Reader eightnine2718281828mu5 on Contracts Increasing Labor Inflexibility

Reader eightnine2718281828mu5 sends me an e-mail:

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Greenspan and Bernanke laud the flexibility of the American labor market, so let’s try policies that increase labor flexibility.

How about outlawing non-compete clauses, and other labor-stifling contractual agreements? Like the one that says “if you leave the company, you can’t contact your ex-coworkers for X years for the purpose of employing them at your new company.”

After all, CEOs seem to profit quite handsomely from their high-level contacts and interlocking boards; why should the frontline grunts be barred from profiting from their contacts?

These contracts stifle the free market for labor and seek to protect companies from competition. Since open competition is what the market is all about, our friends on the right should greet these changes with open arms, no?

I suspect, however, that in actual practice, increasing competition is pretty low on the corporate priority list. 🙂