Former Tesla Contractor's Lawsuit Details Visa, Labor Law Violations

[eridani]

http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2016/05/former-tesla-contractors-lawsuit-details-visa-labor-law-violations

The lawsuit, however, also helped expose how companies use the B1/B2 visa — a program for tourism or business purposes — to illegally employ low-wage foreign workers.

Lesnik signed up to work for ISM Vuzem, a Slovenia company and a subcontractor for German company Eisenmann. Tesla, in turn, contracted Eisenmann to expand the paint factory as it prepares for a dramatic increase in output of its electric vehicles.

Because the B1 visa applies to workers coming to the U.S. for supervisory roles, Lesnik's visa stated that he would help oversee an auto plant in South Carolina. Instead, he performed heavy manual labor at the Fremont factory 2,500 miles away.

The paper reported that Vuzem denied the claims in Lesnik's lawsuit and that Eisenmann and Tesla said that they were not responsible for his employment. Tesla, in a statement, said it requires its contractors to "hire and pay their workers appropriately.”

The problem, however, is not unique to Tesla, and a Labor Department official told the Mercury-News that "there is widespread abuse of the B1 visa in the Bay Area."

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. I read this story earlier which also helps outline this story on a personal level

THE HIDDEN WORKFORCE EXPANDING TESLA’S FACTORY





BY FRANÇOIS BERGER FOR THE BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

PUBLISHED MAY 15, 2016

When Gregor Lesnik left his pregnant girlfriend in Slovenia for a job in America, his visa application described specialized skills and said he was a supervisor headed to a South Carolina auto plant.

Turns out, that wasn’t true.

The unemployed electrician had no qualifications to oversee American workers and spoke only a sentence or two of English. He never set foot in South Carolina. The companies that arranged his questionable visa instead sent Lesnik to a menial job in Silicon Valley. He earned the equivalent of $5 an hour to expand the plant for one of the world’s most sophisticated companies, Tesla Motors.

Lesnik’s three-month tenure ended a year ago in a serious injury and a lawsuit that has exposed a troubling practice in the auto industry. Overseas contractors are shipping workers from impoverished countries to American factories, where they work long hours for low wages, in apparent violation of visa and labor laws.

About 140 workers from Eastern Europe, mostly from Croatia and Slovenia, built a new paint shop at Tesla’s Fremont plant, a project vital to the flagship Silicon Valley automaker’s plans to ramp up production of its highly anticipated Model 3 sedan. Their story emerged from dozens of interviews conducted by the Bay Area News Group, and an extensive review of payroll, visa and court documents.

more

http://extras.mercurynews.com/silicon-valley-imported-labor/