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Tech Firm Fined For Paying Imported Workers $1.21 Per Hour
An anonymous reader sends in news about a company that was fined for flying in "about eight employees" from India to work 120-hour weeks for $1.21 per hour. Electronics for Imaging paid several employees from India as little as $1.21 an hour to help install computer systems at the company's Fremont headquarters, federal labor officials said Wednesday. "We are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior from employers," said Susana Blanco, district director of the U.S. Labor Department's wage and hour division in San Francisco.... An anonymous tip prompted the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate the case, which resulted in more than $40,000 in back wages paid to the eight employees and a fine of $3,500 for Electronics for Imaging.
That's the thing -- they WERE fined the amount they were "saved" -- if the imported workers were being paid minimum wage. Domestic workers doing the same job would have wanted considerably more for the job. Without any escalating penalty for repeat offenders or changes in the penalty structure, it's going to become a cottage industry to just continue to do this and eat the fines. Worst case, you're paying minimum wage for skilled labor.
Further, the "wage" payments were just the differences between their dollar and change an hour rate and minimum wage for technical work that would require a skilled employee. So, even that is a slap on the wrist. And there was no concept of "time and a half" or whatever else for the mandatory 120hr week slave conditions for these employees. As such, the lesson taught was very much a "just don't get caught next time" one.
Thirty four characters live here.
Where people = well-off white men who own slaves.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."