If he didn’t last 10 months, the contract required him to pay the company $6,500 for that training. He had signed a contract to work for CRST for 10 months in exchange for a two-week training course. Wayne Orr didn’t yet know that his foot was broken as he made his way back from Texas to his home in South Carolina, but he did know he couldn’t continue pressing the pedals on the tractor-trailer he had been driving.

Government officials also want to know whether companies across several industries are driving their employees into debt by unfairly requiring upfront purchases of equipment and supplies workers need to perform their jobs. The agency is opening a three-month public comment period to explore the value of the trainings that drive the debt and to find out whether workers are aware of the terms of the agreements they are signing. The consumer protection agency said it wanted to know whether the use of training repayment agreements, which are used by the companies we investigated, are leaving workers in debt and making it more difficult for them to find better-paying jobs. Update: In June, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced it was starting an inquiry into several employment practices that leave workers in debt, including the trucking industry practices that we write about below.

Instal the new Truck Driver Job