in our Spotlight on Business Report tonight the Federal Trade Commission just made it easier to leave your job Regulators on Tuesday enacted a nationwide ban on new non-compete agreements for nearly all workers making it illegal for bosses to try to force employees into signing non-competes in any scenario and voiding most existing non-compete contracts it'll affect an estimated 30 million workers in the US according to the FTC non-competes bar workers from jumping to or starting a competing company for a certain period of time the new rules will take effect later this year unless a lawsuit filed today by the US Chamber of Commerce and a national tax firm block it from moving forward so what should workers expect I'm joined by Rucker's labor and employment law expert James Cooney James Cooney thanks so much for joining the show uh a lot to unpack here so let me ask you first what were the arguments made about why non-competes hurt workers and by extension the economy certainly and it's pleasure to be here the primary argument is the non-compete agreements restrict ability of workers to move on perhaps to higher paying jobs and suppress wages which hurts the economy overall so do we have any indication about how much uh how much money I'm talking about the stifling of wages could potentially be put back into the economy I think a lot of us picture senior level Executives but non-competes run the gamut don't they they sure do I've seen workers at all different levels impacted by them the Federal Trade Commission estimates that this rule once it goes into effect will result in over $400 billion doll being pumped into the economy over a decade so they really take the position that this is going to help improve the economy overall what are the implications though for businesses because the practice has been listen this is how we keep our Trade Secrets ours this is how we keep client and customer lists within house what's to stop workers from then either starting their own business or sharing that information when they jump to a competitor yeah you know businesses um have a legitimate concern on that point but there's things that already are being done by businesses to take care of those issues for example they can have workers enter into non-disclosure agreements or confidentiality agreements which will protect Trade Secrets and intellectual property but you know will not be the you know the heavy Hammer preventing a worker from moving on to a new job so if I'm an employee currently Bound by a non-compete what happens now is that null and void well it will be in around 6 months um that's when this rule will go into effect and at that point employers are going to be required to tell workers that um they will not enforce any non-compete agreement uh that has been entered into with an exception uh for senior Executives people making over $151,000 in involved in policym but for all other workers it will render those agreements essentially null and void very quickly there are lawsuits filed today uh us Chamber of Commerce uh being one of the filers there do you anticipate those suits having legs I mean is there a potential here that the FTC overstepped its Authority um I I think there actually is a fair likelihood that uh a judge might find this to be an excess of authority that's going to be the argument for sure that the Chamber of Commerce is going to make um essentially saying this agency did not have the authority to do this by way of rules but this is something that Congress would have needed to do by legislation so I think it is a real possibility this rule could be caught up in the court system for quite a while James Cooney is an attorney a professor at the ruer school of man management and Labor Relations thank you so much thank you very much support for the business report is provided by Junior Achievement of New Jersey providing students with skills and knowledge to explore choose and Advance their career paths for a bright future online at janj..org [Music]