No-compete agreements

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Dan Wise wondered how agencies can justify no-compete
 agreements. Simple enough, if you've got a sufficiently
 twisted mind. (<-- "straight line" alert) Let's say the
 company can bill $100/hour and pay you $50/hour; the
 numbers are out of the blue, so I'm not saying anything
 about _real_ agency practices. They certainly wouldn't want
 you to go to a client and offer to do the work for
 $75/hour. The client wins, you win, but the agency loses
 $25/hour of potential income. So they do everything in
 their power to stop you from going around them. In my
 books, that's restraint of trade and a flagrant violation
 of various anti-trust laws, but I'm no lawyer. (Thank God.)

 I don't deny that agencies serve a useful purpose for
 freelancers, and that they deserve some compensation for
 their work, but I think that blanket non-compete
 arrangements are going way too far in that direction.

 Reality check: For people who do work with agencies (I
 don't because I'm a wage slave), how negotiable are such
 agreements? Can you add a clause such as (for example) "if
 you have no work for me, I can take my resume to another
 agency down the road"?

 --Geoff Hart     @8^{)}     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
 Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.

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