Business
US Company Ordered To Pay Over $300,000 To H-1B Employees For Underpaying Them
The Redmond-based company will also pay a penalty of over $45,000 for violating labor provisions
The US Department of Labour Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has ordered the Redmond-based People Tech Group Inc to pay more than $300,000 to its 12 H-1B employees for paying them far below their salary. In addition, the information technology staffing company has also been asked to pay a penalty of over USD 45,000 for violating the labor provisions.
As per the investigation conducted by WHD, the company, which also has offices in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, failed to meet the labor provisions of the H-1B visa programme and paid its guest workers far below than what they should have been actually paid.
As People Tech Group Inc did not abide by the labor provisions and rules, the company will now have to pay USD 309,914 to its 12 employees and an additional a penalty of USD 45,564, a media release said on Thursday.
The Department of Labour investigators found that the company paid entry-level wages to H-1B computer analysts and computer programmers who performed the work of much more experienced employees and should have received higher prevailing rates.
According to the labor law, People Tech Group Inc should have paid the workers for the time when it did not provide them work, but, it failed to do so.
“The intent of the H-1B foreign labor certification program is to help American companies find the highly skilled talent they need when they can prove that a shortage of US workers exists,” said Carrie Aguilar, Wage and Hour Division Acting District Director, in Seattle. “The resolution of this case demonstrates our commitment to safeguarding American jobs, level the playing field for law-abiding employers, and ensure no one is being paid less than they are legally owed,” Aguilar said.
President Donald Trump led government has reportedly made a lot of changes in the country’s H1B visa policy claiming that some IT companies take advantage of the H1B visa programme to hire foreign workers for lower pay, displacing Americans from those jobs.
The Department of Labor isn’t “fighting back.” They didn’t catch any criminals. They ARE the criminals, giving over 100,000 US tech jobs away like candy every single year, putting American STEM workers, American engineers, out of work. And these DOL people get paid BECAUSE of the system that THEY invented, a system that sells American tech jobs, and divvies up the profits. Now some Indian-American congressman is trying to add to the already unbearably high 100,000 H-1B visas, H-4 EADs, OPT visas, etc, just to fatten their own paychecks. Thanks, America.
I’m sure Carrie Aguilar will get her $445 bonus this year, an her inevitable, re-negotiated raise. While those hundreds of thousands of American STEM workers work at Mcdonalds. Thanks, Carrie and the DOL team. Helluva job.