Pay Thousands to Quit Your Job? Some Employers Say So. Some U.S. businesses are forcing workers to sign contracts that demand steep “reimbursements” if they leave.

The use of stay-or-pay clauses has grown rapidly over the past decade, and it has seemingly exploded since the start of the pandemic, as companies try to retain workers in a tight labor market.

Or they could, you know, treat employees well so they don’t want to leave? Just a thought.

That's quite literally indentured servitude.

I want a list of publicly traded companies doing this so that I can short their stocks.

Sounds like indentured service with extra steps

FYI for Texas residents: Texas is an "at will" state which means that your employer can fire you at any time. It also means that you can quit any time. Contracts like this are unenforceable and illegal in Texas. It is also illegal to hire somebody as a 1099 contractor and have that person fulfill a full time job. The only way that a contract like this is enforceable in Texas is via a corp-to-corp contract in which you, the contractor, start your own company and that company enters into a legally binding contract with the employer. If you choose to do that, I recommend opening a c-corp, not an LLC, specifically for that contract (assuming it's worth it). If you decide to quit, and they decide to sue your corporation, just dissolve it and let them go fuck themselves.

Texas has a lot of problems but it does a good job of protecting the ability to do business with minimal shenanigans.

EDIT: The Texas Workforce Commission is nothing to fuck with.

Ah so much FREEDOM.

I'm thinking, better write your state reps if this isn't illegal in your state yet.

PS: employers, go ahead and keep pushing us and pushing us. The more desperate people get, and the harder you put their backs to the wall, the more unions we get and the more worker protections we will restore.

When does the UN start investigating US companies for human rights abuses?

How is that different to Slavery?

A typical stay-or-pay clause is called a training-repayment-agreement provision (TRAP)

NO FUCKING WAY it's actually called a TRAP unironically. Which timeline is this I want to disembark.

So, this is the famous "land of the free" yanks keep gushing about? I'll pass.

Fuck that.

Silent quit until they fire you. They won't make you reimburse them if they fire you.

It was only a matter of time until they came for the 13th Amendment . . .

But what if I can't afford to quit? Ohhhhhhhh!

Back in 1992 I applied for a job with the Los Angeles Police Department. One thing you needed to agree on was similar to this, stay with the LAPD for 5 years or pay them $60,000 in training and "other" expenses. I was told they do this so people don't quit as soon as they get a job with Hollywood (Actor, writer, etc.).

I almost took a job that would have had me literally sign a contract putting me into indentured servitude to the person in charge. Thank God I got the job I actually wanted before I said yes.

If your company is owned by a private equity firm, then it would be a good time to join a union...

Even the laziest, cigar smoking, corrupt jerk of a union boss would have more of a worker's interest at heart than these vulture capitalists.

The place I work just went through a massive hiring phase in the last few months. Then the rug was pulled out the first week of October. They lost half their business overnight, and followed it with massive layoffs. They followed up with their WARN act notifications (imagine if they weren't forced to do that), and laid off everyone they had just hired, plus a lot more. 6 weeks put them at December 23 (right before Christmas, thanks).

I just found out that those who were recently hired got some pretty good signing bonuses. But if they leave before December 23, they'll lose those bonuses. Not because they're critically needed, but because someone that just finished a job search is more likely to leave quickly, and that will save the company on payroll.

Funny how these types of agreements only benefit the employer.

no doubt in "employment at will" states haha

This is the best summary I could come up with:

For airline pilots and software engineers, for example, it has been a longstanding practice at some companies to require employees to stay at their jobs for a defined period of time in order to recoup costs related to hiring and training.

Private-equity firms not only tend to replicate contract terms across their suite of businesses, but they have increasingly purchased companies that provide employee training, giving them an added incentive to use TRAPs.

Based on his research, Harris believes it is safe to assume that in every industry in which there has been litigation involving one worker, stay-or-pay clauses are present in the contracts of thousands of others, because of the way businesses tend to copy one another.

Because stay-or-pay clauses are so common in industries that employ about a third of the entire American work force — health care, transportation and technology — Harris estimates that millions of people might be subject to them.

(Villalta denies saying “anything close to or resembling that statement.”) That employee had left the salon to move to Arizona, and she said she had paid just to avoid the hassle, but she found the amount “unjust and not accurate” as a reflection of her training.

Stay-or-pay clauses are similar to noncompete agreements, which moved into the spotlight in the last decade after revelations that fast-food workers at Burger King, Jimmy John’s and Carl’s Jr. were being required to sign contracts barring them from working for competitors.

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