American Techno-Politics

Tata Accused of Withholding H1-B Tax Returns; Class Action Filed

In one of the most blatant cases of abuse I have ever heard of against H1-B workers, Tata America (one of the largest Indian BPOs) stands accused of forcing workers to sign over their state and federal tax returns to them. We have been tracking abuse for a period of time and this takes the cake.

Gopi Vedachalam, a Tata America employee, on Tuesday filed a nationwide class action lawsuit in the District Court in San Francisco against Tata America International Corporation, and its parent Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, as well as Tata Sons, Ltd. The proposed class action suit consists of thousands of current non-US citizen employees of Tata working in the United States, plus former Tata employees dating back to 2000.

According to the Economic Times of India, the suit charges that the Tata company has unjustly enriched itself by requiring all of its non-US-citizen employees to endorse and sign over their federal and state tax refund checks to Tata.

Both the Department of Labor and Immigrations and Customs have been asleep at the switch when it comes to detecting and preventing abuse of guest workers and visa fraud. We can only hope that victims are able to seek justice through the court systems. I must point out that our guest worker policy, which demands that the Department of Labor rubber-stamp applications, is prone to abuse because the law was written to actually prevent proactive enforcement.

LIEFF CABRASER HEIMANN & BERNSTEIN, LLP is the lawfirm representing this case. If you have been a victim of these abusive practices by Tata or any other company you may contact them direct via this link: http://www.lieffcabraser.com/lawsuitagainsttata.htm

posted by R. Lawson @ 6:47 PM