Employment contract to pay back immigration fees, legal or not?

[Leon]

My employer has many immigrant skilled workers.  They have been coming in on contracts for 1 or 2 years and in the contract, apparently it states that if they leave before their contract ends, they are responsible to pay back the employers cost of their immigration.

Now that a couple of guys are leaving before their time, after only 1 year instead of the 2 they signed up for, they have each been presented with a bill of $2650.  Apparently the cost of their work permit, which is $150 plus the employers cost of hiring an employment agency to do the paperwork.  Is this legal?  This amount was never disclosed to them at the point of signing their contract.  One of them maintains that his contact person at the company at the time he was hired told him that if he was not happy, he could leave any time, no problems.

[PMM]

Hi

My employer has many immigrant skilled workers.  They have been coming in on contracts for 1 or 2 years and in the contract, apparently it states that if they leave before their contract ends, they are responsible to pay back the employers cost of their immigration.

Now that a couple of guys are leaving before their time, after only 1 year instead of the 2 they signed up for, they have each been presented with a bill of $2650.  Apparently the cost of their work permit, which is $150 plus the employers cost of hiring an employment agency to do the paperwork.  Is this legal?  This amount was never disclosed to them at the point of signing their contract.  One of them maintains that his contact person at the company at the time he was hired told him that if he was not happy, he could leave any time, no problems.

Probably not if it was not in the contract, they should check with the labour standards branch in the province where they are working.

PMM

[BCguy]

I can confirm It is illegal for BC,If you are in BC contact me and I will refer your to the employment standards office in your area.

[Leon]

We are in AB but good idea, I had not thought of calling the labour board.  I will do that tomorrow.  They asked for help from our union but our union is normally not very helpful.

Edit: As a reference for somebody having the same problem in AB, I have now called the labour board and they did indeed tell me that this contract was completely illegal, apart from that the employer probably should have paid for their flight to come over which he didn't.  They suggested that the workers make an appointment with them to file a complaint.