How true. So they paid $40k in back wages - also trivial.
Per the story, there were 8 technicians and some worked up to 122 hours a week. Let's assume they worked an average of 60 hours a week (extremely generous to the employer). Let's also assume that their work was minimally technically demanding, just requiring reasonable care to break down, transport and set up computers from one location to another; I think $15/hour would be a cheap wage for that sort of work in the Bay Area.
8 staff x $15/hour x 60 hrs/week (no overtime) x 14 weeks is still around $100,000, far more than what the firm has had to pay out. If one were to include all applicable taxes and follow laws on overtime etc., I guess a realistic bill for that amount of work would be double that amount. So far it has cost them maybe $50-60,000 including legal fees - a bargain >:-(
"How true. So they paid $40k in back wages - also trivial."
I think the "triviality" of paying the back wages and the "triviality" of the fine are directly related to each other. $40K / (7.25-1.21) = 662 underpaid hours [1], or put into probably an even better unit for comprehension, 16.5 man-weeks or 4.25 man-months.
This is bad, and in particularly bad in a very revealing way. However, it's not like this was a sweatshop employing hundreds for months without detection, which I suspect the mental model people are reading into this story. While I suspect 3.5K is a bit low, the millions upon millions that I suspect many people are emotionally calling for would also be inappropriate.
[1] Forgive me if I don't fully spell out the units here.
I'm sure it's just an oversight, but that's actually 6622 underpaid hours, not 662. In other words 165 man/weeks or slightly over 3 man-years. I think people are annoyed about the fine because it basically sends the message that you can pay people only 15% of the minimum wage and if you get caught the fine will be just about 50 cents an hour, or ~8% of the amount stolen from the employee. That's less than what I pay in sales tax when I purchase goods from a store.
Now you're right that it's better than large sweatshops where hundreds of people may be underpaid. And it may well be that these employees were put up by the company and din't have to spend anything on rent or food, so while they were only being paid $100/week to work here they might have been coining it by Indian standards. But as I said above, even after the payout and fine the firm got a bargain! How much would you budget for 6600 hours of IT department grunt work?
"I'm sure it's just an oversight, but that's actually 6622 underpaid hours, not 662. "
Yes it was, it shreds my entire point, and add my pitchfork to the crowd. Whoops. Thanks for catching that. Can't delete or edit the message now, or I would.
Comments
How true. So they paid $40k in back wages - also trivial.
Per the story, there were 8 technicians and some worked up to 122 hours a week. Let's assume they worked an average of 60 hours a week (extremely generous to the employer). Let's also assume that their work was minimally technically demanding, just requiring reasonable care to break down, transport and set up computers from one location to another; I think $15/hour would be a cheap wage for that sort of work in the Bay Area.
8 staff x $15/hour x 60 hrs/week (no overtime) x 14 weeks is still around $100,000, far more than what the firm has had to pay out. If one were to include all applicable taxes and follow laws on overtime etc., I guess a realistic bill for that amount of work would be double that amount. So far it has cost them maybe $50-60,000 including legal fees - a bargain >:-(
"How true. So they paid $40k in back wages - also trivial."
I think the "triviality" of paying the back wages and the "triviality" of the fine are directly related to each other. $40K / (7.25-1.21) = 662 underpaid hours [1], or put into probably an even better unit for comprehension, 16.5 man-weeks or 4.25 man-months.
This is bad, and in particularly bad in a very revealing way. However, it's not like this was a sweatshop employing hundreds for months without detection, which I suspect the mental model people are reading into this story. While I suspect 3.5K is a bit low, the millions upon millions that I suspect many people are emotionally calling for would also be inappropriate.
[1] Forgive me if I don't fully spell out the units here.
I'm sure it's just an oversight, but that's actually 6622 underpaid hours, not 662. In other words 165 man/weeks or slightly over 3 man-years. I think people are annoyed about the fine because it basically sends the message that you can pay people only 15% of the minimum wage and if you get caught the fine will be just about 50 cents an hour, or ~8% of the amount stolen from the employee. That's less than what I pay in sales tax when I purchase goods from a store.
Now you're right that it's better than large sweatshops where hundreds of people may be underpaid. And it may well be that these employees were put up by the company and din't have to spend anything on rent or food, so while they were only being paid $100/week to work here they might have been coining it by Indian standards. But as I said above, even after the payout and fine the firm got a bargain! How much would you budget for 6600 hours of IT department grunt work?
"I'm sure it's just an oversight, but that's actually 6622 underpaid hours, not 662. "
Yes it was, it shreds my entire point, and add my pitchfork to the crowd. Whoops. Thanks for catching that. Can't delete or edit the message now, or I would.