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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.
They can just do this and then they save millions in labor costs and healthcare...
When I lived in China between '07-'09 I interviewed at the local IBM office to do data warehouse ETL. They wanted to pay me a local wage around $1000/month but send me to the US on an 'L' visa whereby they wouldn't be subject to US wage laws which the manager said "we do it all the time". When I pointed out they couldn't send me to the US on any kind of visa since I'm a citizen, they dropped all contact.
It's not clear to me that it was willful avoidance of paying minimum wage - they had a job to do, they got help from some of their existing employees from overseas, who continued to receive their regular wage (in their regular currency) during the time that they were here. So the company paid the back wages to the employees, and a small fine to the government. Doesn't seem unreasonable to give them a little slap on the wrist; save the big punishments for when there are repeated offenses, or more wanton abuse.
I'm more curious what the legal requirement is for paying the local minimum wage instead of a worker's regular salary, when they are working away from their normal office. I certainly wouldn't want to be paid in rupees if I had to travel to an office in India. But if I were there under the same conditions as those workers were here, would there be any violation of US Labor Laws if they paid me the local wage while I was over there? On the other hand, if I go to a college recruiting event in San Francisco for an afternoon, am I entitled to an increased minimum wage of $10.74 for a few hours? What if I'm a driver, paid by the mile, going through different jurisdictions each with their own minimum wage law?
I have to agree. If we have these laws, we need to enforce them.
If that means that the costs of products go up because we aren't using illegal aliens as slave labor, then we need to see that cost and understand why that is the case.
We think this is benefiting businesses primarily, but bear in mind, those who favor government programs and regulations to curry favor with progressives may be able to understate the economic effect of those items on the full economy by conveniently pointing to American productivity, but leaving out how much of that productivity is due to workers and businesses that evade those regulations.
Remember, it is a win-win for regulation and business if you can pretend that you have laws you enforce for higher standard of living, but you collude with businesses to make sure that the economy is not harmed by actually applying OSHA rules, minimum wage and social security to *every worker*.
I point this out, not to take the heat off of businesses. They are the ones who actually employ the illegal labor, and they are the primary people at fault. I'm trying to get to the heart of why the government is not enforcing these rules when it would be relatively simple for them to do so effectively. I think it is because no one wants to be up-front about why illegal workers are required to maintain our standard of living. No one wants to admit that we employ an underclass to maintain our citizens in comfort.
Jailing the executives would probably be the only effective strategy. Any fines just get passed along to customers - and the companies likely have ways to deduct the amount of the fines on their tax returns.
(No doubt, however, if executives realistically faced jail time for the illegal behavior of the companies they manage, they would demand even higher pay - and probably "hazardous duty" pay for any time spent in jail.)
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
Automation of jobs even professional level jobs such as medical or legal is inevitable. The long term prospect is that humans will be superfluous to work. Therefore, our society needs to rethink the purpose of an economy and evolve.
Perhaps ideas like a Universal Basic Income become relevant in a future society devoid of meaningful work.
Perhaps automation makes economic scarcity of essential needs a thing of the past.
Perhaps people become free to seek their own happiness instead of toiling for sustenance.
But that would be monstrously scary to objectivist who might think that society must exploit and privatize everything.
It's almost certainly a violation of immigration law. I assume that these people came to Fremont on visitor visas that don't allow the visa holder to "work". Even if the foreign workers were here on H1s or L1s (which I doubt), they would have been violating the salary requirements for that type of visa.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I've personally worked in a shop where they paid the H1B visa workers once every 6 months. They also didn't pay overtime, just the strait hour rate. (But at least it was the right total amount, overtime aside.)
The visa workers had no intention of complaining because they risked getting booted home if they did. (It was during a recession.)
It was at a big company that contracted through a smaller company so that the big company didn't inherent any legal risk of cheating. From the big co's perspective, they are merely paying the contracting company for hours. Where and how the workers were actually paid was legally the small contracting firm's responsibility. Thus, the big co got the benefits of cheating but not the risk. (And the small co. was probably a reshuffle-able front of some larger outfit.)
Table-ized A.I.
That's still peanuts.
If you really wanted to send a message, they should be required to pay for an external auditor of the governments choice to come in and perform a top-to-bottom audit on all employee and contractor compensation.
And then get fined for anything fishy.
Log in or piss off.
Where did they find housing in Fremont they could afford at $1.21/hr?
How did they feed themselves?
How did they afford the plane ticket to SF?
Let me guess, the company paid for all the above, and subtracted it from their wages... That's about the only way you can approach $1.21/hr.
Now, about that 121/hr work week - that has them working 5 days straight per week, with Saturday and Sunday off... Or about 17 hours a day, every day of the week.
Let me guess, the folks filing the claim subtracted sleep time and founded every waking hour as a work hour because they are either in company housing or at work...
Bottom line, I think their supporters are working too hard to make their case - like the homeless advocates who redefined homeless to include folks who would be homeless if they list their jobs and only have a few weeks savings to live on...
Ken
Jeez, mods, way too much speculation (much of which is wrong) to be a "+5" post...
First, it was in fact L1 visas for short term inter-company work.
The real problem was that EFI paid their Indian employees their existing wages (plus boarding, per diem, and bonuses) while they were in the US. Since US employment law states otherwise, yes, they screwed up, and it's good that they were forced to pay them more. But it's bullshit to call this "slave labor", etc, because of the wage since these employees went back to India with the same wage they were already getting (and no food/lodging costs during that time).
On the other hand, what *is* disturbing is the claims that they worked 120+ hours a week while in the US. I'm almost skeptical of that number as that is literally less than 7 hours a day off the job which isn't enough time for a good night's sleep - but even more or less forcing 100+ hours for an hourly employee, working in a foreign country with likely little say over their duties or conditions seems borderline criminal to me...
old school apprentices were rarely a "guaranteed job at the end" but more like "a shot at taking over the business at the end" if
you paid your dues, learned well, and did a good job. IT has actually moved that direction a little bit. When I interned for HP
while in college, they made it very clear that interns that they liked moved immediately to the top of the stack of resumes when
applying for a full time position practically guaranteeing you a job if they liked you and your performance. It's alot less risk for
them. Places like microsoft have also started using contractors and temp agencies for that purpose. They try you out for a
while, if you do a good job then they bring you on, if you don't, they don't have to worry about all the steps to fire you. It also
helps with company morale as then very few "official" employees ever need to be fired.