Paying for a type rating may be fair enough if you are unemployed and want to enhance your chances of that 1st job. In which case, don't stuff about - go for an A320 or B777 rating, as it won't cost much more than a pissy little Dash 8 anyway.
BUT, if you ARE employed, tell 'em to jam it, unless you can broker a deal like that at NJS, whereby the company apparantly have eased the pain through salary sacrifice and some kind of reimbursement deal at the end. If you all tell 'em to jam it, they either lay you off and pay out redundancy, which you then use to fund a worthwhile type rating (see above) or they come to their senses and train you - see below re bonding.
Bonding is reasonable and to be expected. Pilots can't expect to incur megabuck training costs and then just buggeroff to greener pastures. If I was a shareholder I would not be happy with a management that ran a free flying school for the likes of Cathay or Emirates or the like.