"These contract terms have been applied to bank workers, salespeople, dog groomers, police officers, aestheticians, firefighters, mechanics, nurses, federal employees, electricians, roofers, social workers, paramedics, truckers, mortgage brokers, teachers and metal polishers. Legal experts believe stay-or-pay clauses might now be in industries that employ a third of all American workers.”
"Though it’s hard to trace the spread of TRAPs, a 2022 letter from the National Employment Law Project points the finger at private-equity firms.
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.”
"Because employment contracts are private, they are hard, if not impossible, to regulate proactively, meaning that employers can bury anything they want in them, even if the terms are expressly illegal. The California attorney general, Rob Bonta, acknowledged this in 2022 when he announced that employers were still putting noncompete provisions in contracts even though they were unenforceable under state law.
Employers knew the provisions wouldn’t hold up in court, but they didn’t have to: They work by limiting employee mobility before anyone even seeks a legal remedy. These illegal contract terms have wider implications for labor and civil rights law. “They can be used as a deterrent against people suing for race or wage discrimination or unpaid overtime,” Seligman told me, discouraging people from speaking up for fear of being fired."
MORE AT:
The New York Times Magazine
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.
By Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein
Nov. 20, 2023, 5:02 a.m. ET
Nov. 20, 2023, 5:02 a.m. ET
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