CRST CONTRACT ISSUES - please read!

I went to CRST in October of 2015. The first day at the school, a safety manager handed out papers for us to sign before we got started. I and a few others asked to have the rest of the contract to read, and she said there wasn't time for that, and that we would get a copy when we returned to the terminal. Now, keep in mind - we only got the signature pages - nothing else - the other pages I have seen were not even initialized, and those are the ones with the contract information on them.

Once we were done with our "training" (and I use that term very loosely, as a week and a half, mostly classroom work, is really not enough time for "training"), we were given lists of names of potential trainers. I ended up with two total, for 21 days. The first one had to go on hometime, and they wanted me to finish without waiting for him. After that, we were given another list - of potential co-drivers. Some of the students were non-smokers, some had allergies, some were LGBTQ, and others did not want to pair with a member of the opposite gender. I fell into a few of the categories.

I kept hearing the same thing, you need to work for us for 10 months. During my downtime, I would drive the company shuttle or do other random duties to make some extra money. I eventually paired with a co-driver, and we drove together until July 2016. We got into a disagreement and parted ways, but we spoke to each other a few times afterward, wanting to drive together again. My last communication with my DM was in August 2016.

Please do NOT say I did not fulfill my contract, because in MY opinion I did. Two times at the beginning, I was pressured into getting on trucks with people I only "knew" from a short meet-n-greet or conversation, once with a woman who was blogging to her friends where and when we were delivering, and what. One time, we were hauling a $3M super rack. We could have been killed for that. I filed a grievance with HR.

A few months ago, I received notice that a company would not hire me because CRST was threatening to sue them. They sent me a copy of the letter. I have been driving now for three years, I have no accidents or citations, and all 10 of my DOT inspections were good. I have not been offered any jobs yet. I contacted a legal firm, and they tried to get the collection agency to come down on the amount they claim I owe, but they would not budge. Now, the lawyer is pissed, and has agreed to help me. No charge to me, so I firmly believe we will win. If they had done the RIGHT thing, and prorate the amount down, then I may have worked with them. After all, they take $40 a week (minimum) out of your check to pay them back. So, $40 times 4 weeks per month, times 7 or 8 months equals $1100 - $1200, plus we were driving 5000-6000 miles a week, but getting paid only .25cpm-.33cpm. You know we were making money for them.

Do I feel guilty for not paying $8000 (yup, with the collection fees, that's what they want). NOPE.
If anyone is interested in a possible class action suit, please send me a message with your contact information. I WILL NOT pass your information on to the lawyers until we have spoken and you give me permission.