B.Y.D. Fined For Paying Chinese Employees in California $1.50/hr

[Chris_]

B.Y.D. Fined For Paying Chinese Employees in California $1.50/hr

The state of California gave the Warren Buffet backed Chinese car company B.Y.D. almost $2 million in tax subsidies in 2010 to locate its North American headquarters in Los Angeles. Since then, the company has gotten contracts worth more than $40 million to build electric city buses for Los Angeles and Long Beach and it has said that it will be creating dozens of new jobs at a manufacturing plant in suburban LA. However, more than three years along, B.Y.D. is employing fewer than 40 workers in California and the company has now been fined almost $100,000 by the state for violating its minimum wage law for how it is paying the Chinese nationals it employs. According to the state, the car company employs at least 5 Chinese nationals here on temporary worker visas, and it apparently has been paying them not in dollars but rather in Chinese yuan and at a rate far below California’s $8.00 an hour minimum wage, the equivalent of $1.50/hr.

B.Y.D. executives say they will appeal the fine, saying that their Chinese employees are here on legal work visas and are not subject to state labor laws, including the minimum wage.

The Truth About Cars

The Chinese economy is built on slave labor.  Why are we doing business with these people?

[JohnnyReb]

The Truth About Cars

The Chinese economy is built on slave labor.  Why are we doing business with these people?

Ol' Warren "tax me more" Buffet just trying to make a buck....and not pay the taxes. See the favors you get when you kiss Obama's ass.

[thundley4]

The $100k fine is too low. It should be at least equal to the tax subsidies they received.  Then they should have to pay backpay to the employees and not just minimum wage, but at the prevailing union wage for the work done.  Buffet is almost as bad as George Soros.

[Celtic Rose]

Depending on the type of visa the employees have, they may have actually been following federal guidelines.  The B-1 in lieu of H-1B allows employees who are employed overseas to come to the US for a limited period of time, and it stipulates that they must only be receiving their salary from the overseas subsidiary, which means that their salary may be incredibly low while they are in the US. 

[DumbAss Tanker]

Any difficulties Buffet encounters won't move my sympathy meter off the peg.  He deserves any and all Big Government slapping around he gets, and more.