If they actually do have the option of going it alone (and not having their pay docked to cover it), I’d agree with you.
But if they didn’t have any choice in housing and were not informed about the quality or cost of the actual accommodations before getting to the US, it’s a relevant point.
While there may or may not have been laws broken, you are operating under the assumption that both parties (subcontractor and students) went into this agreement with a reasonably complete knowledge of the actual terms and conditions of the program. That, if nothing else, does not appear to be the case.
Well, here’s the thing: To whom did they pay the $3000 - $6000 fee? Was it to Hershey or to some recruiting firm that might not even be American? And were they told upfront what they had signed up for (rent, etc.)? Are they required to rent through the work sponsor?
At any rate, it looks on the surface like this is a pretty big problem that should be addressed, starting with Congress for passing stupid laws like this with huge unintended consequences. I’m not sure that singling out Hershey as the bad guy here is right.
^^ A better version of what I was trying to say in post #19.
The students are being paid to do a job, and are paying for food and shelter, and actually have some cash left over. That, in and of itself, doesn’t sound too terrible to me. The problem lies not with the employers, but with a program that makes it prohibitively expensive to get placed in the job in the first place. The article doesn’t explain much about the exchange program in question and I’m not about to go digging any deeper right now, so I won’t comment further about that, but I stand by my opinion that the outrage toward Hershey and Exel is misdirected.
no u (is pretty much the level of your elucidation)…
I explained that profit has to come from somewhere, and I wasn’t bemoaning the evils of capitalism but merely pointing out that somewhere in the process, someone usually gets something off of someone else. I don’t care, as I am a capitalist, because I don’t like the other ism’s as much.
Exploitation: NOUN
1.The act of employing to the greatest possible advantage: exploitation of copper deposits.
All this shows is that you don’t understand the way that the term is being used.
It’s being used here in an economic and not a pejorative moral sense. It is simply a recognition that, in order for the capitalist to make a return on his investment, he MUST, of necessity, pay his workers less than the sum total of the wealth that they produce through their labor. Because the difference between the wealth that they produce through their labor and what he pays them is his profit.
And this applies to lawyers making $250,000 a year as much as it does to factory workers making $8 an hour. If a lawyer (or accountant, or middle manager, or whatever) is being paid $250,000 a year by his or her company, you can be sure that this worker is creating (or is expected to create) more than $250,000 worth of income for the company. They’re not hiring the person as a charity, in order to take a loss. Same for the factory workers; they have to be hired at a rate that allows the work they do to generate more money for the firm than the total of their wages.
In a very real, non-judgmental sense, no-one who works for someone else is actually paid what he or she is worth, at least not in a business where the owner or investor plans to make a profit. Because if everyone were paid what they were worth, there would be no profit.
Marx described this profit as the surplus value extracted from labor, and he and his followers also attached a moral value to the issue. But it is possible to recognize the reality of the value extraction without seeing it as morally dubious or questionable. It can be exploitation in an economic sense, but whether it’s exploitation in a moral or normative sense is a subjective judgment.
Unfettered Capitalism inevitably leads to exploitation.
It is not a feature of Capitalism but exploitation is an unavoidable result of Capitalism left to itself.
We need not even theorize about this. We have seen this in the early 20th century in the US and still see it in sweatshops around the world and in this case with the students.
In this case apparently these jobs at Hershey were unionized and paid $18/hour or more. Hershey, obviously, managed to somehow stay in business when that was the case.
When it comes to these J-1 visa students I see no other possible description for what has happened to them except exploitative.
All that, and you still neglected to take into consideration what value the owners bring to the equation. What the workers (non-owners) produce is not equal to the final value of the product. The owner adds additional value, and takes his payment in the form of profit.
The program makes quite clear that virtually all of the jobs are entry-level and minimum wage, and that one of the jobs they might work in, is a factory.
The program DOES NOT make any promise about the job having ANY educational element. Just the right to work, the opportunity to live in the US, and a chance to travel, and experience which is regarded as inherently educational.
The program does not require anyone to take a particular job assignment. You can also find your own job and your own housing if you want. The program arranges housing, all visa processing including fees, support staff in the US, assistance with transportation, and health insurance for the duration of their stay.
I think they are a bunch of whining pussies. They probably thought that the Hershey’s factory would be some sort of fun paradise where they would barely have to lift a finger. Well, welcome to reality. These people were not mislead. They just don’t like what they agreed to.
Amen. I like how they deduct food and rent and then tell you how much is left over per hour. As my father put it to me when I was 15 and bitching about my low pay, “Oh yeah? Well guess what, after the mortgage, food, fuel, utilities, insurance, and your tuition, I only have $4/hr left, too!”
So these college kids work a minimum wage job, pay for an optional dorm and a meal plan, and have only a couple grand left over…sounds like they’re getting the typical American college experience to me.
They sound like every other whiny, entitled first-world kid that gets their first job. “Whaaat? You mean staying alive costs money? Daaaaaaad, it’s not fair!”
It’s a foreign exchange program, and the students are promised they get to live and work alongside Americans, not a bunch of other foreigners, which is what the reality is.
At $8/hour they’d net $3840 for the summer (assuming 12 weeks @ 40 hours/week).
Would you pay $3000 to travel to another country to make a profit of $840 for three months of work? $10/day? After you pay for room and board what are you left with?
It is suggested some pay as much as $6000 to get here.
This is not some whiny little silver spoon stuck in their ass suburban kid bitching about working at McDonalds.
I am willing to bet these young people could have found work packing boxes where they came from without the trouble of applying for visas and digging up money and traveling around the world to put candy into boxes.
And if you notice these are not “first world kids” for the most part but rather talented kids from non-first world countries.
Your assertion is that the town of Palmyra and the plant itself, consists almost entirely of (ahem) “Foreigners”? And this is the major complaint that the students have? Interesting.
No, because I can do math. Why did they do it? Apparently because they can’t add, or because they seem some value in it, for example, it might be desirable to employers to have worked in the US, as a demonstration of your English skills.
Your assertion is that the town of Palmyra and the plant itself, consists almost entirely of (ahem) “Foreigners”? And this is the major complaint that the students have? Interesting.
You’ll see that the program didn’t fool them; they fooled themselves.
*Harika Duygu Ozer, 19, a second-year medical student from a university in Istanbul, said she had heard from friends that the summer exchange program would be fun and that she would earn enough money to pay for her medical school tuition.
“I said, ‘Why not?’ This is America,” Ms. Ozer said. *
“Hershey walkout”? [consults Urban Dictionary]