Gateway Services signed workers into non-compete contracts and then closed their facilities weeks later, leaving those same workers legally banned from finding a new job in the only industry they knew.

They Trapped the Cremation Workers

The world’s largest pet cremation company used illegal contracts to lock 1,780 workers out of their own profession. The FTC has the receipts.

Gateway Services, Inc. is a Canadian corporation operating throughout the United States through its Delaware subsidiary. It runs over 100 locations, serves 17,000 customers across North America, and employs 1,992 workers in the U.S. alone. On paper, it is a grief services company. In practice, according to the FTC, it ran a labor suppression operation.

Starting in 2019, Gateway required every new hire, regardless of their role, to sign a non-compete agreement. That agreement said: if you leave us for any reason, you cannot work in pet cremation anywhere in the United States for twelve months. No exceptions for the driver. No exceptions for the crematory operator. No exceptions for the person molding clay paw prints of grieving families’ pets.

Today, 1,780 U.S.-based Gateway employees are living under those agreements. Only workers in California were exempt, because California law makes non-competes largely unenforceable. Everywhere else, Gateway held the legal equivalent of a leash around its workers’ necks.

The Non-Financial Ledger

What a Non-Compete Actually Does to a Real Person

When a corporation traps a worker inside a non-compete agreement, it does something that doesn’t show up in a quarterly earnings report. It removes the single most powerful tool a working person has: the ability to walk out the door. The moment you sign that contract, you have handed your employer the right to pay you less, treat you worse, and push you harder, because they know that if you quit, you cannot go work for a competitor. Your leverage evaporates the second you put pen to paper.

Now imagine you are an Operations Team Member at Gateway Services. Your job is to operate a crematory or press a paw print into clay for a family that just lost their dog of 14 years. You are not a trade secret. You are not a strategist. You hold no proprietary intellectual property in your hands. You are a skilled, compassionate worker in a specialized industry, and your employer has legally barricaded you inside their walls anyway, using a contract that the FTC says was always designed to suppress competition, not protect any legitimate business interest.

The cruelty with a particular shape here is the closure scenario. Gateway signed workers at a facility into non-compete agreements and then shuttered that same facility weeks later. Those workers were handed two punishments simultaneously: termination and a one-year ban from the industry they work in. They could not go to a competitor. They could not open their own small cremation business. They were legally barred from their own profession in every state outside of California, even in markets where Gateway itself no longer operated.

The FTC’s complaint makes clear this was a deliberate, calculated strategy. Gateway internally acknowledged that non-competes for workers in markets where the company planned to consolidate and let employees go were “nice to have.” That phrase deserves to sit with you for a moment. Workers losing their jobs, workers being locked out of finding new ones in the same field, and the executives at Gateway described that outcome as “nice to have.” The human harm in those three words is staggering.

The FTC complaint also specifies the likely downstream effects on Gateway’s workers: lower wages, reduced benefits, less favorable working conditions, and personal hardship. These are legal findings, but translate them into everyday life: a driver who can’t negotiate a raise because they cannot credibly threaten to leave; a crematory operator who absorbs mandatory overtime because the only other employers in their field are legally off-limits; a customer service representative who quietly endures a toxic manager because walking away means a year of scrambling for work in an entirely different industry while bills pile up.

The people working in pet cremation chose this field because they have a calling for it. Many of these workers hold a quiet, overlooked responsibility. They handle the remains of beloved animals. They interact with grieving families. They provide a dignified service during some of the most painful moments in a person’s life. Gateway took that sense of purpose and weaponized it, because workers who feel called to a particular kind of work are easier to trap. Leaving becomes harder when the work itself means something to you.

Legal Receipts

Straight From the Document. Read Every Word.

“Gateway viewed non-competes as still ‘[n]ice to have’ for potential employees it might acquire as part of a transaction in markets where it was ‘likely to consolidate operations and let employees go.'” FTC Complaint, Paragraph 11 — Gateway’s Internal Position on Laid-Off Workers

“Even if we fire our sales person and give [the newly acquired employee] the position, it doesn’t prevent [the newly acquired] sales person from jumping ship or being solicited by a competitor (now, next yr, or at another point in time). In fact, if they are that good, there’s more of a reason to get the non-compete/non-solicit because that risk will always be there. At some point, we’ll have to deal with the competitive concerns which will cost $.” FTC Complaint, Paragraph 13 — Internal Gateway Communication on Worker Control Strategy

“Gateway ‘[s]trongly preferred’ Non-Compete Agreements for potential employees it might acquire as part of a transaction in competitive markets while considering these agreements ‘[n]ice to have’ in other markets based on its assessment that ‘competitors in [those] markets are at a smaller scale and less of a threat so [Gateway] could get comfortable with the risk’ of not having Non-Compete Agreements.” FTC Complaint, Paragraph 12 — Gateway’s Market-by-Market Non-Compete Strategy

