THIS STORY OF foreign students protesting their wages at a chocolate plant in Pennsylvania is truly remarkable. The students came to this country on State Department work-travel visas, known as J-1 visas, which are commonly used to provide businesses with a pool of cheap foreign labor, especially in the summer. The students’ complaints, judging from the news accounts, are two-fold. One, they wanted to make more money for less labor. (They are paid $8.35 an hour.) Two, they wanted to have a good time.
One of the students came right out and said that she was expecting Charle’s Chocolate Factory, not a real manufacturing plant. What an outrage. No Oompa-Loompas or Willy Wonka. No Veruca Salt or Mike Teavee. According to the New York Times,
When she was offered a contract for a job at a plant with Hershey’s chocolates, she said, she was excited. “We have all seen Charlie’s chocolate factory,” she said. “We thought, ‘This is good.’ ”
The State Department grants the students visas through an agency called the Council for Educational Travel. The Council works with employers around America to find foreign students jobs, a service unavailable to Americans. There are no agencies rounding up paying jobs and summer housing for any American college students who are without employment and would like to work. Read More »