HCL Tech accused of wage theft, underpaying H1-B visa holders by $95 million annually

HCL Tech | Representative image

An American think tank has accused IT services major HCL Technologies of wage theft by underpaying thousands of skilled migrants on H-1B visas.

Based on its analysis of an internal HCL document, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has claimed that the Noida-based IT firm paid H-1B visa workers lower wages to the tune of $95 million, compared to their US peers.

“Thousands of skilled migrants with H-1B visas working as subcontractors at well-known corporations like Disney, FedEx, Google and others appear to have been underpaid by at least $95 million,” said an EPI report by Ron Hira and Daniel Costa.

Read | HCL Technologies says to hire 12,000 in US over 5 years

“Victims include not only the H-1B workers but also US workers who are either displaced or whose wages and working conditions degrade when employers are allowed to underpay skilled migrant workers with impunity,” said an analysis of the HCL document, released as part of a whistleblower lawsuit against the firm.

The H-1B programme is a temporary work visa scheme that allows US companies to recruit and hire college-educated migrant workers.

The report states that HCL has violated the H-1B visa law which prohibits employers from underpaying H-1B workers or replacing their incumbent US worker employees (US citizens or permanent residents) with H-1B workers who are paid much less to do the same job.

“The data from the company’s internal document suggests the firm underpays H-1B workers in virtually all jobs across all business lines,” it said.

The authors suggest that the US labour department should launch a “sweeping investigation into whether companies are systematically underpaying H-1B workers in violation of the law”.

India’s IT giants, including Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, have long used H1-B skilled worker visas to fly computer engineers to the US temporarily to service clients.