Speech & Debate Club

Senators, imagine being stuck in unbearable working conditions, unable to quit without being buried in debt. For millions of workers, that is not imagination. It is a contract. Today I affirm this bill for two reasons. First, these companies are drowning their workers in hidden costs. Second, these workers are punished no matter how they lose their job.

First, these companies are drowning their workers in hidden costs. A court found that CRST was charging their employees $6,500 for their training, claiming that is how much it cost them. Further research shows they only had to pay about $1,400 to $2,500. But this bill stops it. Section 2 only lets a company recover the documented, real cost of training, the actual price they paid, with proof. CRST could no longer invent a $6,500 charge. They could only ask for what the training truly cost, and they would have to prove it. At the point where a company lies to its own workers, why would we still enforce that debt?

Second, these workers are punished no matter how they lose their job. Under many of these agreements, the charge is the same whether you quit or get let go. A driver fired the day before the contract ends owes just as much as one who walked out on their first day. One CRST driver who left estimated he still owed around six thousand dollars and faced constant calls from collectors. In his words, "it did feel like indentured servitude." And this is not rare. A 2022 survey found that almost 45 percent of new nurses were bound by these agreements, often owing more than ten thousand dollars. But Section 2 of this bill ends it. No worker owes a cent if they are fired without cause, laid off, or forced out. You lose your job through no fault of your own, and you can walk away owing nothing.

Senators, no one should be stuck in a job they cannot afford to leave. This bill frees them. It stops companies from inventing costs and lying about what training is worth. It makes sure no worker owes a cent for losing a job through no fault of their own. Therefore, I strongly urge you to affirm.

For centuries, doctors tried to cure the sick by draining their blood. They meant to help, but the cure often did more damage than the disease. Everyone in this chamber agrees that no worker should be trapped by debt, but that does not mean we should rush to the wrong solution. Since this bill is poorly planned and will ruin job opportunities for the workers who need them most, it deserves to fail.

First, this bill risks reducing training, which makes it harder to find a job. Economist Evan Starr found that when these agreements were harder to use, firms cut training by about 14 percent, most of it the kind that teaches real skills. This bill makes that worse, because its one exception only covers accredited credentials from an outside provider. An employer who trains workers in house gets nothing back, so the safe choice becomes training no one at all. And the worker who loses most is the one with no experience yet, the one who needed a company to take a chance on them. Opponents will say workers are better off without these agreements, but a worker with no skills has nothing to bargain with in the first place. A bill that reduces training does not help workers find jobs.

Second, this bill's enforcement system is planning to shut down. Section 4 puts the CFPB in charge of enforcing this law. However, the agency's staff has dropped by more than a third since January 2025, and the administration wants to cut it even more. And aside from being low on workers, the CFPB's acting director has already set his goal on shutting it down. We are assigning an impossible task to a few hundred workers whose agency is about to close, and an unenforced bill would only target the employers who follow the law, the ones least likely to drown a worker in debt.

Third, this bill punishes people for following the law. Section 3 does not just ban these agreements going forward. It completely voids contracts that were already signed, and it forces any employer who collects on one to pay triple damages. A business that made a deal that was fully legal at the time can suddenly be forced to pay three times what it took, all for teaching people a skill. Punishing people for obeying the law as it stood is not justice, and it invites years of lawsuits. A fair law changes the rules going forward. It does not reach into the past.

In conclusion, although we want to protect workers from unfair debt, this bill does what those old doctors did. It weakens the patient it meant to heal. It cuts out the training that inexperienced workers need. It hands enforcement to an agency that is being shut down. And it punishes businesses for following the law. This bill helps a few at the cost of many. Like every cure worse than the disease, it deserves to fail.