If the pilot is unable to work because of disability, conviction, etc., they're 6 figures in the hole and unable to use the training to get out. Seems like a pretty bad deal.
Of course many other factors would sway my opinion of the matter into different directions. Who made the decision to change the fleet to Gulfstream multi-engine jets versus single-engine, or from flying cargo to adding the option to carry passengers, etc. Was the pilot already part of the company when these new qualification requirements were added, etc?
So, if you know how to fly Cessna Citations and Hawkers--- and you move to an employer with Gulfstreams, you're going to need expensive, type-specific training.
If you have $100k in type-specific training for what's now a popular jet, your employability and value to new employers grows.
It's zero-sum.
In fact, so many of these pilots prefer this indentured servitude that we've got record numbers! Incredible!
Your last line is like the mocked meme of “if you hate capitalism so much why did you buy a shirt”. The logic doesn’t work. Of course many anti-capitalists are going to consume capitalism because they live here and not everyone can leave.
The same logic would hold for pilots. Regardless of the numbers.
I have no problems with a business making a job offer contingent on the candidate doing something (i.e. acquiring a rating or finishing a college degree). Presumably the salary you offer would reflect the skills that they have as well (Plus this is way better than student loans since you actually have a legitimate job lined up). But if you want a current employee to have a set of skills or certificates that they don't already, it's on you to do that.
* Google has ~170k employees [1] with ~2.5k job openings [2] (~70x multiplier). clearancejobs.com has 20.5k job openings so with 70x multiplier is roughly 1.5M.
[1]: https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/20220726_alphabet_10Q.pd... [2]: https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/ [3]: https://www.clearancejobs.com/jobs?clearance=4
However, the DoD often does give these types of contracts for other training. A friend had to sign a contract for university training where they agreed to stay on for 3x the training length or reimburse the expenses.
To be clear, "sponsored by a private company" involves that private company paying either the government or some other private company money for you to get your clearance (not too sure how the money exactly moves about).
Sure you need to be working a job that actually requires a clearance to have one (but effectively there is a grace period if you get fired/quit). But if Company A and Company B both have a job that requires Tier 5 then you can move from A->B no problem. IIUC, the Jet example is even worse (for job mobility) because it's a rating for a plane so you'd need to go from a pilot at A to a pilot of that plane at B while for the DoD you could go from a programmer to a manager or janitor and it's all Tier 5.
The employers could, offer bonus payments for the employees tenure, top of market salaries, equity in the business, or secure private insurance to cover losses if the employee leaves.
Asking an employee, to pay you money so that you can make money from their labor shouldn't be legal.
Consider if you are an aircraft mechanic who is given a set of tools by the employer. Most people don't think it's unreasonable for the employer to ask for those tools back when you quit. In contrast, they can't ask for the training back.
Imagine if you agreed to work as a doctor for a charity if they agreed to pay for your training. Then upon completion of years of training, you quit to go work in the private sector to get more money. That seems like an extreme example, but it illustrates the point.
It would be interesting to see if employers give the equivalent funds as a bonus to an employee who comes onboard pre-trained. My guess is they don't, which would undermine their point somewhat.
It seems like an overall bad policy. If you hold someone against their will, you're bound to risk sub-standard work for the duration of the contract.
I can see the case for repayment agreements if the employer is (say) sending someone to a local university to get an MBA. That training transfers directly to other jobs and its price is set on the open market: you’d pay the same if you self-funded the MBA instead.
On the other hand, niche or employer-specific training doesn’t have either of those properties. Knowing the SOPs at Sally’s Beauty may not help much at other salons, let alone other industries. The price is also arbitrary and the employer has every incentive to inflate it.
The last example in the article, where the employee got a CDL, seems reasonably fair.
The first one though, where a licensed esthetician was charged $1,900 for pro-forma on-site training that she already had, seems like it should be legislated out of existence.
Even so, I’m not sure how legislation would work. It’s once thing if you can point to a license and say the training is unnecessary but I would venture a guess that the majority of training isn’t of that type.
It depends on what the skills are. At one extreme, the employee might pick up actual skills, like how to dye hair. I can also imagine some stuff that's much closer to "onboarding": how to use the in-house booking system, workplace safety training, etc. That doesn't really transfer, either practically or legally. The line is really thin and a cynic might be tempted to blur it to retain employees.
As for legislation, one really bright line might be whether similar training is available to the general public (and at what costs). People enroll in Javascript bootcamps all the time, so an internal one is probably fine--and the repayment should be similar to their costs. If it's MUMPS instead, tough break for the employer.
Then I think this undermines the employees stance that the trainings were unnecessary. The employer is essentially saying licensure isn't enough to ensure their quality standard, so additional training is necessary. (Granted, there's probably a likelihood of legal gamesmanship going on with both sides). To me, it would really depend on how "specific to the shop" it was. Since the lawsuit was dismissed, I'm assuming it was specific enough to be what you classify as "onboarding."
I get your point on the legislation, but just to illustrate my point about the lines being blurry: you brought up MUMPS and that being niche training. However, it's also the program that underlies the Veterans Affairs VISTA platform. Meaning, if you're trained in MUMPS you could foreseeably transfer those skills to one of the largest healthcare networks in the nation, as well as the companies that have gotten billions of dollars to upgrade that system. So even a "niche" program has plenty of wiggle room to determine if it's really transferable. Not only that, they've now trained you on a system that has billions of dollars in demand and little supply of programmers. That seems pretty valuable.
There are other ways to get around this problem either through deferred compensation or through the company being able to retain the certification lisence for a period of time as property that another company or the employee can buy out.
If that was paid, someone got ripped off. There are plenty of companies offering GIV/GV type ratings in the $20-30K range.
If your business depends on picking up newer pilots "off the streets", then why would you not do the type rating in-house?
An alternative arrangement to direct employment is that the pilot could pay for his/her own type rating, and work as a contract pilot. But that requires having $100k to plunk down, and taking the risk that the job market will be strong after the type rating.
In this case, the employee may prefer the "indentured servitude" route versus having to front 6 figures to get their own type rating.