Willful Violation of the H-1B Program Undermines Foreign Teachers

Amidst national debate centering on collective bargaining among public workers, one school system is being held responsible for violating workers’ rights.  In Maryland, on district decided not to pay its foreign teachers the same wages as it other teachers. This was no small-scale violation to save a little bit of money for a school’s band uniforms.  This discrimination affected 1,044 foreign teachers.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found Maryland’s Prince George’s County Public Schools system in willful violation of the laws that govern the H-1B temporary foreign worker visa program.

Under the H-1B program, employers are welcomed to hire foreign professionals for temporary work.  These workers must be paid the same wages as similarly employed U.S. workers.  Investigators found that this county’s schools illegally reduced the wages of 1,044 foreign teachers by requiring each of them to pay $4,224,146 in fees. It is required by law that the employers pay these fees attached to bringing over foreign workers, but the Maryland county decided to profit off of these international workers.

“All employers, including school systems, are required to follow the law. That includes the legal duty to pay every teacher hired the full wages he or she is owed,” said Nancy J. Leppink, acting administrator of the Wage and Hour Division.

Due to the willful nature of some of the violations, PGCPS has been assessed $1,740,000 in civil money penalties and may be debarred from filing new petitions, requests for extensions or requests for permanent residency for foreign workers under any employment-based visa program. Violations are willful when an employer knew or acted in reckless disregard for whether its actions were impermissible.