Jimmy John's Non-Compete Agreements Are Utterly Psychotic

http://kitchenette.jezebel.com/jimmy-johns-non-compete-agreements-are-utterly-psychoti-1645839165

C.A. Pinkham

More evidence that Jimmy Johns is the quite possibly the worst company to work for in America: they force their employees — even those at the bottom rungs of the ladder like sandwich makers and delivery drivers — to sign non-competes that would seem overbearing to a governmental espionage agency.

Huffington Post obtained a copy of a Jimmy John's non-compete agreement that all employees are required to sign, no matter where they sit on the corporate food chain. The agreement states that after leaving Jimmy John's for any reason, the employee cannot work for two years at any Jimmy John's competitor. That would be crazy enough, but it gets even more Banana Town when you consider what Jimmy John's apparently considers a "competitor": any business that makes at least 10% of its revenues from sandwiches within three miles of ANY Jimmy John's.

Basically, any former Jimmy John's employee can't work at ANY restaurant that serves sandwiches or even any business that provides sandwiches as a side service (10% of their revenue, remember) within three miles of any existing Jimmy John's.

As HuffPo points out, ordinarily non-competes at companies like Jimmy John's exist for executives who could potentially reveal company secrets to their chief competitors. Unless "company secrets" has been broadened to include "that guy at 1321 Pine Boulevard is a non-tipping asshole," it's hard to see how that case could be made here. Luckily, the non-compete is now part of the same proposed class action that alleges systematic wage theft at the company.

Obviously, this has nothing to do with the divestment of company secrets and everything to do with putting workers in as desperate a situation as possible where they're terrified to lose or leave their jobs. Jimmy John's seeks to control its employees lives, treat them as crappily as they feel like, and prevent them from seeking out any better situation. To say it's an actively, heinously evil practice would be a profound understatement.

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