Texas Pay Agreements Law

Some exchanges of information and cooperation between competitors may be legitimate if justified by legitimate business concerns, such as improving safety at work and the production of COVID 19 PPE. Investigative efforts and agreements between companies aimed at curbing competition by raising prices or reducing wages remain illegal, even in the midst of a pandemic. Therefore, before requesting or sharing activities and/or information about what competitors are doing with competition information, such as wage reduction and benefit programs, paid leave, furloughs and others, employers should review the DOJ`s anti-dominance guidelines, Labour Market Competition Guidelines and Red Antitrust Flags for Employment Practices and consultation with qualified agreement advisors. Employees must never reduce employees` hourly wages below the state minimum wage, which was $7.25 per hour in 2011, which is the federal minimum wage. Workers are also bound by the terms of a collective agreement if one of them exists. These agreements between employers and trade unions set wages as a contractual clause and employers must not unilaterally change the contractual conditions. The union should accept the reduction in negotiations. State law prohibits public employees from negotiating collective agreements. A “duty not to compete” or “non-compete clause” is a contractual provision of employment in which a worker agrees not to compete with an employer in a given profession or trade once that person`s employment relationship has ended. Employers and workers should recognize that competition bans (also known as Covenants to not compete) have legal limits.

October 11, 2021

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