US firm fined for H-1B visa fraud

Washington, Sept. 14: A Redmond-based information technology staffing company was asked to pay over $300,000 to its 12 H-1B employees for paying them far below their salary and was imposed a penalty of over $45,000 for violating the labour provisions.

The US Department of Labour Wage and Hour Division during an investigation found the firm, which has offices in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, violated labour provisions of the H-1B visa programme by paying its guest workers far below required wages, a media release said on Thursday.

As a result, People Tech Group Inc has been asked to pay its 12 employees $309,914 and has been slapped with a penalty of $45,564, it said.

Investigators found that the company paid entrylevel 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, the Department of Labour said. The People Tech Group also failed to pay workers for the time when it did not provide them work, as the law requires, the department said.

“The intent of the H-1B foreign labour certification programme 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 nearly 30 companies as willful violator employers under the H-1B programme.

As per the list maintained since 2013, a majority of willful violators are Indian Americans or companies owned by them. At least 10 companies, which includes eight willful violators, were debarred from hiring foreign guest workers on H-1B visas. — PTI