Republic Training Contract Being Enforced!
 

Just got a call from a friend of mine who left Shuttle America last year after working for them for 10 months. He received a letter requesting repayment of the training contract within the month for $11,453.00. His letter says if the training contract is not repaid by March 21st Chautauqua will be moving forward with enforcement action.

I also left Shuttle last year, but I have yet to receive anything yet.

Does anyone have any info on people who may have fought the company on this? There was all sorts of talk in the past about these contracts not being worth the paper they are written on, so I guess we are about to find out.

Please PM me if anyone has any insight.

If you signed a bank note with it then it is enforceable. If not, I think I heard that they are not enforceable. Look for a Great Lakes thread recently - someone posted a link about a lawsuit Lakes filed against a guy that left. He had signed a note with it - and he owed them their $7500.

I call BS...did your buddy pull the I don't have to give 2 weeks line? If so I think he may have ****ed someone off. Im S5 and I have had almost half my initial class from last April bail already and no one has been pimped on the contract yet...my guess is your friend may have ****ed someone off. :mad:

What was the final ruling from the Supreme Court?

...and to think everyone was bashing those who went to Silver for their training contract.

Those in glass houses ought not throw stones little one. Silver is still not a great place to be at regardless of the training contract.

People sign a training contract and then bash Republic for enforcing it when they bail 6 months later? What do you expect? If I was BB I'd sell it to a collection agency and let them deal with it.

My point was simply that everyone treats Silver as if they are/were the only airline with a training contract, thats all. As far as enforcement, depends on the situation. If you left to become a millionaire, courts probably wouldn't show any sympathy. Hope it works out for you guys.

Too bad this thread wasn't about Silver, it's about Republic. Man, you Silver guys keep coming in and making every thread about yourselves, what are y'all trying to prove? Are you trying to justify going to work there?

You signed a contract and broke it. Now deal with the consequences. Your "friend" sounds like a shady person. Breaking a contract will look bad to a potential employer in the future. FWIW, I would never sponsor or vouch for someone that committed such an act. Shame on anyone who does it!

Any company that has to handcuff their employees to retain them ain't worth a ****.

That's why you never work at a company that has a training contract.

Every time a pilot shortage gets mentioned, it needs to be followed by one of these threads to bring people back to reality.

What a sobering walk back from the mailbox. I just received the same letter and it's legit.

Nice job coming in and casting judgement on a person and situation that you don't know. You condemn this guy and his friend yet you know none of the details. All the guy did was ask a question and sought advice of people familiar with his type of situation at RAH. And who cares if YOU wouldn't sponsor or vouch for him? Relevance?

Just to put it out there, I had a medical condition of which I was going down a wild goose chase to clear up. It was preventing me from flying and I needed a paycheck, so I resigned and sought employment somewhere where I could earn a paycheck while not flying. Being that I wasn't there for a full year, I didn't qualify for FMLA. I also gave a notice of which the company declined since I was out of work and it didn't apply.

So you are on the hook for a bunch of money due to a medical condition beyond your control?

everyone knew what that signed. I would read the small print to make sure what you can and cannot do before leaving. Spend a few bucks on a lawyer and get a legal definition of the training contract as it applies to you and get it in writting.

My last company has a history of going after select folks when leave and letter others out of contract. One of the guys they recently went after used that history to show bias and I believe field a counter suit for discrimination. You're best bet is to find a lawyer. Free advice is always worth what you paid for it.

Of course they are coming after the money, somebody has to pay for Frontier!

Lawyer up. You resigned under economic duress due to their refusal to allow you to utilize FMLA, therefore you have a legitimate case. Make sure you have a paper trail with the FAA regarding your medical, a paper trail with the company regarding FMLA/extended sick leave, and make sure you have some sort of documentation saying that you could not have anticipated your medical problems at the time of signing the contract, or at least that you had every indication that said medical issue would be resolved without having to resign from the company.

Unfortunately for your friend, voluntary resignations due to reasons such as a better offer or low compensation at RAH are not going to be legitimate cause to dispute the training bond. Better offer indicates a definite lack of economic duress and low compensation was disclosed before his/her signing. Economic duress will be the best argument against the company, tied with the slightly less prevalent hostile working environment, which will have to be even better documented than economic duress.

Case history of people not being pursued for their owed training bond is unfortunately dominated by people being terminated or furloughed for reasons out of their control. When you talk to a lawyer, I strongly suggest you show him/her the link to the Great Lakes case that was linked earlier in this thread, as it is a good recent example of a case like this, and will shorten their time in formulating a case for you.

That's what I was going to say. They can't selectively enforce something like that.

That place just plain sucks.

