I have to say that when this story first broke, I was outraged but didn’t want to say anything at the time. But since I read an op-ed piece on the news industry, I thought this was a good example of how damaging shoddy news reporting is.
Let’s start from the top. If you click on the link to this article at the bottom, you would see that Chad Spielman worked as an inside salesman at Detroit Radiator Corporation for 10 months. After 5:00, he was called into his office and was told that he wasn’t working out and that he would be terminated. Once he was terminated, he would eventually get a job at Radiator Works. After working there for two weeks, he received an injunction from his old company telling him that he couldn’t work there due to a non-compete agreement. Since he was an at-will employee, he would not be able to work in the industry for two years due to the fact that he had trade secrets.
Okay, I know all this is standard stuff. Chad and I share the same plight although I’ve been at my company for 15 years. The truth is that since I’ve seen three employment lawyers, I know they would say the following: Chad’s company has an attitude that they’re doing him a favor by giving him a job because they can fire him at any time for any reason and not give him anything, not even a severance package. Since he signed the non-compete agreement, he isn’t able to work in the industry. He can go to court and challenge it and it would cost him $10,000. The chances are that he would lose because he signed the agreement. If anything, the judge may look at this agreement and say that two years is unreasonable and would only make it a year. His trade secrets would be that he supposedly has a relationship with clients and that he can get them to drop their business with Detroit Radiator and move to his new employer.
Yes, this is what should have been said. If anything, when Chad was fired from his job, that was the time when he should have been told that he signed a non-compete agreement and he would have to comply with it. Yet for some reason, his company failed to tell him this. In any case, let’s forget about that for the moment.
Once we break for the report from Fox on TV, we have an attorney named Herschel Fink. He fails to mention any of the points that I have mentioned. What baffled me further was that he didn’t mention that if Chad went to court, it would cost him $10,000 to fight this. He doesn’t even define what Chad’s trade secrets are even though I have argued that we don’t know the impact Chad would have if he left one Radiator Company to go to another. Yes, we don’t know if any clients would follow him since he was there for only 10 months.
Yes, I know, he’s an inside sales representative at a Radiator Company. Let’s face it, today, we have karate instructors, gym instructors, hairdressers, nail salon employees, pharmacy technicians, dog and cat groomers and maids on non-compete agreements. At some point, we should have waiters and waitress’s on non-compete agreements. After all, if you saw the movie As Good As It Gets, you saw a relationship between Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson. Yes, this is more than proof that a waitress can get a customer to switch to a new restaurant if she went to work there.
So, the question is why weren’t any of the points that I mentioned stated in this story. Well, the great thing about the internet is that you can do some research. After five minutes, I was able to come up with the answers.
Let’s start with the story itself. Notice that there isn’t any mention of a statement from an employment lawyer. Why is that important? Well, if Chad is planning to court, he should speak with an employment lawyer since that is their field and he would get the best legal advice. Not too hard to find an employment lawyer in Michigan on the Internet. I’m sure they would love to comment on this.
Now, let’s talk about the lawyer who was interviewed on Fox. Herschel Fink. If you look up his bio on the internet, you would see that he is an Entertainment lawyer, not an employment lawyer. Sure, no big deal, lawyers say the same thing anyway. This is only a TV report. I shouldn’t have a problem if Sanjay Gupta of CNN did a story on heart problems and interviewed a Pediatrician instead of a Cardiologist.
Unfortunately, my five minutes of research did not end there. Yes, here is where I discovered that Herschel Fink worked at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP, a law firm that specializes in non-compete agreements. Yes, that took two clicks on the website. Yes, a firm that specializes in non-compete agreements and sends out injunctions when an employee leaves one company to work for a competitor even though he is on a non-compete agreement.
Now, some people would say hey, that is shoddy reporting. Yes, coming from a division of Fox, that would be more than understandable. You can usually associate incompetence with Fox and be right on the mark.
Let’s face it, there’s more to this though. You have to say that Herschel Fink owed it to himself and to Chad to excuse himself from commenting on this due to a conflict of interest. Yet, he didn’t do that. Sure, why should he? As far as Fox and Herschel are concerned, the dumb audience wouldn’t know anything so what is the big deal.
What did we learn from this? One person would tell me that the viewers got screwed from learning the true story of how non-compete agreements work. Another thing we would learn is that Fox and Herschel Fink are, to coin a term from former WWE announcer Gorilla Monsoon, a fountain of misinformation.
Most of all, the real person who got screwed was Chad Spielman. Once again, he was the victim. All he wanted to do is to try to earn a living. He had a story to tell and he and the audience was screwed out of the real facts that should have come out about non-compete agreements. The fact that they are one sided, unreasonable, and that Chad is expected to look for a job in another industry that he is unqualified for and collect unemployment benefits for a long period of time. I understand that because one day, this could happen to me.
