobbying Congress to limit some of the FTC’s regulatory activities through the appropriations process, said Neil Bradley, executive vice president, chief policy officer and chief strategic advocacy officer for the United States House.
Banning non-compete agreements is “clearly an authority that (the FTC doesn’t have) and no one ever thought it had,” Bradley said. “These are things we can try to forge bipartisan agreement on to get credits writers to limit authority.”
The agency’s premise — that it can eliminate non-competition under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair methods of competition — is something most legal observers don’t think is possible, Bradley said.
That’s why states have regulated it. And until Congress changes that, it’s really important if… you believe in the rule of law, that at a minimum, federal agencies obey the law. And that’s not breaking the law no matter how you write it,” Bradley said.
Lifting non-competitions could also threaten business innovation, Clark said, by jeopardizing the “keep of secrecy” among former employees who move freely to another company.
The US House is no stranger to challenging federal agencies that it says have exceeded their authority in court. He filed a lawsuit against the FTC over the past year, as well as the Security and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
But its mission to counter the power of the FTC could face an uphill battle in the House where the chamber has fallen out of favor with Republican leaders, including new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif, after he supported the so-called awakening policies. Last summer, McCarthy said he wouldn’t even meet the band if they won the presidency, according to Axios.
The proposal to ban non-competition was also brought before the Senate. A invoice introduced by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in 2021 to eliminate them under certain conditions, drew bipartisan support from the Republican cosponsors, Sens. Todd Young from Indiana and Kevin Cramer from North Dakota.
At the time, Young said lifting non-compete clauses would provide Americans with “the greatest flexibility in finding and securing employment” during the pandemic.
“Non-competition agreements stifle wage growth, career advancement, innovation and business creation,” he said.
Bradley said working with Congress to limit the FTC’s powers would be a ‘tough challenge’ with the president Joe Biden in power and with Democrats in control of the Senate.
“We are going to work from all angles, we are not putting all our eggs in the basket of credits…”, he said. “We are already in litigation, and we will be in future litigation against the FTC.”
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