Companies Point Fingers as Students Protest Conditions at Chocolate Plant

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

HERSHEY, Pa. — A day after hundreds of foreign exchange students walked off their jobs at a plant packing Hershey’s chocolates to protest low pay and physically draining work, executives at the Hershey Company and three other companies involved in the plant scrambled to sort out which one was responsible for the conditions that prompted the students’ complaints.

Among the four companies with a role in the huge plant where the foreign students were employed, each one pointed to another as being the primary manager in charge of monitoring the students’ work.

One of the companies, the Council for Educational Travel U.S.A., the nonprofit organization based in California that recruited the college students in their home countries and found the jobs for them at Hershey’s Eastern Distribution Center III, said it was “reaching out” to the students to address their concerns.

But on Thursday the students staged another protest, this time in the heart of America’s chocolate capital. About 150 of them held a rally in front of the Hershey Story Museum in the center of town, then they walked through the streets chanting — with a chorus of Turkish students singing in their own language — to passers-by. Many people driving through this working-class town honked and waved.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/us/19students.html?pagewanted=all

[Sherman A1]

1. Short Answer to this is

Who's name is on the building? They are ultimately responsible...... I believe that would be Hershey?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. Who the hell approved J1 visas for warehouse laborers?

Whoever approved this was drunk, stoned, unconscious or dead. Unfortunately there are tax implications of the visa that reflect their intensely temporary and those are prone to abuse.

[mopinko]

35. +1

[Doremus]

55. +1000

[BR_Parkway]

3. And they've cut 700 union jobs with 500 more to go to use this program?

Mr. Bomberger noted that while that plant has grown, Hershey’s has reduced its full-time union employees by 700 since 2007, to a total of 1,500, with 500 more layoffs expected next year.


So the new way to offer really cheap, non-union labor is to go through a "cultural exchange student"? they always manage to find a loophole

[54anickel]

39. And since 2007, has anyone experienced a huge saving in the cost of chocolate? I didn't think so.

Where'd the $$$ go?

[WhiteTara]

51. Duh! Where do you think the money went?

I don't eat Hershey's chocolate because of their crappy employment policies...and the chocolate is awful.

[No Elephants]

4. Cop out NYT headline.

In Journalism 101, you learn, "The shorter, the better." You also learn, "The more specific (and less vague), the better." Both those rules apply with even more force in headline writing.

So, why, dear reader, did a NYT headline write choose the longer and more vague "Chocolate Plant" over the shorter and more specific "Hershey Plant?"

But, word to the foreign students:

Y'all got a better insight into the American culture of plutonomy than most students who were born here have at your age.

[bongbong]

11. Can't offend the advertisers

Hershey is another one of those corporate "personhoods" you don't want to piss off. Corporate "persons" sure seem to be awfully sensitive, especially for being as evil and anti-American as they are.

[chervilant]

42. Hershey's=Evil

Please, don't buy any products from Mars, Nestle or Hershey's. Read why here.

[BlueMTexpat]

14. + 1,000!

And the students did what many hourly workers in the US cannot afford to do. Good for them.

[fasttense]

5. So in the end the students were working for free.

I guess that's the definition of slave labor.

Way to go Hershey, chocolate made by slaves. Who would have thought it was possible here in the US? I'll never buy another piece of your candy. I'll never visit the damn town again.

I think corporations must study up to figure out how to more corrupt and sleazy then the next corporation.

[avebury]

6. The students got an unexpected lesson in the reality

of what life is like in the US. What I don't understand is why didn't the program sponsors set it up for the students to be housed with local families. That would have 1) allowed the students to be around Americans and improve their english and 2) would have kept the students from having their living expenses deducted from their wages. All the US did was turn them into imported slave labor.

[Marthe48]

44. Host families hard to come by

I'm a long-time volunteer for a high school student exchange program. Any family who hosts an exchange student with our program must have references, have a background check and other safety checks to insure the students hosted are safe. Wonder if anyone checked out Hershey's sweat shop?

As for Hershey replacing American workers, union or not, shame! Is their next step sending their plant overseas? What a cheap, crappy thing to do.

[kath]

45. Actually, they have sent a lot of their production to Mexico already.

Happened a few years back. I think many of their competitors have done so as well. Check the labels on candy you buy - but sometimes they use weasel words like "distributed by Hersheys, Hershey PA USA" or "distributed by Mars... USA" so you can't tell where the goddam stuff was actually MADE. Sometimes it actually will say "Made in Mexico" though.

[indurancevile]

47. The global "student exchange" program which appears to be a "non-profit"

cheap labor front has been publicized for not checking out its host families.

http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=45268137


More on the companies involved:

Exel is a global labor company:


Financials

Annual revenue
$4.2 billion

Ownership
Exel is a wholly owned entity of Deutsche Post DHL, the world's leading logistics group.

