Clause in employment contract- re not working for competitor

[Tobiasgar]

But the Employment contracts change the "at will" relationship, restricting your ability to terminate employees who aren't working out. Typically you agree only to terminate "for cause" unless you're at the end of the contract term, which opens your decision to second-guessing by the courts as to whether your cause was adequate.

If you draft an employment contract, pay special attention to the termination section. You might want a clause denying certain benefits if you terminate for cause--such as committing a felony or acting in a way that's clearly harmful. Some employees might negotiate "double trigger" clauses, in which they can resign "for good reason" (such as being reassigned to another department) and still be entitled to a severance package.

Given the complexity and issues involved, you can understand why employment contracts are usually reserved for key employees. Certainly, always consult your attorney about clauses to include and avoid.

[Eiger John]

The Labor Standards Act sets out a bunch of minimum standards that basically trump whatever junk is in many contracts -- the LSA exists as a way to protect employees against a whole range of illegal or unacceptable practices. However, the LSA doesn't apply to every single foreigner -- many country managers are on "mandate" agreements by which they can be removed at any time by the board of directors.

In evaluating the strength of a non-compete promise, it's important to know more about the contract, the position the person is under, and whether the non-compete is reasonable in geographic scope and duration. In many cases, what the employer wants to protect via a non-compete agreement would be more appropriately protected under a confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement and under Taiwan's body of trade-secrets law. Non-solicit provisions provide a different way for companies to protect themselves: 1) against a former employee poaching all their best employees to work for a competitor (solicitation of workers); or 2) against a former employee soliciting business from his former company's customers. Regarding the latter, it's pretty standard for the provision to restrict that to the customers on whose matters the employee had worked during the 12 months prior to termination of the employment agreement or for those potential customers that the company had approached to make proposals to in the 12 months prior to termination.

In some cases, the use of non-competes gets a bit ridiculous. You can't really ask a doctor, dentist, plumber, lawyer, etc. to simply stop doing what they do for a living. And you can't have a non-compete so restrictive that it leaves other people with absolutely no way to make a living. I reviewed an employment contract once where a local company was trying to impose non-compete obligations on secretaries!

[urodacus]

OP is a kindergarten teacher. How can you not work for a competitor once you quit this job if that's all you can do?

[bigduke6]

OP is a kindergarten teacher. How can you not work for a competitor once you quit this job if that's all you can do?

I would also assume that the OP is teaching kindergarten illegally, so any contract would be illegal/non enforceable too.

[engerim]

I just quit a job and they asked me to sign similar things as I quit. I think I'll just not sign it

In chinese the paragraph is:
乙方同意於離職之日起兩年內,非經甲方事前書面同意,不得為下列行為:
(1) 以自己或借用他人名義經營或投資與甲方同種類相互競爭之事業。
(2) 兼職、任職於前項與甲方相互競爭之事業,其居間或媒介者亦同。

In English that would be (what I think):
Worker agrees within two years from the date of departure, unless authorized in writing by the company to consent to the following:
(1) not by himself or by helping others to have operations in the same kind of business or competing with the companies business
(2) not to do part-time work that is competing with the companies activities, or doing work that is similar to the companies business

They have other paragraph about trade secrets and so on which (what I think) would be already covered by general law.
So why should I bother signing it as I just quit?! Basically I offered them to compensate me for above if they need it, whereas they suggested to strike above paragraphs in that case!

There was no such stuff in my original contract.
Well I still don't see the point of signing the rest. Suppose handing in a notice and giving them back their stuff is enough (legally) when you leave a job?!
I even got a survey with a lot of questions (starting with easy stuff like "how did you like it here and so on" but then some questions like "who is your next employer, whats his name and address, who are his customers" seemed a bit too much to me so I kind of left that one blank too!

[Eiger John]

Sounds like a wise idea. Basically, trade secrets are covered by a body of law within the Trade Secrets Act and, potentially, the Criminal Code. It can be a useful reminder to outgoing employees but signing a promise on the way out the door not to tell anybody the employer's trade secrets really isn't adding any new obligation. In this case, though, it's clear that the non-compete isn't important to them or else they would have paid something for it. Some companies that forgot to get a non-compete into the original agreement will, in the midst of firing an employee, sweeten the severance package a bit to get the employee to sign off on non-compete, non-solicit language.