Of course - if you want to eat and have a house and make money and your options are limited due to the lack of any societal norm that people should be cared for and you weren’t privileged to have opportunities to or the the ability to develop skills that are worth money — then you should just be homeless instead of signing yourself into 10s of thousands of dollars of debt to a corporation.

Or you should be grateful for the opportunity to be contractually enslaved?

Are you saying semi-skilled jobs are hard to come by? That the woman in the article that was a hairdresser couldn't possibly find another hairdressing job?

The other example from the article was nursing. Nursing is in huge demand. That woman most certainly had other options.

I worked in Europe. My contract said my company had to give me 3 months notice before quitting.

And I had to give 3 months notice before quitting. If I didn't, I had to pay the company the equivalent of 1 months salary for each month of notice I didn't give. So if I just up and quit, I'd have to pay 3 months salary.

Was I a "indentured servant" too?

> And I had to give 3 months notice before quitting.

That's pretty crazy. So if you apply to a new job you have to tell them: "I can start 3 months from now, no sooner"?

Edit:

This kind of clause seems so counter-productive to the employer. If I was forced to give 3 months notice, I'd be checked out for 2/3+ of that time. What are they going to do? Fire me?

If everyone has that 3-month notice requirement, then it’s not such a big deal.

That's the trade off. As an employee, you get more protection against firing for no reason and in exchange, the company get the same protection.

So yeah, when you get a new job you either tell your new employer to wait or you get them to pay off your current contract.

> Nursing is in huge demand. That woman most certainly had other options.

Part of the problem is the people creating the contracts are perfectly willing to place the burden on existing nurses and allow patients to suffer. Even when already short staffed, hospitals are not under much pressure to renegotiate a contract.

Are there any abusive relationships that can't be made acceptable with a contract? If so, under what conditions is a contract not enough to excuse exploitation?

not a lawyer but there are some things a contract can't do no matter how signed, dated, and notarized. I think things like liability waivers for theme parks is an example. If a theme park roller coaster kills 50 people the signed liability waivers aren't a get of consequence free card for the theme park.

Yes. You're right. I meant those as hypothetical questions to the person saying "they signed a contract". That excuse has been used to excuse a lot. I hoped that thinking about what is and insert excitable because of a contract might change some minds.

Legally speaking it is as you say, but I was asking from a moral perspective.

Of course, there are plenty.

But repaying training fees aren't one of them unless they don't make sense.

If you're a cashier and after 2 hours know how to do your job, your employer can't write a contract that says "Training costs $500,000 and you must repay if you quit before 5 years".

Contracts law is well developed and you can't sign a contract where you don't receive consideration. And I assume if such consideration is small, but the obligation is huge, the courts won't enforce it.