Santa Clara University School of Law professor and supervising attorney of the Katharine & Georce Alexander Community Law Center Ruth Silver Taube authored an editorial for the San Jose Mercury News. The article, “BiTMICRO the latest Silicon Valley firm caught victimizing foreign workers,” examines how BiTMICRO Networks paid Filipino workers $1.66 per hour without overtime for the 57 hours per week they worked.
From the editorial:
Garden variety wage theft — failure to pay overtime or minimum wage — has reached epidemic proportions in Silicon Valley and has become a business model for far too many industries such as restaurants, construction and care homes.
Often they don’t even pay wage theft judgments because there are no legal or business consequences. To combat this problem, a growing number of jurisdictions are refusing to contract with or issue licenses or permits to companies that do not pay court ordered judgments.
