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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?
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.