[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
They PAID $3000 or more for this.
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They paid $3000-6000 to travel to the US, get a temporary job (with their room and board paid for) and some experience working in the US (plus the experience of actually coming to the US), and with some small amount of spending money left over (above what their folk gave them). Is that a good summary of the situation?
It depends. If I had plans to work in, say, Japan, and wanted to gain some actual experience working and living in Japan, then I might be interested in something like this, yes. Especially if my folks or family had the money to send me.
No, it’s whiny foreign exchange students with little silver spoons in their mouths bitching about having to come to the US and do hard, menial labor…something they probably don’t have to do at home. At least that’s my take on the story. If it’s substantially wrong, feel free to point out why. I’ll say that any family in the countries listed these folks were coming from who could afford $3000-6000 to send their son or daughter over here is not exactly going to be listed as ‘poor’ in their respective countries. That’s a lot of money to for a family in, say, India, to spend on something like this.
But then they wouldn’t have gotten the experience of living and working in the US. I’m willing to bet that back home, none of these kids WOULD have been doing that sort of work, since their families obviously had at least $3000-6000 in disposable income to send their kids to the US on this initiative.
Calling all capitalistic profit “exploitation” is like calling passively taking advantage of racial discrimination “racism”. While it might (or might not!) make sense to use non-standard meanings of these plain English words within your little subset of academia, the pejorative uses of these words are so overwhelming that it does not advance the discussion to insist on the common use of them in discussions with those who don’t agree that the plain English words should be redefined.
I think you’re right about this. I wouldn’t have used the word “exploitation” in the way that An Arky did, precisely for the reasons you give here.
But when someone takes the time to actually explain the more specific, technical use of the term, and the ways in which it differs from the general, conversational use (as both An Arky and i did), then anyone who continues to argue as if the word’s only meaning is the general one just makes a dunce of himself.
I pretty much agree… if these foreigners were going to come to America to do something productive for a few months, WHY would they choose to make shitty, shitty chocolate that no one likes? Is it even actually meet the defined requirements of chocolate anymore?
If you did, you wouldn’t have said: “You assumed that the workers are solely responsible for the value of the finished product, which is completely wrong.”
Look at the program links I posted above. They DO NOT PROMISE CULTURAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS. They promise you an entry-level job (likely at minimum wage), a place to stay, health insurance, and some time to travel. Full stop.
That’s the whole point. They did *not *choose that. Nobody told them back home that they would be packaging shit on the night shift. They signed up for a cultural exchange program, which promptly dumped them on a shady temp agency, who sold them to Hershey as cheap labour. Nobody asked their input on any of this.
[QUOTE=xtisme]
They paid $3000-6000 to travel to the US, get a temporary job (with their room and board paid for) and some experience working in the US (plus the experience of actually coming to the US), and with some small amount of spending money left over (above what their folk gave them). Is that a good summary of the situation?
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Actually, they have to pay rent. Which is what sparked the protest in the first place when they figured out the renter was gouging them, exploiting the fact that a) they don’t know the local housing market and b) they can’t just leave.
This is simply not correct. The Program offers them their choice of jobs. They can also choose their physical location. The participants are free to take the offers or leave them or find their own jobs if they want. The NYT article is clear, that the Hershey exchange students knew they would be working in a Hershey factory before they arrived in the U.S.
They could have chosen to work at Cedar Point, or at the Plattekill, NY Travel Plaza, or at any of hundreds of geographically distributed minimum wage positions.
Some people, call them crazy, think the opportunity to travel to another country is an adventure and educational in itself. They don’t promise any sort of classes, or trips, or language workshops or anything along those lines. They promise you a chance to work overseas.
I used to work at a sleepaway summer camp where we had J-1 visa counsellors (or the early 90s quivalent, their organization was BUNAC). There was always some entitled whiny brat who had the nerve to say that she didn’t expect wooooork on her vacation. Guess what: Taking care of kids at sleepaway camp is a 24 hrs/day job, and we only got 1 day off a week. For the 9 week summer, we made $2200 (1993 dollars) room & board provided. With “room” being a 20x20 canvas topped platform tent you shared with seven 12 year olds.
In what way has the program failed to provide what it offered by way of cultural exchange, namely a chance to work in America and the opportunity to travel?
The radio show I linked to is interesting. It’s about several J-1 holders who work at a rest stop in upstate NY. There, the difference in summer work experience (with some having regrets while others characterized it as the most fun summer EVER) was entirely due to their own personalities and their efforts to make friends with their coworkers.
They are paid minimum wage and they have to pay for their room and board.
It would be one thing if the program placed them in Wall Street or a hospital which relates to their education. If they were being paid minimum wage but had a chance to experience work related to their field that makes sense.
Packing boxes of candy though? I cannot see why anyone would do that in their situation. For $3000-6000 enjoy a trip to the US and travel. You’ll get the culture and practice the language and not from the side of a manufacturing line.
The video notes that once the students are here they are stuck. They often went into debt to come here. This is not some kids with wealthy families. Wealthy families do not send their kids abroad to work packing boxes of candy.
You have little basis to say this. Are these kids better off than the average schmo in their country? Probably. Does that make them wealthy? No.
Again, you do not know that they had $3000 to throw around. As mentioned in the video in the OP they suggest many went into debt.
Again, how many actually wealthy kids do you know who do this?