Do you all sign these things?
Here's my issue:
Im a video editor working in advertising. I've been working for this company since 2014. My pay has stayed the same and during the pandemic that stagnated pay was like taking a serious pay cut. My fellow editors and I have been taking more and more responsibility on and are working a lot more hours. So we banded together and asked for a slight raise. This pissed them off, things have gotten progressively worse and December 23, the day before Christmas eve I get what I believe is a fairly aggressive Employment agreement to sign. It's dated “December ___, 2022”.
I've worked for them without a contract for 9 years, why change it now?
The contract has a non-compete in it and it says I'm not allowed to work in advertising or have anything to do with advertising for one year after leaving the company. I'm also an at-will employee as stated in the contract so they could have a bad year and through no fault of my own let me go and I am expected to pay for that by not working in the field that I've been specialized in for more than a decade? Right now I feel like I can't sign this, but obviously I'm anxious about finding another job.
In addition to that I'm also not allowed to do any business whatsoever with employees or ex employees or clients of the company for one year after. The employees part is rough because due to the hours, fellow coworkers are pretty much the only connections I've got and in my field, connections are everything.
Also I've been freelancing on the side over my weekends and evenings when I do have any free time just to be able to comfortably pay my bills and I'm concerned with the language… “…employ Employee as Senior Editor/Graphic Artist, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement; and Employee agrees to devote his full business time, efforts, skill and attention to his employment with _____…” they don't know about that stuff because why would I tell them. We've also had no contract in place so I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. I use my own equipment, logins and email for freelance, always keeping everything fully separate.
Does this restrict me from doing any work in my own time? What does “full business time” mean? Do I treat that as a normal 9-6 Monday through Friday when they expect me to be on call 24/7? Literally making me work until 1am and getting up at 6 or 7am to finish a project fairly often. My job doesn't function as a normal 8 hour, 5 days a week job. So does “business time” mean all of my time?
Right now, I'm saying fuck them. They've worked with me since 2008 (contractor from 2008-2012, full time since 2014). It seems like it would be stupid to kick me to the curb because I won't sign a new agreement that would make me their property pretty much. And it's raising red flags that they suddenly want a contract in place any way.
I'm not sure if this is the place to post this, and it's not as exciting or as extreme as most of the posts on here but any help/advice is appreciated. Am I overreacting to this? It seems extreme to me to have that much control over me when I go above and beyond for the company and complete my work to the best of my abilities. Is it normal to negotiate these things? Or do you think I'm out of a job on Monday?