Foreign students, labor leaders protest Hershey packing plant

[Omaha Steve]

Source: WHTM

By Myles Snyder and Jeannie Flitner

HERSHEY, Pa. (WHTM) -

Dozens of foreign students who claim they are being exploited at a packing plant owned by The Hershey Company teamed up with labor leaders for a sit-in Wednesday.

The 18- and 19-year-old students said they paid between $3,000 and 6,000 each to come to the United States as part of a cultural exchange program administered by the U.S. Department of State. But instead of learning about American culture, they said they've been working at the Eastern Distribution Center in Derry Township.

"Their cultural exchange consisted of them working within the four walls of the factory, consisted of living in company housing, watching their paychecks reduced to barely $100 a week after deductions," said Saket Soni, Executive Director of the National Guestworker Alliance. "In essence, they became captive workers."

The protestors said Hershey should be forced to give the 400 jobs to American workers at the union pay rate, rather than pass it off as an exchange program to save money.

Read more: http://www.abc27.com/story/15286462/foreign-students-la...

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Video at link.

[Javaman]

1. ah yes, love; american style.

don't hire Americans, hire foreign slaves.

You see it's like this: Hersey can't ship the jobs overseas for the cheap labor, so they bring them here.

I think we fought a war over something like that back in the 1860's, no?

[Donnachaidh]

2. So Hershey's has become The Company Store of the 21st Century?

Someone needs to send this to KO at Current.

[valerief]

3. Now they understand America a whole lot more. America isn't about Americans anymore.nt

[alp227]

4. I was about to say this. If the State Dept was really involved, shame on them.

Way to use the American flag as toilet paper right here. Or maybe some Hershey's scammer made this whole thing up to extort the students.

[No Elephants]

5. What are they complaining about? They did learn about American culture, maybe more

than most American voters know about it.

It's the plutonomy, baby!

[Omaha Steve]

6. Kick

[totodeinhere]

7. Those greedy SOB's. Anything to save a buck and get away with not paying union scale. n/t

[Blue_Tires]

8. The local businesses at the oceanfront have been doing this for years

I don't know if it's part of the 'official' State Department program, though...

[TBF]

10. At many resorts actually -

we stayed at one in Colorado a couple years ago and most of the service folks were young attractive folks from other countries who said they were majoring in hospitality back at their universities. I didn't think to ask them about their pay but that would've been an interesting topic I'm sure.

[RamboLiberal]

9. Wow - Is it 1900 and are Henry Clay Frick still alive?

Republican America!

[RWS]

11. A scam to pay less plain and simple

These kids were lied to, that constitutes fraud in my books and breach of contract. They are lied about what the job is like, the cost of living, and the numerous charges that the compan(ies) are going to charge them. They even dropped serious amounts of cash to come over for the experience. If this is the future of the work exchange program then why not just call it a regular visa with the ability to bride (pay) your way into America.


I know from experience as this happened to me when I went to Australia. I had plenty of experience in the job I was going over to do, in fact I was over qualified. But I wanted to travel and enjoy and meet Australians while getting an idea of how they work etc. First off I was lied to about the amount of pay and it dropped by $2 an hour when I got there. From 16 to 14 an hour. Secondly I was told that
I would receive free house, free lunch, and a car to share with my 2 other workers. Turns out my rent for the house was 300 a month (the house would not have been legally rentable in Australia at the time and would have been condemned), the lunch was 5 dollars per day, and the car was 40 dollars a day for a 1987 ford falcon(a brand new Holden hatch was about 30 a day/700 a month in the city) and I had to pay a down payment of 200 for insurance on the car. These were all reasons I opted for that job over other offers.

When I told them about these issues they promptly told me to leave and started harassing me. I had this all in writing but between lawyer fees and not knowing what to do it is almost impossible to make any of the money back that you lost on the trip over. Since I am all alone in a new country and about 60 miles from the nearest bus station what can I do.

That Hershey’s does this on a greater scale is infuriating. And through contractors no less so they can say they "didn’t know." And the workers paid even more then I did to come over for fewer wages. I’m sure they added up the numbers and with what they were told that they were at least going to come out even but not so because the company and its friends (apartments/transport) are all making money and paying nothing back. It is the classic company town or African Americans land lending scam circa 1890 come back to America.

"Furthermore, employers are exempt from paying Social Security, Medicare, federal and state unemployment taxes on J-1 workers. And because J visa holders are required to pay for their own health insurance coverage during their stay in the U.S., employers can employ J visa holders without paying for their health care costs, another significant cost savings. Employers are also NOT REQUIRED to advertise their
open positions or recruit unemployed U.S. workers, even in areas in the United States suffering from high unemployment. " - Daniel Costa epi.org

Apartments in that area are about 800-1000 for 2 bedroom 1-2bath. 400 x 4 is 1600 400 x 6 is 2400. Where is all the extra money going? You would think that with a large influx of workers you could get a group rate. The average wage for this type of position is above 8.25. It is more like 10-11(still woefully low). This is the definition of exploitation. And where else do these kids have to turn to. They are miles away from home. Without a full understanding of our laws and customs (what they were supposed to learn the easy way). And they are out of pocket 3k-6k which for many young people anywhere is an incredible amount of money. This is a travesty plain and simple. It is just a scam

long text and first text on website, I just get so riled up at how other websites have posters defend the scammers saying it is "just business or something"

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Yes, a REAL ally of labor would ban H1B and J1 visas, as well as the

horrible scheme in the Mariana Islands where companies import Chinese laborers and keep them in slave-like conditions exempt from U.S. labor laws.

(I boycott anything made in the Mariana Islands.)

The resort jobs that J1 visa holders do in resorts used to go almost exclusively to college students, at least through the 1970s. I wonder when that stopped. (Of course, college students usually have Stateside parents to complain to if the employers get Scrooge-like.)

Note to self: Find a new source for chocolate for s'mores.

[Yon_Yonson]

13. Foreign students walk off Hershey’s factory job in protest

The Lookout

By Liz Goodwin 3 hrs ago

Hundreds of foreign students on a State Department cultural exchange visa program walked off their factory jobs in protest on Wednesday.

The J-1 visa program brings foreign students to the country to work for two months and learn English, and was designed in part to fill seasonal tourism jobs at resorts and seaside towns. The 400 students employed at a Pennsylvania factory that makes Hershey's candies told The New York Times that even though they make $8.35 an hour, their rent and program fees are deducted from their paychecks, leaving them with less money than they spent to get the visas and travel to the country in the first place.

Some of the students were assigned night shifts, and said they were pressured to work faster and faster on the factory lines.

Hershey's said they didn't hire the students when the Times asked:


A spokesman for Hershey's, Kirk Saville, said the chocolate company did not directly operate the Palmyra packing plant, which is managed by a company called Exel. A spokeswoman for Exel said it had found the student workers through another staffing company.

Last December, the AP revealed that federal immigration officials were investigating two human-trafficking abuse cases related to J-1 visas. Strip clubs openly solicited J-1 visa holders in job listings, and some foreign students told the AP they were forced into sexual slavery when their passports were confiscated by a ring of criminals. About 150,000 J-1 visas were given out in 2008. Businesses save about 8 percent by using a foreign worker because of Social Security and other taxes they do not have to pay.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/foreign-students-wa...