Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, April 6, 1999



Sun Valley Firm to Pay Federal Labor Penalties
By NANCY CLEELAND, Times Staff Writer

Sun Valley manufacturer has agreed to pay $107,000 in back wages and
$3,000 in penalties to settle a federal complaint that the company
submitted misleading information in order to hire three foreign workers
and then underpaid them.


Rolene Otero, director of the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division
district office in Glendale, said the fines should serve as a warning.
"We will not allow employers to have an unfair competitive advantage,
particularly when they do so at the expense of domestic workers who
could have filled the jobs," Otero said.


Exotic Granite & Marble Inc. hired an engineer, an accountant and a
sales manager from India under the H-1B program, which allows employers
to hire foreign professionals when no U.S. workers are available for a
specific job. The men were paid salaries of $24,000 to $30,000. Labor
Department attorneys argued that they should have earned two to three
times that amount.


After more than a year of litigation, the company, which provides
granite and marble for large-scale construction jobs, without admitting
any wrongdoing agreed to pay $66,000 in back wages to one of the
employees and about $33,000 to a second, plus interest. The third
employee received no back wages. Exotic Granite also paid $3,000 to the
federal government.