Employer blocking from working for company B?

[V8 Stang]

Bit of an odd one, i work in the "coach build" industry which is a pretty small industry with not a lot of companies doing what we do.

Company A and Company B are both coach build companies, Company B is a much bigger company.

I work for company A.

Company A has been doing work for company B, as part of this an agreement was signed between the 2 companies saying company A cannot employ anyone from company B for 6 months after contract completed and the same for company B.

And if an employee leaves they can't work for the other for 6 months.

So basically the other company is not allowed to employ from the rival company.


This seems very unfair from the employee's point of view, as its basically means you are stuck where you are (and less scope for a pay rise!) unless you go work in a different industry.


Someone has just approached the other company in regards to a job there, but was told they can't be employed due to this agreement!


Considering the agreement is between the 2 companies and nothing is in the employee's contract, just wondering on the legalities of this?
As its not something ive heard of before.

[Jasandjules]

Many people have post termination restrictions in their contracts which would be similar.......

Being realistic, what can you do? You can't force a company to employ you and to complain about it is unlikely to make you desirable.

[Evanivitch]

V8 Stang said:

Considering the agreement is between the 2 companies and nothing is in the employee's contract, just wondering on the legalities of this?
As its not something ive heard of before.

Interesting, but I don't really see what you can do about it.

Unless you can argue these are the only two employers in the entire industry then I don't really see how you could argue it damages your rights unfairly.

[QuartzDad]

Pretty standard IME. I work in IT consulting and it's a standard term in contracts that we won't take their staff and vice versa.

I've also let people move from A to B if it keeps B happy etc.

[V8 Stang]

Evanivitch said:

Interesting, but I don't really see what you can do about it.

Unless you can argue these are the only two employers in the entire industry then I don't really see how you could argue it damages your rights unfairly.

Agree there is nothing can do about it.

Just seems a bizarre situation all around. And wondered if its a common stipulation.

[Tyre Smoke]

I've heard of this in car dealerships. Salesman for Ford gets poached by Peugeot down the road.

Apparently it's a clause not worth the paper it's written on. However if both companies adhere to the agreement what can you do?

[anonymous-user]

I've done something like this as an employer. Let's say I was companyA and wanted to employ someone from companyB. The two companies had a good relationship. Generally speaking if someone wants to leave then even if you incentivise them to stay it's only a matter of time before they do leave.

So I spoke to the other company and said that I'd been appoached by EmployeeX (after getting employeeX's permission to do so) and he wants to move to us. Then the conversation went down the route of "Is there a way we can make this happen?"

The answer may be a straight "No and don't even think about it" or it may be a "Yes but we'd like him to finish project xyz and do 2 months of handover training when we have recruited a new person, take it or leave it".

Just because it's in a contract doesn't mean it's impossible to move employers but tread carefully and see if there is a mutually convenient compromise in there somewhere. Good luck.