Log on to myAJC.com to explore an interactive chart of the Georgia school districts that hire the most foreign teachers.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the owner of a Jonesboro firm that recruits international teachers for Georgia schools acknowledged that her company cannot always pay her contract teachers on time and that they do not receive their full salary until they are placed in a school district.
Paddy Sharma, founder and CEO of Global Teachers Research and Resources, rejected charges that she unfairly treats her workers, but her business practices appear to put her at odds with federal rules governing the treatment of foreign workers brought to the United States under the H-1B visa program, according to experts.
“I have been here 40 years, being a U.S. citizen,” said Sharma, whose company is the largest placing teachers in Georgia school districts. “I know the rules.”
Sharma's comments follow an AJC investigation that found wide disparities in the employment and benefit packages offered foreign teachers as compared to U.S. teachers employed directly by school districts.
Since 2010, Georgia school districts have paid recruiting firms more than $52 million to provide foreign teachers, most of which has gone to Global. There's a financial incentive for districts since international teachers do not receive pensions or health insurance from the districts and they are not eligible for tenure.
DeKalb County schools, Global's largest client, opened a review of its relationship with Global and the benefits offered teachers following the AJC's report. The district has spent at least $16.3 million contracting with recruiting firms since 2010, more than any other district in the state; at least $6 million of that amount has gone to Global.
“This analysis will cover all applicable federal and state labor and employment laws and regulations as well as relevant district policies,” Superintendent Michael Thurmond said in a written statement. Thurmond gave district lawyers until April 1 to complete their review.
Contract teachers working for DeKalb are not paid for days they are sick, and are expected to pay Global the cost of a substitute teacher. They do not get district benefits, a pension or receive tenure, in part because they are officially the employees of the agency that recruited them.
Daniel McNeil, deputy legal director for the American Federation of Teachers, said school districts like DeKalb may be violating Georgia law mandating how teachers must be hired, how they are paid and when contracts are signed and using recruiting firms as a buffer may not provide districts much protection, he said.
“I just see this as a flagrant violation of the law and it violates the spirit of the H-1B system,” he said.
Some Global teachers told the AJC they did not get regular paychecks from the company until they landed their first job with a school district. Several teachers said they spent time living in Sharma’s guest house, sometimes only receiving subsistence money for food, clothing and other essentials.
Sharma said she pays new teachers a subsistence wage until they land their first job in a school district.
“There is a gap from the time they arrive in May or June or July … until they are in the school system,” she said. “They do have a small payment, because they have not actually started working.”
Sharma said employees are added to the company payroll as soon as they receive their Social Security number, although they don’t get their full wage until the company starts receiving money from their school district. Sharma said the underpayment evens out by the end of the year.
Sharma blamed any late payments to teachers on school districts that are tardy paying the company.
Sharma said her bimonthly payroll runs around $400,000 and changes in how districts pay sometimes mean she’s dealing with two pay periods at a time. That’s too much for her company to bear while waiting for the districts to pay up, she said.
“We are at the mercy (of the school districts),” she said.
She repeatedly declined to name the districts that are habitually late, saying she did not want to ruin her business relationship with them.
The U.S. Department of Labor requires H-1B workers not “adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers comparably employed.” To do that, the department has determined employers must pay their international workers the “prevailing” wage, and immigration attorney Charles Kuck said that has to start immediately.
“They will ding you for not having done that every week of every year, and there are a lot of employers who learn that the hard way,” Kuck said.
The U.S. Department of Labor opened an investigation into Global in November and asked teachers to speak with them about their employer’s labor practices. Sharma said she is aware some of her teachers have been interviewed, but she said she is confident the investigators will confirm she has done nothing wrong.
“They have put us on the back burner,” she said. “They said we employ very decently.”
The company was fined more than $77,000 in 2011 following a similar federal investigation for failing to properly pay its foreign workers
The AJC spoke to teachers recruited by Global who claimed to have been required to pay their own immigration costs or who had gone periods without full-time work. If true, both claims likely violate of federal law, Kuck said.
All teachers who spoke to the AJC said they have a portion of their paycheck — up to 10 percent — deducted by Global for undefined “fees.” That’s on top of an annual fee paid by the districts to Global that can be as much as $11,500 per teacher.
The Labor Department looked at many of these same claims when it last investigated the company, including 10 percent administrative fee employees are charged. In the end, investigators determined the fee was OK as long as the employee still received the “prevailing wage” after the deduction.
In the earlier probe, Global officials claimed the administrative fee was taken only during the first three years of employment and was “voluntary.” But Sharma told the AJC it’s required and it doesn’t go away.
She said she uses the money to pay for office expenses, taxes and insurance.
“The 10 percent has to be paid,” she said.
In addition, a Global employment agreement supplied by a teacher to the AJC includes the stipulation that teachers who quit within a year will pay a $12,000 “promissory note” to Global to cover “recruiting, training, educating, marketing and replacing” them.
Beyond the scrutiny from the Department of Labor, Global is dealing with nearly $2 million in tax liens from the IRS. Sharma said she has an agreement to pay back those taxes.
Sharma also defended an email she sent to employees hours before the AJC’s article about her company was published in January, promising green cards to loyal employees.
“Whether I am alive or not I will make sure that you will all get your green card … and stay happily settled in this country,” the email, signed “Senior Management,” stated.
Sharma said she sent the letter when she was in an emotional state and only wanted to reassure her teachers that they would not be forced to leave the country.
“I’m very attached to the teachers,” she said. “It is just telling them what my heart felt, that they should not be feeling that 10 years of work was going to be wasted.”
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