New York Attorney General Letitia James on May 29 secured more than $660,000 for foreign-born nurses who were subjected to illegal labor trafficking and exploitative contracts by Advanced Care Staffing and Priority Care Staffing (ACS) and ACS CEO Sam Klein, according to a press statement from her office.
An Office of the Attorney General (OAG) investigation found that ACS, a New York health care staffing agency, recruited nurses from abroad and required them to unwittingly sign exploitative employment contracts. Nearly all of these contracts included severe financial penalties for early resignation, requiring any nurse who resigned or was fired before their contract expired to pay the company as much as $20,000.
The OAG found that since 2020, ACS has collected this “termination penalty” from 71 nurses – 70 of them Filipinos, according to an OAG spokesperson — many of whom resigned due to significant concerns about understaffing, inadequate patient care, mandatory double shifts, and going weeks without a day off. As a result of the investigation, AG James has secured $663,668.66 in restitution for the 71 exploited nurses and is requiring ACS to forgive outstanding debt for former employees and remove the exploitative provisions from its contracts.
“Advanced Care Staffing exploited vulnerable nurses, had them sign unfair contracts, and forced them to pay illegal financial penalties,” said James. “Nurses are the backbone of our health care system, and they deserve fair and just treatment. No worker in New York should be forced to choose between their financial security and their basic rights. My office will always fight to ensure nurses across New York can continue their life-saving work free from mistreatment and intimidation.”
ACS is a health care staffing agency that recruits trained nurses from foreign countries to work at health care facilities and nursing homes in New York City, Westchester, and on Long Island. In July 2023, OAG opened an investigation into ACS and found that since 2013, ACS had recruited dozens of nurses from other countries, offering to sponsor them for visas and cover the cost of transportation and the immigration process. As part of its recruitment efforts, ACS required the nurses to sign restrictive, exploitative contracts with limited information or legal advice. The foreign nurses had to rely on ACS representatives to explain the provisions in the contract and were not encouraged to seek outside legal counsel. Part of this contract was an illegal repayment provision, which required the nurses, with limited exceptions, to pay up to $20,000 if they resigned or were fired before their contract ended, typically after two or three years of employment.
In addition to the contracts, nurses were required to sign a legal pledge that guaranteed payment of the $20,000 if they departed ACS early. Around 2022, ACS changed its practices and stopped requiring this legal guarantee of payment. Instead, ACS began enforcing the penalty through an arbitration process that, in addition to the early termination fee, would hold employees responsible for “lost profits.” The OAG concluded that this was a continuation and escalation of the previous penalty provision, as ACS would send nurses repeated letters and emails indicating the company planned to seek at least $20,000 in arbitration – if not more – if the nurses did not reconsider their resignation. The agreement also required nurses to cover all attorneys’ fees for the company if they lost during arbitration.
The result was a pervasive climate of fear for the foreign-recruited nurses who worked at ACS. The OAG found that nurses consistently raised concerns to ACS about working conditions at their facilities, including unsustainable nurse-to-patient ratios, frequent mandatory double shifts, and inadequate support and staffing, resulting in a dangerous environment for both the nurses and their patients. Nurses expressed that they felt their nursing licenses were at risk and, as a result, felt compelled to resign.
In five years, ACS coerced 71 nurses into paying the resignation fee – 24 nurses paid up to $7,000, 18 paid between $8,000 and $10,000, 24 paid between $11,000 and $15,000, and five paid $20,000. The OAG determined that ACS engaged in a pattern of coercive behavior and repeatedly violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which prohibits companies from exploiting people for labor through threats of force, legal action, or harm, including financial harm.