“Gateway also uses Non-Compete Agreements as a direct response to competitive threats. In one market, Gateway responded to the entry of a competing pet cremation business by executing Non-Compete Agreements with Gateway employees not already subject to these agreements, including hourly employees.” FTC Complaint, Paragraph 14 — Non-Competes Used as Competitive Retaliation

“The Non-Compete Agreements likely cause lower wages and salaries, reduced benefits, less favorable working conditions, and, among other things, personal hardship to employees.” FTC Complaint, Paragraph 15 — FTC’s Findings on Worker Harm

“Any legitimate objectives of Gateway’s conduct as alleged herein could have been achieved through significantly less restrictive means.” FTC Complaint, Paragraph 18 — The Commission’s Core Finding

Societal Impact Mapping

Economic Inequality: The Wage Trap Hidden in Plain Sight

The FTC complaint is explicit: non-compete agreements “deny [employees] access to job opportunities and restrict their mobility” and “likely cause lower wages and salaries, reduced benefits, less favorable working conditions, and, among other things, personal hardship to employees.” This is not theory. It is the documented, expected, and predicted outcome of Gateway’s deliberate policy. These are hourly workers in a physically and emotionally demanding industry; they deserve every ounce of negotiating leverage they can find. Gateway stripped that leverage away by contract.

The source document also confirms Gateway applied these contracts “without any individualized consideration of an employee’s role.” The same restriction that might arguably (and barely) be justified for a senior executive was applied to the person driving a van to pick up a deceased dog from a veterinary clinic. The economic effect of trapping a low-wage hourly worker inside a non-compete is compounded by reality: hourly workers have fewer financial cushions. A year banned from their industry is a year of debt, disruption, and potential career destruction. Executives can ride it out. Drivers cannot.

Gateway’s own internal communications reveal the most damaging economic logic of all. The company explicitly calculated non-competes as a cost-suppression tool: “At some point, we’ll have to deal with the competitive concerns which will cost $.” The dollar sign at the end of that sentence is Gateway admitting that workers having options costs the company money. Trapping workers costs them nothing. The entire scheme was a transfer of economic power from 1,780 workers to one corporation based in Canada.

Market Suppression: How One Company Choked an Entire Industry

The FTC’s complaint does not only address harm to individual workers. It charges Gateway with suppressing competition across the entire pet cremation services industry. When a company the size of Gateway, operating over 100 locations and serving 17,000 customers, locks its entire workforce into non-competes, it does not just trap individuals. It builds a wall around a market. Former employees who might otherwise start competing businesses or join emerging competitors are legally blocked from doing so for twelve months. Gateway controlled access to the very labor force that any new entrant would need to compete.

The complaint states directly that “some former Gateway employees have attempted to enter the pet cremation services industry despite high entry barriers” and that Gateway’s non-compete agreements “significantly diminish the timeliness and likelihood of competitive entry in markets where Gateway has a significant presence.” Gateway is the dominant player in this industry. It used that dominance to redraw the rules so that no smaller competitor could realistically challenge it by poaching Gateway-trained workers or hiring Gateway veterans who wanted to go out on their own.

The FTC states plainly that Gateway’s “conduct constitutes an unfair method of competition with a tendency or likelihood to harm competition, consumers, and employees in the pet cremation services industry.” When competition dies, prices rise and quality falls. The 17,000 customers Gateway serves, including veterinary clinics and grieving families, ultimately pay the price of an uncontested market. Gateway’s labor suppression scheme was also, functionally, a consumer harm machine.

The Cost of a Life Metric

What Now?

Who Has the Power to Act, and Who Actually Will

The FTC filed its complaint on November 25, 2025. The corporate respondents are Gateway Services, Inc. (incorporated in Canada, headquartered in Guelph, Ontario) and its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, Gateway US Holdings, Inc. (incorporated in Delaware, principal place of business in Cranston, Rhode Island). The specific leadership and board members responsible for implementing this policy are [REDACTED – Not in Source], but the corporate policy decisions are documented in the FTC complaint and attributable to both entities.

Regulatory Watchlist

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC) : Already filed complaint; monitor consent order proceedings for enforcement outcomes and required remediation
• State Attorneys General : Non-compete enforceability is a state-level issue in many jurisdictions; state-level enforcement actions could expand relief for affected workers
• Department of Labor (DOL) : Wage suppression through labor market manipulation falls within DOL’s investigative purview
• National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) : Overly broad non-competes that chill workers’ rights to organize or collectively act are within NLRB scope

What You Can Do Right Now

If you are a current or former Gateway employee subject to a non-compete agreement, contact a workers’ rights attorney. Many states limit or prohibit non-competes for hourly and low-wage workers, regardless of what the contract says. The FTC’s formal complaint is public record and may strengthen your position. Organize with your coworkers. Talk to your union if you have one. If you don’t, talk to a union organizer about getting one. The only thing that makes these contract schemes less profitable for corporations is workers who know their rights, share that knowledge openly, and build collective power to push back. Mutual aid networks, local labor councils, and worker centers in your area can connect you with people who have already been through this.