Where are all the attorneys? This is a company with flagrantly illegal practices and a ton of money in the bank. People live for that sort of scenario. Anyone let go by these clowns should leave with a nice chunk of change.
I know a very successful attorney who would've killed for a case like this back when he was practicing (he's retired now). Labor law violations in particular make lawyers happy because where there's one victim at a particular company, there are probably many more. You'd generally get someone like the guy in the article as a client and start subpoenaing records and checking out their other employees. Then you represent them all and get a huge fscking settlement. Easy money. Remember: juries hate evil corporations that screw the little guy, and both sides know it.
So why don't we see more of these? Because -- and this is according to a lawyer who did pursue a few of these cases and would've liked to pursue more -- most of the news articles are lies or gross exaggerations. The press will write a clickbaity article and play fast-and-loose with the facts. Lawyers will look into it, hoping for a case that leads to an easy settlement, and find that, underneath all the outrage, there's very little substance.
We've spent the last 30-odd years electing people that stuff the books and court benches with laws and people that make sure that - by and large - attorneys and the victims they represent can't hold companies like this responsible or accountable - for almost anything, let alone misdeeds with needy victims. Go look up "forced arbitration"... these "service providers" probably have, at best, the right to a loser-pays "arbitrator" who is paid and picked by Handybook. The risk that any of them might opt for any quasi-legal proceeding (let alone the rigged arbitration system they are likely limited to) given that many of them most likely have some kind of liminal citizenship status is effectively nil. If I were doing the liabilities/risk business analysis for this, I would delete the row this was on just to clean up the spreadsheet a little bit.
The concept of companies being held responsible for things they do that hurt or exploit people is a humorous anachronism from a bygone era.
It doesn't look like the "candidate/employee" signed anything. And if they did, the contract isn't enforceable without consideration. "We are considering you for the job" is not consideration.
The way companies do forced arbitration now is by providing the employee with an opt out form that they have to fill out and mail to the legal department within 30 days.
Sharp-eyed employees will notice this in their new hire documentation but most will not. The company can then claim that they did not make forced arbitration a condition of employment and did give the employee an opportunity to opt out, which they declined to take. Courts have upheld this as legal:
(IANAL) The 12 hours of free-work might constitute consideration, but I don't see why you would even take a contracts angle on this particular interaction when you just have generic labor law.
