After weeks of allegations ranging from labor violations to procurement delays, electric bus company BYD Motors–represented by the prominent Washington D.C. attorney Lanny Davis–held an impromptu press conference last Friday to address concerns and clarify what the company says is “misinformation.”
This past October, two major national stories—one from the New York Times and the other from the Los Angeles Times—claimed that the State of California’s Department of Industrial Relations was investigating the American subsidiary of the Chinese-owned company for alleged labor violations. The citations, which numbered 112, accused the bus manufacturer of employing Chinese nationals with wages less than the California minumum wage and would amount to almost $100K in penalties if sustained.
Additionally, the bus manufacturer saw issues during one of their models’ Altoona testing, the Federal testing program which oversees the efficiency, quality, and safety of public transit vehicles.
Long Beach Transit’s Board of Directors voted in March to purchase 10 American-built buses from BYD Motors, which is preparing a Lancaster plant for bus production.
“I just want to address issues that we [BYD] believe to be beyond factual dispute and that are capable of being substantiated,” Davis said. “The [Department of Industrial Relations] has given citations which are allegations of violations; they are not determinations. And a citation is different than a fine, which some news reporting confused those two words.”
Davis clarified the DIR’s alleged violations, admitting that BYD had employed five Chinese nationals over the course of four to five months, two of whom have already left, with the other three departing by the end of this month. Calling the allegations that the nationals were paid egregiously low wages “utterly false,” Davis said that each were actually paid somewhere in the range of $12 to $16/hour.
“There is an innuendo and inference in various places on the internet that BYD is a Chinese company importing Chinese workers and displacing American workers,” Davis continued. “In fact, it is exactly the reverse: this is a Chinese company creating an American company with American jobs—a nice change given it is usually the reverse.”
{loadposition latestbusiness}
According to BYD officials, the company currently has 15 full-time workers in its Lancaster plant and 20 at its Downtown Los Angeles headquarters. Of those, 21 are U.S. citizens, seven hold Green Cards, and the remaining seven have legal documents which support them working here. Davis also noted projections that say by the end of 2015, BYD is expected to have created 200 American jobs as well as involving 20 California vendors in their bus production.
Davis also used the press conference to state that BYD’s Altoona testing has revealed no signs of an unsafe bus, despite reports of issues including bracket installation problems and cracks in the welds near the rear of the bus.
“Rumors about safety issues are utterly false,” Davis said. “Altoona testing has proved no safety issues whatsoever.”
At the most recent Long Beach Transit (LBT) Board meeting, Rolando Cruz noted that a delay in the procurement of the buses could come about since the LBT Board is requesting that the current bus–one built in China to LBT specifications which has already undergone 6,000 of the required 15,000 miles of testing–be replaced by an American-made one which will be LBT’s actual production model.
“The bus currently being tested in Altoona is indeed the production unit that will be delivered to LBT,” Davis said. “We do have a disagreement with the Federal Transit Authority on that subject.”
As to why LBT, BYD, and the FTA seem to be confused with one another—LBT wants BYD to test another model while BYD insists they are already testing the model LBT wants them to test—remained unclear.
“While I agree there is a misunderstanding, I am not sure if it was BYD’s own miscommunication,” Davis said. “Sometimes, there are honest misunderstandings and that is the best explanation I can offer… There is only one set of facts and that is that there is one bus—not two—being tested at Altoona with no safety issues.”
BYD is required to deliver its buses to LBT by June 2014.
Read more:
- BYD Accused of Labor Violations by State; Subassemblies Disapproved for Use by LBT
- BYD Executives Defend Flaws Discovered on LBT-Destined Chinese Bus Frames
- Long Beach Transit Faces New Challenges with Electric Bus Procurement
- Chinese Bus Company Recommended By LBT Fabricates Stats; Earnings Are “Below Expectations”
- After Deferring Voting, LBT Board to Discuss Purchase of Electric Buses From Chinese Company