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One to Keep An Eye On: Workforce Mobility Act of 2019 (U.S. Congress)


As with many employment and labor law related cases (and bills) being litigated around the country, there are always a few that stand out.  This is one to keep an eye on.


Earlier this month, a bi-partisan piece of legislation was introduced in Congress entitled the "Workforce Mobility Act of 2019" which is intended to curb the use of non-compete agreements in the workplace.

The bill, introduced by Republican Senator Todd Young and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, would aggressively reduce the use of non-competes and allow them to be used only for the "necessary instance of a dissolution of a partnership or the sale of a business."  With one recent study having found that non-competes have impacted nearly 40% of the workforce, the Senators have argued that non-competes are improperly infringing upon the ability of workers to move on to new jobs.  Consequently, this legislation seeks to scale back the use of non-competes and goes so far as to require employers to make their employees aware of the limitations of non-competes (should this legislation come to pass.)

Some readers might recall that prior attempts have been made to curtail the use of non-competes; however, those prior attempts to pass legislation in Congress have come up short.  Whether this bi-partisan legislation can garner enough support to become law remains to be seen.  However, with a Democratic House of Representatives that would likely be receptive to this legislation (and a fairly even split in the Senate among Republicans and Democrats), the ultimate question might be whether President Donald Trump would sign it into law if it reached his desk.



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