Right to work?

Well, it looks as if I have avoided unemployment about as long as I'm going to. By all appearances, I will be out of a job beginning October 24th.

I work as a unix administrator for a certain contract firm, we'll call them "Lords, Inc." I've worked for them since July, 2000, on-site at a large pharmaceutical corporation. The drug company pays Lords, who then pays me after taking their (large) cut. Hundreds of people at LDC (large drug company) are contractors, worldwide I'm sure it's in the 10s of thousands. My contract has been renewed in 3-month increments for the last 18 months because that's the max time limit LDC will allow extensions these days.

Last summer, LDC decided to narrow the list of contract vendors to minimize the variation in charged overhead among vendors. The vendors were invited to submit applications to be on the new "approved" list. For consideration, the vendors had to agree to all sort of conditions, one of which was waiving their employees' non-compete clauses. So, if I work for Lords, but Lords doesn't make the list, I could go to work for one of the companies that did without interference from my current company.

This is exactly what happened: Lords didn't make the list, and I received an email from Lords informing me that my contract would not be extended beyond 10/23/02. Lords has also decided to prevent me from continued employment at LDC through another contract vendor by vigorous enforcement of the aforementioned non-compete clause. Of course, Lords has not identified another job to send me to, so at some point in the next few weeks they will be forced to terminate me, sending me into unemployment just before Christmas.

There are 8 members of our unix team, half of which are contractors. Three of us work for companies that did not make LDC's approved list. Mine is the only company which is attempting to prevent its employees from retaining gainful employment by switching to another vendor.

I am trying to appreciate their position in this, but am having trouble. My position in this is: I have three children I have to clothe and feed, and my "employer" is actively preventing me from gainful employment.