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Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

Something isn't quite right with this article.

Engadget links to their "source", and their source doesn't link to anywhere they got the info from.

They say the workers were allegedly working 120 hour work weeks... if my math serves me right, that is 5 straight days and nights without sleeping. I don't think that is humanly possible in a 7 day week, even under slave-driven conditions such as described in the article.

Also, it sounds like, from the article, that the workers were hired as contract workers from India, then flown in to perform a contract. If that's the case, their pre-agreed wage in India would be fine imho, and easily confused with local laws (no intentional malicious intent), and perhaps why they weren't fined more heavily here in the US.

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Best I can tell, they have a presence in India:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-EFI-RVW5844... http://www.justdial.com/Bangalore/efi-india-pvt-ltd-%3Cnear%...

So my guess is that they are actual EFL, India, employees who are flown in for some time, probably on a tourist visa (I've seen that elsewhere), but still paid their normal salary while they work here.

The truly exceptional situation here is that their salary happens to be so low it's below the minimum salary (edit for clarification: exceptional in that it also happens with employees whose salary is above the minimum, but then article would seem a lot less sensational).

> The truly exceptional situation here is that their salary happens to be so low it's below the minimum salary.

Not in India it's not. In 120 hours at $1.21 per hour, these workers earned almost 9,000 rupees. While $1.21 doesn't sound like a lot here in the US, in India about 100 rupees will buy you a nice meal out. 400-600 rupees will buy you a hotel room for the night, etc. The dollar has a lot more buying power than the rupee.

This is just to say, for a contract worker hired in India, these wages are "acceptable". I think it's likely the company didn't understand US law dictates that while the India workers are in the US, they must abide by US minimum wage laws (which would make for a substantial salary increase for these workers).

I think it's more likely they didn't understand the law fully rather than malicious intent. The workers were after-all, temporary and were not going to be staying in the US permanently. This would coincide with the symbolic fine of $3,500 plus wages-due.

> I think it's more likely they didn't understand the law fully rather than malicious intent. The workers were after-all, temporary and were not going to be staying in the US permanently.

Oh yeah, we agree there, what I meant is that of all the times companies brought over employees here to work for some time, this time it so happened that their salary was below the minimum. If they were bringing over people from, say, Canada or Germany, they'd probably be paid way above the minimum.

While that may be true, both Canadian Dollars and German (Well, EU) Euros both have a lot more buying power than the Rupee, and are more in-line with the Dollar. 1 Euro as of today is $1.26 USD. So someone getting paid 25 Euros an hour in Germany will get $31.50 USD per hour here.

In India, some googling of job postings has led me to believe the average software engineer makes about 500,000 Rupees a year. That's only $8,173 USD a year. (A nice 2 bedroom apartment is about $80-$90 USD a month in India)

Economies are totally different, which is why there appears to be a large gap in compensation.

A livable 2bhk will cost you around $280 dollars. However if you want to buy it will cost you north $100,000.

Your price seem to be more in-line with a 3 bedroom apartment (although admittedly I was a little soft in my numbers)

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?coun...

18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Typically only people who get paid high hourly rates (like lawyers) do it, but it is possible.

>>I don't think that is humanly possible in a 7 day week, even under slave-driven conditions such as described in the article.

Ever been to a services company in India? work in projects which are 'premium projects'. These literally translate to delivering impossible stuff under impossible timelines.

16-18 hour work days are the norm. If you don't work that hard, you will be taken as some one who isn't ready to pick up nice opportunities that come your way.

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