New York Attorney General Letitia James announced an agreement with healthcare company Albany Med Health System (Albany Med) for unlawfully including a “repayment fee” provision in their employment contracts for nurses recruited from foreign nations. Under the agreement, Albany Med will return $90,229 to seven former nurses who were each forced to pay up to $20,000 if they resigned or were fired within three years of employment. The repayment provision threatened the nurses, most of whom were from the Philippines, with legal action and the involvement of immigration authorities if they did not make the payments.
Attorney General James issued a subpoena in February 2020 after the matter was referred to her office by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). Albany Med was found to have violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act § 1589 through its provision, which constitutes a threat of sufficiently serious legal and financial harm “to compel a reasonable person of the same background and in the same circumstances to perform or to continue performing labor or services in order to avoid incurring that harm.”
Albany Med will pay $82,000 to the workers and $8,229 more in interest. In addition to removing the repayment provision from all employment contracts, Albany Med must notify current and former nurses of the clause’s removal and submit written reports on their compliance to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG).
