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Foreign Students Walk Off Hershey’s Factory Job In Protest
Yahoo News ^ | 8-18-2011 | Liz Goodwin

Posted on 08/18/2011 6:56:48 PM PDT by blam

Foreign Students Walk Off Hershey’s Factory Job In Protest

By Liz Goodwin
August 18, 2011

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: buildthefence; culturalexchange; daca; deportthem; dreamact; dreamers; foreighstudents; foreignstudents; hershey; hersheys; j1visa; jobs; kicktheirassesout; labor; lizgoodwin; protest; visaprogram
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To: blam

We have around 25 million unemployed or under employed Americans and around 25 million illegals. Why in the hell are we still bring in more foreigners to work with special visas? This is flat out stupid by a country trying to kill itself.


41 posted on 08/18/2011 10:35:17 PM PDT by packrat35 (America is rapidly becoming a police state that East Germany could be proud of!)
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To: blam
The students probably just wanted UNION healthcare and other benefits the UNION workers get.
That is the main problem Hershey is leaving PA... the unions are out regeouse with their demands for union wages and benefits for ALL union workers.

I live just outside of Hershey and remember the last rounds where the unin wanted to be the determiner of who works there and what they get paid.

High school kid who wants to push a broom or load boxes for $12 ab hour?
NO say the union, they get full Bennie's and the local insist they get full package.

Hershey does not run into the propblam outside of Hershey... so they leave.
The union is who procures union Job.

No signed up to the union???? NO JOB FOR YOU~!

42 posted on 08/18/2011 10:35:47 PM PDT by JSteff ((((It was ALL about SCOTUS. Most forget about that and HAVE DOOMED us for a generation or more.))))
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To: blam
The students probably just wanted UNION healthcare and other benefits the UNION workers get.
That is the main problem Hershey is leaving PA... the unions are out regeouse with their demands for union wages and benefits for ALL union workers.

I live just outside of Hershey and remember the last rounds where the unin wanted to be the determiner of who works there and what they get paid.

High school kid who wants to push a broom or load boxes for $12 ab hour?
NO say the union, they get full Bennie's and the local insist they get full package.

Hershey does not run into the propblam outside of Hershey... so they leave.
The union is who procures union Job.

No signed up to the union???? NO JOB FOR YOU~!

43 posted on 08/18/2011 10:36:26 PM PDT by JSteff ((((It was ALL about SCOTUS. Most forget about that and HAVE DOOMED us for a generation or more.))))
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To: blam

I’m glad I hate chocolate.


44 posted on 08/18/2011 11:03:12 PM PDT by WVNan
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To: WVNan

I wish I hated chocolate!


45 posted on 08/19/2011 12:10:52 AM PDT by jackieh
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To: God luvs America

...I know ,I live about 8 miles from the Mars plant that does..*smiles*


46 posted on 08/19/2011 2:36:35 AM PDT by Doogle ((USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: blam

And what’s the unemployment rate of our own student-age population?


47 posted on 08/19/2011 2:49:03 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Jagdgewehr
Perhaps there are some hungry, out-of-work Americans that would be very happy to have the employment.

Hershey's and the related companies are actually laying off their own employees in order to utilize this cheaper labor. They've laid off over 500 employees over the past few years and expect t layoff that many or more over the next year or so.

48 posted on 08/19/2011 5:00:16 AM PDT by CT-Freeper (Visit CTF.org)
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To: max americana
Regardless of education, the process is the same.

*Get a job so you can learn how to show up, stay busy and please your boss
* If the job doesn't pay enough you learn what it takes to get promoted or find another job that pays more
* If finding another job that pays more is hard because of skills, you find a way to acquire the skills to land a better job

...and so it goes. But, for them who've never had a job or an interest in finding one the process never develops.

49 posted on 08/19/2011 6:45:30 AM PDT by Baynative (If the government was in charge of the desert , we'd soon have a shortage of sand.)
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To: freedumb2003
2 word contest:



50 posted on 08/19/2011 6:48:50 AM PDT by Baynative (If the government was in charge of the desert , we'd soon have a shortage of sand.)
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To: blam

Unions are meddling in this situation. What a surprise!


51 posted on 08/19/2011 6:53:26 AM PDT by Fresh Wind ('People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook.' Richard M. Nixon)
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To: Oceander
. . . at the end of the day, it’s the employees who are bearing the loss of wealth that goes to pay those taxes.

So are you trying to say that employers who don't have to pay the tab for a J-1's social security, thereby reducing their costs by 8% or so, do not have an incentive to hire J-1's over locals?

