Employers to send protesting students on vacation
Source: Agencies |
August 21, 2011, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
EMPLOYERS of protesting foreign students who walked off jobs at a warehouse that distributes Hershey chocolate have developed a compromise plan that would send the students on a trip to see US landmarks.
Rick Anaya, chief executive of the Council for Educational Travel USA, the nonprofit that helped bring the students to the US, said the plan emerged on Friday after a two-hour conference call between the companies employing them at a chocolate distribution center just outside Hershey.
"We're paying for this trip. We're just fleshing out the details," Anaya said, including paid time off for the student-workers.
The students were granted J-1 visas, which supply resorts and other businesses with cheap seasonal labor as part of a program aimed at fostering cultural understanding. More than 100,000 college students come to the US annually on such visas, but an investigation by The Associated Press last year described how some ended up stuck in extremely low-paying jobs and living in crowded, unsanitary conditions.
Too strenuous
Some students walked off the job on Wednesday saying the work was so strenuous and low-paying that they were unable to travel. They come from Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania and other countries.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach students for comment on the new proposal.
Saket Soni, executive director of the New Orleans-based National Guestworker Alliance, which has helped organize the students, said that the initial reaction by student leaders was to take a wait-and-see posture.
"I honestly can't say whether they'll agree to it or not," Soni said.
More than 100 students demonstrated in downtown Hershey on Thursday, chanting and holding signs that described themselves as slaves and captive workers and targeted The Hershey Co in particular. Exel is a Hershey vendor, and SHS supplies workers to Excel.
A protest organizer said about 200 students continue to support the work stoppage. The students say they want their jobs converted into sustainable work for local residents.
Rick Anaya, chief executive of the Council for Educational Travel USA, the nonprofit that helped bring the students to the US, said the plan emerged on Friday after a two-hour conference call between the companies employing them at a chocolate distribution center just outside Hershey.
"We're paying for this trip. We're just fleshing out the details," Anaya said, including paid time off for the student-workers.
The students were granted J-1 visas, which supply resorts and other businesses with cheap seasonal labor as part of a program aimed at fostering cultural understanding. More than 100,000 college students come to the US annually on such visas, but an investigation by The Associated Press last year described how some ended up stuck in extremely low-paying jobs and living in crowded, unsanitary conditions.
Too strenuous
Some students walked off the job on Wednesday saying the work was so strenuous and low-paying that they were unable to travel. They come from Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania and other countries.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach students for comment on the new proposal.
Saket Soni, executive director of the New Orleans-based National Guestworker Alliance, which has helped organize the students, said that the initial reaction by student leaders was to take a wait-and-see posture.
"I honestly can't say whether they'll agree to it or not," Soni said.
More than 100 students demonstrated in downtown Hershey on Thursday, chanting and holding signs that described themselves as slaves and captive workers and targeted The Hershey Co in particular. Exel is a Hershey vendor, and SHS supplies workers to Excel.
A protest organizer said about 200 students continue to support the work stoppage. The students say they want their jobs converted into sustainable work for local residents.
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