In HotMamapilots eyes you are a shady character!

TurboDog, sorry that you had to go through that and you have my sympathies.

Cheap Shot!
Maturity at its best!

The only way that RAH can "collect" on the money (assuming you don't pay) is by serving you a summons and appearing in court...

This first letter is just an attempt to inform you of payment. After letting the deadline pass the only next step for them to take is serving you a summons..... This has to be done in person (they cannot mail you a summons regular mail). Either by law firm or certified mail..... You can make it difficult for them!

So logically you have to decide what the chances are they #1) find you in whatever city you are in...

And what are the chances they take it all the way to court...

I wouldn't pay for a lawyer until the time they actually serve you papers...

Training contracts are generally enforeceable assuming nothing was "promised to you" that didn't occur. There was a Flexjet pilot who fought this by way of not upgrading when they said he would. He won but it probably cost him more in lawyer fees than it would have to not fight it.

I signed a training contract back in the day at a charter co. Left a year early, and decided not to pay. They served me papers and it went to court. We settled out of court for slighly less than the original amount. However, if I had moved and they could not find me, then I would have been off the hook.

I confess, I am one of the few who actually supports training contracts. It isn't because I want people to pay, but rather I want them to think LONG AND HARD about where they are going and if they think they should stay there X number of months. Maybe then they will only choose companies they want to work at rather than the first place that will hire them. (for the record, I have signed three training contracts and never broke one)

Your Friend owes it. Maybe he can get a lawyer to get him out of it (perhaps perfectly legally). But the fact remains he signed a contract of his own free will.

Think of it this way: I bought a car from you, promised to pay $12,000, but only paid $10,000. Should I be able to keep the car while you are out $2000?


If he left early, he should pay. If his new job is so fantastic, paying out the two months of his contract should be easy...

or maybe the government should take care of him.

The situation is irrelevant; a contract is signed and shall be abided by. Period. This is just another example of "it's not MY fault that I broke the agreement" or "it's not MY fault that I downed a fifth of jim beam, it's alcoholisms fault" blah blah blah blah blah.

And bolo, shouldn't you be working on your resume'?

I'm "casting judgement" on someone who broke a contract; what's your point? And I'm sorry, but I can't take you seriously with that avatar. Fair-weather fan, are we?

I'm sure they have more than enough information to turn it over to a collections agency and trash his credit. No need to find him.

You love to speak about what you don't know. Care to make a fool out of yourself with any more assumptions?

To the OP: these contracts have been successfully fought, unfortunately it will take your time and resources in court to make this issue go away. Good luck with this situation and your medical issues.

This thread sums up the character of SJS pilots. Lie, cheat, steal your way to a job that you are under-qualified for by any means necessary, and then scream how unfair it is when something like this happens.

I am not a fan of training contracts. That is why I wouldn't go somewhere that has one. If you all would follow suit, maybe Republic pilots wouldn't be flying 90 seat aircraft around for embarrassing wages.

I never thought the day would come, but I completely side with Management. This is a good time to learn accountability. Pay the money you owe them, and learn from your mistakes.

Not that I agree with "HotMamaPilot" because I don't. But how do you say something like "another empty kitchen" and then with your next post chide someone for being immature?

With all the ignorant ammo HMP sets you up for you can easily find another way to insult her without lumping the rest of the female pilots in with her.

Unless of course that's really your opinion of us

Signing a contract and actually abiding by it - What a concept.

If you don't agree to the terms, don't sign it.

Even if the contract doesn't make you want to vomit, the volatility of the airline industry alone should steer you away from signing one of those things. Just look at some of those guys at Eagle who had to sign that 2 year deal - They're now tied to a sinking ship.

For 20K/yr...what do you expect? But I agree it should be enforced unless the person can lawyer out of it somehow. Only when people realize the reality of the job, will they possibly take a second to think about whether it's worth it. Yet another reason there will be a pilot shortage...people unwilling to "pay" for their job...

I agree with you! Hotmamapilot and I have a disliking for each other.
Apologies to you HookEm and all the other females out there.

I love it when I am called "ignorant" if I don't agree with the blue bloods on this forum. I am very certain of which political party most of you vote with.
The guy broke a contract; this is a FACT. But you people don't care about facts. Oh well, I'll go back to my VERY EXPENSIVE kitchen.

Training contracts
 

Enforceability is on a state by state basis.
So check the state that Republic is going to sue you in.
I think you have to be somewhere around $75k for the lawsuit to be filed in federal court.

However, your best bet after speaking with an attorney is to open up dialogue with the former company and work out a solution.
It only gets worse from here if you don't.

Fwiw

TC