Filipino nurses for Ohio-based company say they have been forced to pay thousands in fees after signing training contracts
Filipino nurses are calling for the US’s top labor watchdog to review controversial “stay or pay” training repayment agreement provisions that have left them facing lawsuits and thousands of dollars in fees after they quit their jobs.
Training repayment agreement provisions (Trap) are contracts employers require workers to sign before beginning a job and stipulate that if a worker leaves the job before a specified time, they owe substantial fees.
Nurses who worked for the Ohio-based CommuniCare Family of Companies, one of the largest providers of post-acute care in the US, say they have been subjected to buyout fees of thousands of dollars when they resign and have been sued by their former employer.
Jeddalyn Ramos, a 30-year-old from the Philippines worked for four months at a CommuniCare-owned short-term and senior rehab facility in Pittsburgh in 2022 and paid $15,555.45 in fees when she quit her job.
American hospitals have been treating visa workers like indentured servants for ages now. I for one am glad that some of these folks are fighting back. The healthcare system needs to quit burning-and-turning all of their staff the way they do before the whole system permanently collapses. I hope they find it harder to pull the wool over the eyes of foreign workers in the future.