Scopus Consulting Group and Orian Engineers, two companies based in Silicon Valley and owned by an Indian-American Kishore Kumar have been ordered to pay fines of $103,000 to the federal government. Along with this, the company is required to pay $84,000 in back wages to its employees who are carrying H-1B visas.

The two companies bring workers from India and other countries on H1B visas to employ them as software engineers for Silicon Valley firms such as eBay, Apple and Cisco Systems.

During investigations, US Department of Labor Wage and Hour investigators found that the two companies violated the H1B provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act by misrepresenting the prevailing wage level on the Labor Condition Applications required by the act, an official release said yesterday.Federal Administrative Law Judge Stephen R Henley ordered the two businesses owned by Kishore Kumar to pay 21 workers $84,000 in back wages and $103,000 in fines to the federal government.

“Some of the country’s most cutting-edge, successful organisations benefit from underpaid H-1B workers,” director for the Wage and Hour Division in San Francisco, Susana Blanco said.

“H1B workers must be paid local prevailing wages. We will not allow companies to undercut local wages and hurt US workers and businesses who pay their workers fairly,” Blanco said. — PTI