Workplace Debt & Labor Exploitation
Big businesses use debt to trap their employees at work. This is bad for workers, honest businesses, and the labor market.
Employers drive workers into debt, trapping workers in low-paying jobs and substandard working conditions. This disturbing trend has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, as employers attempt to restrain workers’ ability to leave for better opportunities and reduce workers’ bargaining power. At the same time, tech companies and lenders push training and skill-building scams on workers, often through back-room deals with employers. These schemes promise a fast path to unlock the American dream, only for workers to realize they have been caught in a predatory nightmare.
What We’re Doing
Protect Borrowers leads a broad coalition of labor unions, economic justice and anti-monopoly advocates, workers’ rights groups, public interest lawyers, and public officials to fight back against these abuses of corporate power. We hold companies that use debt to hurt workers accountable in courtrooms across the country, advocate for policy change at every level of government, and publish groundbreaking investigations.
Featured Investigations
Trapped At Work
In this report, we document the widespread and accelerating use of Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAPs) by big businesses, which often control a large market share of their respective industry, affecting millions of workers every day—from trucking companies, to hospital operators, to retailers, and even financial services firms. We estimate that major employers rely upon TRAPs in segments of the U.S. labor market that collectively employ more than 1-in-3 private-sector workers.
Stay-Or-Pay Compendium
This paper series details how rather than ushering in a golden age of corporate investment in workers, the largest employers across the economy have turned to predatory “Stay-or-Pay” contracts. These contracts are forced on workers as a condition of employment, allowing corporations to use the threat of debt collection or litigation to lock workers in place, limiting workers’ mobility and bargaining power.
FEATURED LAWSUITS
LAWSUIT AGAINST SMOOTHSTACK FOR ITS USE OF TRAPS, O’BRIEN V. SMOOTHSTACK
Lawsuit against PetSmart for its use of TRAPs, Scally v. PetSmart
Lawsuit against Ameriflight for its use of TRAPs, Fredericks v. Ameriflight
In The News
In The Field
EXPLORE OUR OTHER WORK
Banning TRAPs in states across the country
We’re working with a broad coalition of advocates to ban TRAPs and other stay-or-pay contracts in cities and states across the country. Learn more.
Driving public enforcement to protect workers from workplace debt
Our lawsuits and investigations drove enforcement actions at every level of government, including high profile cases against HCA Healthcare and PetSmart.
Banning non-compete agreements and debts that function as non-competes
Across the economy, employers use fine print in employment contracts to trap people at work. We are working to change that. Learn more.