Workers from India were paid $1.21/hour to install Silicon Valley tech company's computers

[Newsjock]

Source: San Jose Mercury News

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.

The incident is a reminder that even amid a labor market that has boomed in recent years in Silicon Valley and other parts of the Bay Area, income inequality and payments of relatively low wages can still be a problem for workers in the region. The workers were paid in Indian rupees.

"It's always amazing that some employers think they can go about with this kind of cheating," said Sylvia Allegretto, a UC Berkeley research economist and co-chair of the university's Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26778017/tech-company-paid-employees-from-india-little-1

[brush]

1. Hope this wakes up the anti-union crowd

This is what happens in unregulated, unchecked capitalism. For these cheaters it's all about profit, profit and more profit so you exploit your workers as much as you can.

I mean come on, paying non-unionized workers with that kind of skill $1.25 an hour.

Someone, probably more than one someone, colluded on this and consciously made a calculation that they could get away with it.

Whoever is responsible needs to not just be fired but to go to jail.

[SoCalDem]

2. People who worship the "bottom line" willl often do stuff like this

and praise themselves for being "efficient"

[Brigid]

3. "Unintentionally?" "Administrative error?" Really?

Right. And I'm the Queen of England.

[mrdmk]

4. Really, what a savings at $1.21 an hour!

If they did get caught (which they did), the company would need to pay $8.00 a hour to these people working 121 hours a week. That works out to a 17.3 hour day, seven days a week. Wondering if the company had to pay time and a half for over 40 hours and double time for over 60 hours within that week.

Computer Techs normally get $40,000 and up a year.

What a bunch cheapskates, this company needs to have their license to operate revoked in my book...