Rick Holman
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/18463462/fired-radiator-salesman-chad-spielman-sued-after-finding-job
Let’s start from the top. If you click on the link to this article at the bottom, you would see that Chad Spielman worked as an inside salesman at Detroit Radiator Corporation for 10 months. After 5:00, he was called into his office and was told that he wasn’t working out and that he would be terminated. Once he was terminated, he would eventually get a job at Radiator Works. After working there for two weeks, he received an injunction from his old company telling him that he couldn’t work there due to a non-compete agreement. Since he was an at-will employee, he would not be able to work in the industry for two years due to the fact that he had trade secrets.
Okay, I know all this is standard stuff. Chad and I share the same plight although I’ve been at my company for 15 years. The truth is that since I’ve seen three employment lawyers, I know they would say the following: Chad’s company has an attitude that they’re doing him a favor by giving him a job because they can fire him at any time for any reason and not give him anything, not even a severance package. Since he signed the non-compete agreement, he isn’t able to work in the industry. He can go to court and challenge it and it would cost him $10,000. The chances are that he would lose because he signed the agreement. If anything, the judge may look at this agreement and say that two years is unreasonable and would only make it a year. His trade secrets would be that he supposedly has a relationship with clients and that he can get them to drop their business with Detroit Radiator and move to his new employer.
Yes, this is what should have been said. If anything, when Chad was fired from his job, that was the time when he should have been told that he signed a non-compete agreement and he would have to comply with it. Yet for some reason, his company failed to tell him this. In any case, let’s forget about that for the moment.
Once we break for the report from Fox on TV, we have an attorney named Herschel Fink. He fails to mention any of the points that I have mentioned. What baffled me further was that he didn’t mention that if Chad went to court, it would cost him $10,000 to fight this. He doesn’t even define what Chad’s trade secrets are even though I have argued that we don’t know the impact Chad would have if he left one Radiator Company to go to another. Yes, we don’t know if any clients would follow him since he was there for only 10 months.
Yes, I know, he’s an inside sales representative at a Radiator Company. Let’s face it, today, we have karate instructors, gym instructors, hairdressers, nail salon employees, pharmacy technicians, dog and cat groomers and maids on non-compete agreements. At some point, we should have waiters and waitress’s on non-compete agreements. After all, if you saw the movie As Good As It Gets, you saw a relationship between Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson. Yes, this is more than proof that a waitress can get a customer to switch to a new restaurant if she went to work there.
So, the question is why weren’t any of the points that I mentioned stated in this story. Well, the great thing about the internet is that you can do some research. After five minutes, I was able to come up with the answers.
Let’s start with the story itself. Notice that there isn’t any mention of a statement from an employment lawyer. Why is that important? Well, if Chad is planning to court, he should speak with an employment lawyer since that is their field and he would get the best legal advice. Not too hard to find an employment lawyer in Michigan on the Internet. I’m sure they would love to comment on this.
Now, let’s talk about the lawyer who was interviewed on Fox. Herschel Fink. If you look up his bio on the internet, you would see that he is an Entertainment lawyer, not an employment lawyer. Sure, no big deal, lawyers say the same thing anyway. This is only a TV report. I shouldn’t have a problem if Sanjay Gupta of CNN did a story on heart problems and interviewed a Pediatrician instead of a Cardiologist.
Unfortunately, my five minutes of research did not end there. Yes, here is where I discovered that Herschel Fink worked at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP, a law firm that specializes in non-compete agreements. Yes, that took two clicks on the website. Yes, a firm that specializes in non-compete agreements and sends out injunctions when an employee leaves one company to work for a competitor even though he is on a non-compete agreement.
Now, some people would say hey, that is shoddy reporting. Yes, coming from a division of Fox, that would be more than understandable. You can usually associate incompetence with Fox and be right on the mark.
Let’s face it, there’s more to this though. You have to say that Herschel Fink owed it to himself and to Chad to excuse himself from commenting on this due to a conflict of interest. Yet, he didn’t do that. Sure, why should he? As far as Fox and Herschel are concerned, the dumb audience wouldn’t know anything so what is the big deal.
What did we learn from this? One person would tell me that the viewers got screwed from learning the true story of how non-compete agreements work. Another thing we would learn is that Fox and Herschel Fink are, to coin a term from former WWE announcer Gorilla Monsoon, a fountain of misinformation.
Most of all, the real person who got screwed was Chad Spielman. Once again, he was the victim. All he wanted to do is to try to earn a living. He had a story to tell and he and the audience was screwed out of the real facts that should have come out about non-compete agreements. The fact that they are one sided, unreasonable, and that Chad is expected to look for a job in another industry that he is unqualified for and collect unemployment benefits for a long period of time. I understand that because one day, this could happen to me.
Rick Holman
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/18463462/fired-radiator-salesman-chad-spielman-sued-after-finding-job