Yeah, you read that number correctly–
one dollar and twenty-one cents an hour.From NBC's Bay Area affiliate:The Labor Department said about eight employees of Fremont-based Electronics For Imaging were flown in from India and worked 120-hour weeks to help with the installation of computers at the company's headquarters. The employees were paid their regular hourly wage in Indian rupees, which translated to $1.21.
This is a company that recently posted a 3rd quarter profit around $200,000,000. You read that number right as well. But don't worry, here's their statement concerning this crime:
"During this process we unintentionally overlooked laws that require even foreign employees to be paid based on local US standards."
Ooops. Their bad. Now that they've been caught my guess is that it won't happen again, especially since they're probably getting slammed with fines and back wages.
EFI has been ordered to pay $40,000 in back wages to the employees. In addition, the company was hit with a $3,500 fine.
If the fines for creating a sweatshop on US soil amount to under $50,000 dollars and your company serves to make a little under $1,000,000,000 dollars a year...well, you don't have to be Stephen Hawking to do the math.
