Democrats Rip Trump For ‘Abandoning’ Worker Protections From Biden Era

Lawmakers are pressing Trump appointees on why they’ve rolled back guardrails against exploitative work contracts.

Federal agencies that took a hard line against coercive work contracts have retreated under President Donald Trump’s new appointees, and Democrats in Congress want to know why.

Rep. Summer Lee (Pa.) and Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.), joined by 44 other Democrats, sent letters to several agencies Wednesday demanding to know what they were doing to combat the growth of “stay-or-pay” employment agreements. Such contracts require workers to put in a minimum number of hours before quitting or they’ll have to fork over thousands of dollars to cover alleged training costs.

As HuffPost reported in a series of stories, the contracts have put nurses, pilots and even dog groomers deep into debt for resigning before their agreements allowed them to. Many workers choose to stay put in their jobs, forgoing higher pay elsewhere, for fear of getting sued, which is why the clauses are sometimes called “training repayment agreement provisions,” or TRAPs.

Former President Joe Biden’s appointees said the contracts were abusive and took a number of steps to curb employers’ use of them, including a proposal to outlaw them completely. But Markey and Lee say several agencies — including the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — appear to have walked back such enforcement.

“Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has abandoned efforts to protect workers from anticompetitive practices – such as TRAP’s – that suppress worker mobility and drive down wages,” the lawmakers wrote.