I would disagree strongly because the employer's costs are thus reduced and he does NOT have to share that increase in wealth with the employee.

Some of the purists have accused me of socialist thinking for application of the realities of labor economics to real life.

They argue that open borders are a good thing because they reduce costs across the board which benefit everyone. Juan McCain is one of them who holds out the prospect of unaffordable lettuce in the grocery stores if we have to pay lettuce pickers $50 per hour.

That's an idiotic argument on at least three counts:

  1. You would be able to attract quality lettuce pickers at considerably less than $50 per hour, either from locals, legitimate guest workers, invention of new technologies (like mechanical harvesting), more imported lettuce or whatever.
  2. Labor makes up a tiny fraction of the cost of a head of lettuce. Supposing a slow harvesting pace of 5 heads a minute and McCain's pie-in-the sky wage of $50/hour, You would add about 17 cents per head of lettuce.
  3. Finally-- and this is the key-- the open borders advocates never calculate the costs their policies impose on society at large. I shouldn't even have to list them. I will concede that since J-1's are specifically healthy young people from a variety of countries, the social service costs may be minimal. But I wouldn't care to calculate the resentment costs of young people who were promised an American cultural experience and were exploited in the manners described.

Years ago, my sister worked in Grand Canyon National Park in the summer. By the time that food and dorm fees were deducted, she ended up with a little less than minimum wage. She still considered it a great experience because the hours were reasonable as were the meals and dorm fees. Somehow, I don't thank that is the case here. Kids from the Ukraine do not come to America infused with the same bloated sense of entitlement as does your average Section 8 housing occupant. But I could be wrong . . .

52 posted on 08/19/2011 8:00:58 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: blam

My son has managed some of these kids who come over, mostly from the former Soviet Union. It’s a bit of a scam they run on them... they often put them in apartments in very run down and dangerous areas, or in very cramped seaside accomodations... the kids have no idea where they are staying, but quickly learn. It’s all done under the guise of a cultural exchange... but in the end the employers get extremely cheap summer help. These are not spoiled youngsters... they are used to having to scrape by, so if they had an issue with Hersey’s, I have a feeling it was because they were promised one thing, and as usual something else was delivered. Many of them are financing part of this trip/experience...
Why are we importing slavs? Because American kids don’t want to do the normal summer jobs anymore...particularly in the mid-Atlantic and eastern seabord. It’s much easier for these employers to import someone who they know will have to stay for the entire two months.
Why do you think girls take jobs as au pairs? It’s marketed to them as a cultural exchange. Many do this type of work before going to University. And many have a great time, but some unfortunately are taken advantage of.


53 posted on 08/19/2011 9:51:25 AM PDT by Katya (Homo Nosce Te Ipsum)
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To: blam
Disgruntled foreigners working on an American candy company conveyor line.............think about that the next time you plan to buy M&Ms.............

8:}

54 posted on 08/19/2011 3:28:39 PM PDT by AwesomePossum (I have never looked this forward to a November II........)
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To: Vigilanteman

I am saying that the cost of whatever employment taxes an employer writes the check for is borne by the employee, not the employer.

On the more general point of hiring J-1s - I really don’t give a damn; I’m a free-marketer and get sick and tired of the lazy dolts who want to lock everything up so that God forbid someone who wasn’t graced by being born in the US wants to come to one of the few places where an individual can make a decent life for himself and his kin.

Obviously that isn’t these little J-1 twits, but nonetheless, the general point still stands: if you decide you’re going to cut these off because they’re supposedly taking jobs away from Americans (that is one of the oldest, and stupidest, canards in the book), then you’re just a socialist prostitute and the only thing left to discuss is your price.


55 posted on 08/19/2011 4:18:04 PM PDT by Oceander (The phrase "good enough for government work" is not meant as a compliment)
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To: Oceander
I'm not advocating a ban on the hiring of foreign workers, be they J-1's, HB-1's or whatever. I'm simply advocating that employers not be given incentives to hire them over American workers by allowing them to pay lower wages, gain indentured servants or such.

If an imported worker is truly better that their American counterpart, they should be willing to pay a premium, not less.

This is how the system works in Japan-- you must pay the imported worker a slight premium over the average wage of a local (Japanese or permanent resident) worker. When I worked there, it only took slightly over one month to process my visa for precisely that reason: the government saw the company was willing to pay me a premium wage over my Japanese counterparts so as not likely bringing me in to save on what they normally paid.

The result was fewer, but much happier, foreign workers.

56 posted on 08/22/2011 9:08:19 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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