The United States based information technology staffing company was asked to pay more than USD 3000,000 to its 12 H-1B employees for paying them less than their salary and has also been imposed a penalty of more than USD 45,000 for violating the labour provisions between the Trump administrations crack down athwart the abuse of the visa category which is popular among the Indian professionals.
The Department of Labour wage and Hour Division (WHD) from United States in an investigation understood that the Redmond-based company that has offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad has violated the labour provisions of the H-1B visa programme by paying its guest workers less money than the required wages. As a result, People Tech Group Inc is asked to pay its 12 employees USD 309,914 and has also imposed a penalty of USD 45,564.
The H-1B visa is a non-migrant visa which allows the companies from United States to employ the foreign workers in specialty occupations those require technical and theoretical expertise.
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The investigators also found that the company has paid entry-level wages to H-1B computer analysts and the computer programmers those who have performed the work of more experienced employees and were suppose to receive the high prevailing rates said the Department of Labour.
The People Tech Group has failed to pay their workers for the time when no work was provided to them, as per the law said the Department of Labour wage and Hour Division of United States. “The intent of the H-1B foreign labour 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 Wage and Hour Division Acting District Director Carrie Aguilar in Seattle.
“The resolution of this case demonstrates our commitment to safeguard 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. The Wage and Hour Division has listed approximately 30 companies as the willful violator employers under the H-1B programme.
According to the maintained list from 2013, majority of the willful violators are the Indian or Americans and the companies owned by them. Nearly, 10 companies those include eight willful violators are debarred and disqualified from hiring the foreign guest workers on H-1B visas. The Trump administration has been pushing for the reform of the H-1B system saying few IT companies were also abusing the US work visas to deny some jobs to the American workers.
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