Consumer debt is ubiquitous in the United States, where the average household owes $165,000, according to  The Washington Post. But there is a more insidious form of debt that harms many Americans: training repayment agreements (TRAs), which require workers to pay a fee if they leave their jobs before a specified time.

These agreements provide skills or credentials specific to an employer’s needs, unlike a degree obtained from an outside institution. TRAs also differ from arrangements in which employers pay part of an employee’s tuition from an outside institution.

Though the comparison may be harsh, some compare TRAs to indentured servitude. (Hence the unflattering acronym of TRAPs, for training repayment agreement provisions, bestowed upon them by worker advocates). While the idea may be to protect employers’ investments in new hires and limit turnover, the real purpose is to use debt obligations to anchor workers in jobs they would otherwise choose to leave, Jonathan Harris, associate professor at LMU Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and a fellow with the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), told the Post. He said that these agreements are being used in high-turnover and low-paying jobs in transportation, health care, retail, construction and service industries.

Recent examples include lawsuits against pet supply retailer PetSmart, which required pet groomers to pay $5,000 if they left within two years, and cargo airline Ameriflight, some of whose pilots claim that the company is pursuing training debts of $20,000 to $30,000 if they leave before 18 to 24 months of service.

Harris, whose SBPC is helping to represent PetSmart and Ameriflight workers, called these agreements one-sided. There is no obligation on the part of the employer to keep the employee, who may still be required to repay the debt even if he or she is fired.

Employees may also feel that they have to accept these agreements if they want the job, Harris said.

“There can be a misconception that if you agree to something (like a TRAP) in a contract, then that’s it and you’re stuck,” Rachel Dempsey, the attorney also representing the PetSmart and Ameriflight workers, wrote in an email to the Post. She noted that a contract whose terms violate the law is not enforceable.

TRAs “are being used more and more as workarounds to traditional noncompete agreements as … noncompetes are getting more scrutiny,” Harris said. The Federal Trade Commission  recently proposed a rule to ban such clauses, California and Connecticut impose limits on some kinds of TRAs, and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) launched an inquiry into TRAs last year.