>"She argued that the trainings were specific to the shop and low quality."
Then I think this undermines the employees stance that the trainings were unnecessary. The employer is essentially saying licensure isn't enough to ensure their quality standard, so additional training is necessary. (Granted, there's probably a likelihood of legal gamesmanship going on with both sides). To me, it would really depend on how "specific to the shop" it was. Since the lawsuit was dismissed, I'm assuming it was specific enough to be what you classify as "onboarding."
I get your point on the legislation, but just to illustrate my point about the lines being blurry: you brought up MUMPS and that being niche training. However, it's also the program that underlies the Veterans Affairs VISTA platform. Meaning, if you're trained in MUMPS you could foreseeably transfer those skills to one of the largest healthcare networks in the nation, as well as the companies that have gotten billions of dollars to upgrade that system. So even a "niche" program has plenty of wiggle room to determine if it's really transferable. Not only that, they've now trained you on a system that has billions of dollars in demand and little supply of programmers. That seems pretty valuable.
Then I think this undermines the employees stance that the trainings were unnecessary. The employer is essentially saying licensure isn't enough to ensure their quality standard, so additional training is necessary. (Granted, there's probably a likelihood of legal gamesmanship going on with both sides). To me, it would really depend on how "specific to the shop" it was. Since the lawsuit was dismissed, I'm assuming it was specific enough to be what you classify as "onboarding."
I get your point on the legislation, but just to illustrate my point about the lines being blurry: you brought up MUMPS and that being niche training. However, it's also the program that underlies the Veterans Affairs VISTA platform. Meaning, if you're trained in MUMPS you could foreseeably transfer those skills to one of the largest healthcare networks in the nation, as well as the companies that have gotten billions of dollars to upgrade that system. So even a "niche" program has plenty of wiggle room to determine if it's really transferable. Not only that, they've now trained you on a system that has billions of dollars in demand and little supply of programmers. That seems pretty valuable.