WASHINGTON — Simran Bal was shocked when a Washington state beauty salon charged her $1,900 for training after she quit.
Not only was Balu a licensed esthetician with no instruction, but he claimed the training was shop-specific and of low quality.
Bal’s story echoes the stories of dozens of people and advocates in healthcare, trucking, retail and other industries. It appealed to U.S. regulators to charge employees who quit.
Nearly 10% of American workers surveyed in 2020 are covered by training reimbursement agreements, according to the Cornell Research Institute.
The practice, which critics have dubbed training repayment agreement clauses (TRAPs), is under scrutiny from US regulators and lawmakers.
On the Capitol, Sen. Sherrod Brown is considering legislative options with a view to introducing legislation next year, said a Democratic aide to the Senate.
At the state level, attorneys general like Minnesota’s Keith Ellison are assessing how prevalent the practice is and may update their guidance.
Ellison told Reuters he tends to oppose requests for reimbursement for job-specific instruction, but he believes employers are willing to accept entitlements such as a commercial driver’s license widely recognized as valuable. If you wish to be reimbursed for your training, “it may be different”.
The Consumer Financial Protection Agency has begun reviewing this practice, but the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have received complaints about it.
Jonathan Harris, who teaches at Loyola Law School Los Angeles, said the use of training contracts has increased despite low unemployment, perhaps giving workers more power.
“Employers are looking for ways to keep workers from leaving without raising wages or improving working conditions,” Harris said.
The CFPB announced in June that it was considering a deal, but how it could prevent even skilled employees like nurses who have years of training from finding new and better jobs. has begun to focus on, says an unlicensed CFPB official. speak on record.
“We’re hearing from workers and workers’ organizations that the product may be restricting the movement of workers,” the official said.
TRAP has existed on a small scale since the late 1980s, primarily in high-paying jobs where workers received valuable training. But in recent years, the deal has become more widespread, said Loyola’s Harris.
One of the critics of the CFPB’s work is the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which believes the issue is outside the agency’s jurisdiction because it has nothing to do with consumer financial products and services. said.
“[Some state governments]have the power to regulate employer-driven debt. The CFPB should be left to a government that is closer to the people than the CFPB,” he added.
nursing and trucking
Bal says he was thrilled when he was hired by Oh Sweet Salon near Seattle in August 2021.
However, she quickly realized that before she could serve clients and earn more, she would need to attend training such as sugaring to remove unwanted hair and eyelash and brow maintenance. rice field.
But, she said, salon owners were slow to schedule training, sometimes postponed or canceled. Nor were they profitable. Balu described them as “entry level”. While waiting for training to be completed, Bal worked at his desk at the front desk.
When she left in October 2021, Bal received a $1,900 bill for the instruction she received. “She was billing me for training in a service I was already licensed for,” Balu said.
Karina Villalta, who runs Oh Sweet LLC, sued in small claims court and got her money back. Court records provided by Bal show the case was dismissed in September by a judge who ruled that Bal did not complete the training promised and she owed nothing. declined the request.
In a statement to the CFPB, National Nurses United said it had conducted a study and found that new nurses were often affected, “increasingly ubiquitous in the healthcare sector.”
The study found that 589 of the 1,698 nurses surveyed were required to attend a training program, and 326 of those required payment to their employer if they retired early. .
Many nurses said they were not told about the repayment requirements of the training before starting work, and that classroom instruction often repeated what they had learned in school.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in a comment that reimbursement demands for training are “particularly egregious” for commercial trucking. They say companies such as CRST and CR England, which train for commercial driver’s licenses, charge him more than $6,000 if he retires before a certain period of time. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
The American Trucking Association claims that licenses are transferable between employers and mandated by the government. Asked the CFPB not to consider this an employer-initiated liability.
University of Pennsylvania sociologist Steve Viselli, who has driven a truck after six months of training, says the issue deserves closer scrutiny.
“Any time you have a training contract for a low-skilled worker, you should ask why,” he said. “If you do a good job, you don’t need a training contract. People will want to stay.”
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