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2006 Mich. St. L. Rev. 963 (2006)
Cubewrap Contracts and Worker Mobility: The Dilution of Employee Bargaining Power via Standard Form Noncompetes

handle is hein.journals/mslr2006 and id is 971 raw text is: CUBEWRAP CONTRACTS AND WORKER MOBILITY: THE DILUTION OF EMPLOYEE BARGAINING POWER VIA STANDARD FORM NONCOMPETES Rachel Arnow-Richman 2006 MICH. ST. L. REV. 963 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 963 I. RHETORIC VS. REALITY: How NOTIONS OF BARGAINING POWER INFLUENCE NONCOMPETE ENFORCEMENT .......................................... 967 A. The Disconnect Between Front End Choice and Substantive E ff ects .......................................................................................... 969 B. An Alternative Justification: Bargaining Power on the B ack E nd. ................................................................................. 973 II. BARGAINING POWER ON THE GROUND: HOW EMPLOYER CONTRACTING PRACTICES CONSTRAIN WORKER CHOICE .......................................... 976 A. Cubewrap Terms and the Dilution of Initial Assent ..................... 977 B. In Terrorem Effects and the Power to Exit .................................. 980 III. THE RULES REVISITED: USING DOCTRINE TO INCENTIVIZE BETTER BARGAINING BEHAVIOR ...................................................................... 984 A. Requiring Pre-Hire Disclosure ..................................................... 984 B. Encouraging Reasonable Restraints ............................................. 989 C ON CLU SION .............................................................................................. 992 INTRODUCTION Employment relationships are perhaps the paradigmatic example of inequality of bargaining power in contract law.' Workers are like consum- ers, the prototypical weaker party in commercial transactions, only more so. Their immediate access to income and benefits; their long term financial security and that of their families; and, in many instances, their personal * Assistant Professor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law. L.L.M., Tem- ple University School of Law; J.D., Harvard University; B.A. Rutgers University. I. As Professor Daniel Barnhizer noted in his historical research on the subject, courts' earliest rhetorical uses of the concept of bargaining power are found in cases dealing with labor disputes at the turn of the twentieth century. See Daniel D. Barnhizer, Inequality of Bargaining Power, 76 U. COLO. L. REv. 139, 194 (2005).

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