[情報] 今天華郵上討論海外打工學生的新聞
http://tinyurl.com/3mtrvrk
小心不要被雇主壓榨
要保護自己的權益
Foreign students say visa program abused
By Pamela Constable, Saturday, October 29, 9:30 AM
For years, it has been touted as a form of vacation diplomacy: a U.S.
government program that selects college students from across the globe to
come work at beach resorts, amusement parks and other seasonal jobs. In the
process, the visitors are expected to imbibe American culture, practice
English and take home fond memories.
But in August, students complained that their work conditions were closer to
a sweatshop than a summer break, sparking demands for government intervention
and a firestorm of bad publicity that federal officials are trying to tamp
down.
More than 300 young foreigners, packing candy in a warehouse in Pennsylvania,
staged a high-profile walkout and protest against their employers and the
State Department, which oversees the program. They alleged that they had been
worked to exhaustion and had met few Americans except supervisors who pressed
them to pack faster and threatened to have them deported.
“My parents agreed to send me because it would be a way to improve my
English,” wrote Aysel Kiyaker, a student from Turkey who paid $3,000 for her
airfare and work visa. “They told us the job would be easy and fun and they
would have pizza parties for us.”
Instead, Kiyaker found herself lifting heavy boxes on long shifts in the
rural factory, owned by the Hershey Co. “After work my whole body was numb,”
she wrote in an affidavit for the National Guestworker Alliance. She said
one friend was threatened after she complained, and another was fired for not
working fast enough. “After that happened, people were more afraid.”
The nonprofit guest-worker group took up the students’ cause and filed a
formal complaint against the State Department, as well as Hershey and the
Council for Educational Travel USA (CETUSA), charging that they had exploited
the students as cheap labor. The strike ignited a media frenzy and raised
alarms in Congress, in part because of concerns that American workers were
being displaced.
CETUSA, which manages the program for the State Department, denied the
allegations. Company officials suggested that the striking students had been
misled by union activists and said other students had been placed at Hershey
for seven summers without any problems. Hershey officials said they owned the
building but had no role in hiring or supervising the students, which were
handled through subcontractors.
“If any of them were dissatisfied, we were not hearing it,” said Terry
Watson, CETUSA’s president. “We sponsor thousands of students every summer.
The great majority of them have a wonderful experience and go home spreading
the good word of America.”
But the bad publicity stunned and embarrassed the State Department. Officials
there promised to investigate the alleged abuses and review the program,
which brings more than 100,000 foreign students to the United States every
summer. Department officials said they are planning a major overhaul to
prevent such problems from recurring and to reinforce the program’s
diplomatic purpose.
“We want to make sure it meets our goals for worthwhile exchanges that
promote better relations with other countries,” said Michael Hammer, an
acting assistant secretary of state, adding that the summer jobs are supposed
to be part of a “positive cultural experience.”
In July, before the Hershey case erupted, the department tightened program
rules after reporting an increase in “fraudulent job offers, lax job vetting
” and other problems. Yet Hammer said that more than 90 percent of students
report being satisfied with their experiences — and that many reapply for a
second summer.
Vlad Bicu, 26, a student from Romania, worked in Colonial Williamsburg for
two summers and returned in June to work at an amusement park in Ohio. Each
time he has saved his wages to travel around the United States before
returning home. “I have seen all America now,” Bicu said this week while
visiting New York. “Your Grand Canyon is the most beautiful thing I have
ever seen.”
Yin Fung Tan, 23, a student from Malaysia, spent the summer at Morey’s
Piers, an amusement complex on the New Jersey shore, earning an average of
$300 a week as a cashier and ride operator. The most important thing she
learned was “to look people in the eye and speak to them,” she said. “In
our culture we never do that.”
Company officials at Morey’s Piers said they recruit more than 700 foreign
students each summer, traveling to job fairs from Singapore to Dublin. All
start at $7.25 an hour and work alongside American students. “They learn
from each other, and it changes their lives,” said Denise Beckson, director
of human resources.
But labor activists asserted that the alleged abuses were far more typical
than officials acknowledge. They said even students in lighter hospitality
jobs are often underpaid, poorly housed and threatened with losing their
visas or right to return if they complain.
“While the State Department was asleep at the wheel, this entire program has
turned into a captive labor source where students are exploited for profit,”
said Saket Soni, executive director of the guest-worker group. He said the
program left U.S. workers “locked out” of steady jobs and foreign students
“locked in.”
The State Department already has rules in place to protect foreign student
workers, who must be paid minimum wage and are banned from certain risky or
sensitive jobs, such as patient care and adult entertainment. Department
officials said they are planning to add further safeguards before the next
students arrive.
In the Hershey case, however, officials said only that their investigation is
“ongoing” and that they have taken no action against CETUSA, Hershey or its
subcontractors. In detailed formal complaints, the guest-worker group
described systematic efforts to intimidate students who complained and
charged that government investigators had worked in tandem with factory
managers.
CETUSA, in turn, has fought back with competing affidavits from former
Hershey workers. It quoted Lenka Vavrova, a Polish student, as saying she was
“ashamed” of her co-workers for causing a fuss. They all knew what to
expect at the candy factory, she wrote. “If they did not like it, they
should have chosen something else.”
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