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Title: Stop Hershey’s Exploitation!
Source:
The WIP
URL Source: http://thewip.net/talk/2011/08/stop_hersheys_exploitation.html
Published: Aug 23, 2011
Author: Miss Majek
Post Date: 2011-08-23 23:08:20 by Fred Mertz
Keywords: None
Views: 6087
Comments: 10
Hundreds of foreign exchange students paid $3,000-$6,000 each to come to the U.S. this summer for what they thought would be a cultural exchange program to learn English and experience American culture. Instead, they found themselves working in deeply exploitative conditions packing chocolates at Hershey's plant in Pennsylvania for low wages. They are forced to work in back-breaking conditions and round-the-clock in production lines. When the students complained, Hershey's threatened to have them deported.
Now the exchange students are fighting back. On August 17, hundreds of student guestworkers from around the world were joined by unemployed U.S. workers and labor leaders in a factory sit-in at the Hershey Chocolate Company packing plant in Pennsylvania. They walked out of the Hershey's plant and into the streets to protest the abusive conditions and to demand big changes to Hershey's deceptive "cultural exchange" program. And they've teamed up with the National Guestworker Alliance to start a petition demanding that Hershey's compensate the exchange students, and turn their work into good jobs for local workers. Visit www.change.org/petitions/...ting-student-guestworkers to add your name to the petition.
Yana, a 19-year-old girl from Ukraine, lifts boxes that weigh 40 pounds -- nearly half her weight. Peng, a 21-year-old economics student from China, also lifts heavy boxes during his eight-hour shifts at the warehouse.
Hundreds of students from Ghana, Turkey, Mongolia, and other countries each paid up to $6,000 for the privilege to come to America in a cultural exchange program this summer. Now Hershey's pays them around $8 an hour for their warehouse work, minus costs of housing -- leaving many students broke, tired, and disillusioned.
Why would Hershey's want to use foreign exchange students as cheap, manual labor? According to the National Guestworker Alliance, a group helping the students, it's about profit. Hershey's is laying off 500 American workers in the next year. The company's strategy is apparently paying off: Hershey's pocketed $130 million in just the last three months.
The foreign exchange students are asking Hershey to refund the thousands of dollars the students paid to come to America. And that's not all: The students also want Hershey's to convert their low-paying positions to living wage jobs for local residents in Pennsylvania.
This is important because their demands ends the exploitation of student workers at the Hershey's plant, returns the money they paid for a cultural exchange, and makes these jobs living wage jobs for local Pennsylvania workers.
Please sign the petition to Hershey's demanding the company refund the students' costs to come to America and give their jobs back to American workers who live near the warehouse.
To learn more about the situation and to sign the petition, visit www.change.org/petitions/...ting-student-guestworkers
Thanks for being a change-maker,
The Change.org team
Poster Comment:
This story is worth my time to post again, from another source. America and Pennsylvania and corporate Hershey should be ashamed.
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America and Pennsylvania and corporate Hershey should be ashamed.
Everyday they demonstrate that they are shameless.
"...all of the equations in neoclassical economics are rubbish. The differential equations describe nothing. Economics is not about mathematics, it is about the human being." Sandeep Jaitly
#2. To: lucysmom (#1)
I'll watch to see how this plays out. It isn't only this sweat shop that is guilty; but it's good the foreign students finally are making a statement.
#3. To: Fred Mertz, ALL (#2)
.."but it's good the foreign students finally are making a statement."
Do you know how pathetically sick your statement is? It's just another acticle showing what PUSSIES Americans have become when they can't get jobs in their own country, keep them out of foreign hands, and speak for themselves for better wages and working conditions.
#4. To: Fred Mertz (#2)
...it's good the foreign students finally are making a statement.
Maybe they'll wake us up.
"...all of the equations in neoclassical economics are rubbish. The differential equations describe nothing. Economics is not about mathematics, it is about the human being." Sandeep Jaitly
#5. To: Fred Mertz (#0) (Edited)
Hershey's is laying off 500 American workers in the next year. The company's strategy is apparently paying off: Hershey's pocketed $130 million in just the last three months.
And the only people who will profit from this in the end will be the foreign workers, because they will sue, and they will pocket their lottory winnings and go home, and these STUPID Americans will have nothing to show for all their efforts but calluses, and egg on their faces...again!
These foreign workers at Hershey were here legally, I'll give them that, but I don't believe for one moment they will serve as an inspiration to the American workers, who for the most part seem to be sitting on their asses, tweeting and Facebooking their lives away while their futures are being destroyed. JMHO!
#6. To: Fred Mertz (#0)
This story is worth my time to post again, from another source.
Fred, as evidenced by the previous thread and now this rehash, you and your lib friends seem allergic to the facts of this story.
Fwiw the US State Dept. has filed a complaint against...the J1 program recruiter CETUSA... who among other things was responsible for "Start-to-finish program administration" and "Round-the-clock support" for these spoiled foreign brats.
America and Pennsylvania and corporate Hershey should be ashamed.
Lol! Actually, its the Obama administration which should be ashamed.. for handing out temporary work visas to spoiled foreigners while there is double digit unemployment in this country.
#7. To: Fred Mertz (#2) (Edited)
It isn't only this sweat shop that is guilty; but it's good the foreign students finally are making a statement.
How about this statement Fred?
“I disagree with the actions of these students because all work, accommodation and all have been hand-signed,” she said. “We knew everything beforehand.”
#8. To: lucysmom, Fred Mertz, ALL (#4)
"...it's good the foreign students finally are making a statement.""Maybe they'll wake us up."
Madea's pot of hot grits and a cast iron skillet up side your head woudn't wake the likes of you up. If there had been no foreign workers and this were American workers protesting and suing on their own, you'd be the first commie pig naggin them to join some fking union, you're a g-damn hypocrite where your own countrymen are concerned..., now you can call the po-po, ho....
#9. To: Murron (#8)
Shut the fuck up you dumb illiterate hick.
-------------------------------------
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#10. To: Fred Mertz (#0)
According to the National Guestworker Alliance, a group helping the students, it's about profit
Yes it is about THEIR profit. If this group doesn't find someone to sue, they will all be out of jobs.
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