DCS Sanitation Management v. Eloy Castillo

Hiring of DCS employees by Packers

The hiring of the DCS employees by Packers Sanitation Services, Inc. does not seem to be ethical. This is particularly so as the organization took on three employees from a close competitor in a bid to take over the new cleaning contract. This contract had just been received after a bidding process between the Tyson processing plant and the competing cleaning services companies (Moran, 2014). It is evident that the employment of the DCS employees may have been unethical as they were key workers in the various processes involved in the cleaning and staffing processes of the former company. The employees may be able to provide the close competitors of DCS with trade secrets on how to ensure that the owners of Tyson plant are completely satisfied (Moran, 2014). This way, the Packer’s company will be able to hold on to this new client for as long as possible. The Packers organization is seen to look for alternative ways that it could be able to ensure that DCS does not continue its reign as cleaning and sanitation service providers to the plant. Packers sanitation services will only be able to do this once they have captured top employees who were hands on involved in the core processes of cleaning the processing plant.

Non-Compete Agreements

Non-compete agreements serve as a means of preventing employees who have terminated their contracts with the organization from providing the knowledge they learnt during their employment to direct competitors. Alternatively, the agreement serves as a means of preventing former employees from opening similar businesses and consequently snatching away clients that were once involved with the company. However, organizations that provide cleaning and sanitation services to buildings, it should not be a necessary requirement that personnel be required to sign non-compete agreements. This is particularly for the employees involved in the cleaning process of the building as they are merely conducting the service and not involved in various trade secrets. Alternatively, higher ranking staff members may be required to sign non-compete agreements that will ensure the individual is not in direct competition with their former employer. These higher ranking employees include those that are directly involved in the mixing of solutions that are used in the cleaning process. This may also involve a case where the solutions used are produced by the company. Hereby, the employees who are involved in cleaning will not be informed of the composition of the mixture as a means of ensuring the trade secret is maintained to only a few.

Ethics in Resolution of Case

The DCS Sanitation Management was suing three of its former employees for breaching non-compete agreement, disclosing trade secrets and sensitive information and breaching their contracts. The plaintiff in this case sought to urge these former employees based on the non-compete agreements that they had signed earlier, money damages and instructing them not to disclose confidential information to their new employer. Hereby, the plaintiff in this case sought for a preliminary judgment while the defendants sought a summary judgment. The court ruled in favor of the defendants as it denied the plaintiffs motion. This is seen an ethical resolution of the case as the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the former employees had breached contract by signing on with a direct competitor. The DCS organization also failed to file an appeal against the former employees and the decision of the district courts resulting in the end of the stated periods within the non-compete agreements. This would make the appeal to be moot.

Reference

DCS Sanitation Management v. Eloy Castillo, No. 05-1201, US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 2006, Web.

Moran, J. J. (2014). Employment law: New challenges in the business environment (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall