BYD Responds to Calif. Charges of Labor Violations & Fine With Promise To Hire More U.S. Workers As It Hopes To Expand Production To Europe
In response to charges that it’s California electric bus building operation has been violating that state’s labor and minimum wage laws in the way it employs Chinese nationals, the company issued a statement saying that it is “dedicated to ensuring that its employees are treated fairly” and that it would be hiring more American employees at its California electric bus factory. BYD explained that the Chinese nationals in question were engineers and experts that had been loaned by the parent company to transfer technology and train local employees and that they are not displacing any American workers. California labor officials had hit BYD with a $100,000 fine, charging that the company was paying its Chinese employees only $1.50/hr. The company is appealing that fine. BYD currently employs about 40 local workers at the plant. The state investigation was the result of charges by labor rights group Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy of minimum wage and other labor violations. Last week, BYD had said that the group was spreading “misinformation”.
BYD is stepping up efforts to sell electric vehicles overseas. The California facility is intended to supply contracts for electric buses for the Los Angeles and Long Beach municipalities. In Europe, BYD’s electric buses are in trial service in a number of cities and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport has ordered 35. The company plans to build those buses somewhere in Europe. “We need to have around 100 sales in Europe to justify a plant and we believe that day is really near now,” Isbrand Ho, BYD Europe’s managing director, said in a statement. As yet no location has been chosen.
BYD electric buses have been tried out in Paris, Bremen, Bonn, Madrid, Barcelona, Salzburg, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Brussels and Budapest, and trials will begin in London as well. The electric bus is 12 meters (37 feet) long and is claimed to have a range of 250 kilometers (150 miles) in urban use, powered by lithium iron phosphate battery cells.
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Let me get this straight, BYD says the employees being paid $1.50 are "engineers and experts"? According to Gemini.com's survey of Chinese salaries, an engineer with 2-5 years experience makes 5000 to 11,000 RMB per month. That's $820 to $1886/month. At 160/hours per month that's $5.12 to $11.70 per hour. Not much by American standards but still a lot better than $1.50/hour.
When the kid at the bike shop unpacks a Chinese bicycle from the carton and attaches the front wheel and handlebars, does that constitute "Made in USA"?. I suspect that is what is going on with BYD, token local assembly from a kit so the politicians can claim they created jobs. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if this arrangement costs the taxpayers more than if completed buses were shipped from China.