Columnist didn't do her homework

I want to comment on the Froma Harrop editorial,"The low-pay abuse of non-competes". In the editorial, Ms. Harrop calls for adoption of the MOVE act. Her view is that while CEOs are subject to the law of supply and demand, their companies insist on noncompete agreements for lower level workers.

Her examples are Jimmy John's and Subway. This argument sets forth the premise that the CEOs themselves are not subject to non-competes, therefore it is cynical and hypocritical to demand them from lower level employees.

But as I know from experience as a corporate attorney, these agreements are very common, and typically required, at the executive level. Would not Ms. Harrop, and your readers, have benefitted from her inquiring who the Jimmy John's and Subway CEOs are, whether they are themselves working under such agreements, what the policies and reasons for requiring them from lower level employees are, how often they actually are required and how often they actually are enforced?

Or rather, would facts and logic interfere with Ms. Harrop's not-so-thinly veiled agenda of promoting envy and class warfare?

I have been disappointed with Ms. Harrop's facts, logic and reasoning in past editorials. I understand that she is a recent college graduate and may not have the life experience to fully appreciate the realities of business.

That doesn't excuse, however, what amounts to a cheap shot at anonymous corporate boogeymen/women CEOs. The lack of relevant facts, taken with her illogical conclusion, is really nothing better than the kind of smearing done online by so-called "Internet trolls".

Thomas Roth

Arlington Heights