Headquarters
Exel
570 Polaris Parkway
Westerville, Ohio 43082
U.S.A.
877-272-1054

We're the leading contract logistics provider in the Americas thanks to the hard work of 40,000 associates at more than 500 sites throughout the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. Together we generate more than $4.2 billion in annual revenues.

How do we do it? By providing innovative, customized supply chain solutions and third-party logistics to some of the world's best-known and most successful companies. Our supply chain design, consulting, warehousing, fulfillment, and transportation services help companies be more productive, more efficient and more competitive. In all cases, our customer is at the center of everything we do — from initial situation analysis to the continuous improvement programs that help deliver better results every day.

Exel is part of the SUPPLY CHAIN division of Deutsche Post DHL, the world's leading logistics group, with more than 300,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories around the world and 2009 annual revenues of more than 46 billion euros.


http://www.exel.com/exel/exel_about_exel.jsp


SHS Staffing Solutions:

Type
Partnership
Company Size
11-50 employees
Website
http://www.theshsgroup.com
Industry
Staffing and Recruiting
Founded
1969


SHS has redefined performance and return on contingent staffing investment. We combined industry-innovating approaches with 40 years of experience to deliver exceptional, high return, and sustainable value for our client companies and applicant candidates. SHS's approach, unique to our industry, has yielded valued, long-term relationships with clients and applicants.

We assist our client companies with a wide range of solutions to gain competitive advantage with their human capital investment. Innovative staffing, acquiring superior talent, hiring and performance advisory, and wide ranging education and training in high value knowledge areas yield our clients an increasing return on their human capital investments.

Corporate Headquarters:

4 Lemoyne Drive
Suite 100
Lemoyne, PA 17043
1-877-SHS-0001

http://www.linkedin.com/company/the-shs-group-lp


council for educational travel looks like a labor recruitment agency posing as a "non-profit":

Council for Educational Travel, U.S.A. (CETUSA) is a non-profit, global exchange organization dedicated to helping people from different cultures develop more compassion and understanding for one another.

Since 1995, together with international partners and academic institutions from over 50 countries, CETUSA has helped tens of thousands of students, families, young professionals and employers benefit from the integration of diverse cultures. Our programs provide a unique opportunity to share the experiences of daily living, education and professional life. CETUSA programs help to improve mutual understanding and communication between people in the United States and other nations of the world.

Member of the CET Management Group:

CET Management (UK) Ltd - Company Registration No. (England and Wales): 03423974
Registered Office - 53 - 55 Ballards Lane, London N3 1XP

Meet your staffing needs with enthusiastic, dedicated, international personnel!

CETUSA is pleased to offer you two unique programs from which your company and your team can benefit in many ways.

Whether you are looking for one employee or a hundred, CETUSA has the right solution for you. CETUSA programs not only take the hassle out of searching for seasonal employees, but also allow you to diversify your staff with the addition of multicultural individuals. Our programs bring your company well educated, talented and ambitious young personnel keen to achieve success.

http://www.cetusa.org/public/provides-employees

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

57. It was a nuissance but it was well worth it,

My parents hosted a Japanese student and to this day almost twenty years later our families remain close. They have shown me places in Japan foreigners just aren't welcome - absolutely incredible. We last got together (me and my parents, her and her husband and children) at the Vancouver olympics.

[Yon_Yonson]

7. Company Store slave labor

boycott Hershey products

:hippie:

[valerief]

8. Already do. Don't eat candy. nt

[Yon_Yonson]

9. Once in a while I will indulge in high quality dark chocolate

not this Hershey dung

:hippie:

[InkAddict]

13. Alternate choice? Mars Chocolate plans $250M manufacturing plant in Topeka

Kansas City Business Journal
Date: Wednesday, June 29, 2011, 10:29am CDT - Last Modified: Thursday, June 30, 2011, 12:48pm CDT

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2011/06/29/mars-chocolate-plans-manufacturing-plant.html

Topeka is getting a sweet investment: Mars Chocolate North America said Wednesday that it plans to build a $250 million manufacturing facility there and hire about 200 full-time operations employees. And that’s just the initial phase.

Mars said it needs the new facility — the first new U.S. chocolate site built in 35 years — to meet rising demand for its iconic candy, such as M&M’s and Snickers. Officials called this the largest-ever single investment in Topeka.

Mike Wittman, vice president of supply for Mars Chocolate North America, made the announcement Wednesday morning at Topeka’s Washburn University campus. He was accompanied by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.

“The site will be a reflection of our commitment to manufacture our products in the markets where we sell them,” Wittman said in a release. “Mars looks forward to becoming an important part of the Topeka community.”



http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/executive-order-to-push-agencies-on-federal-workforce-diversity/2011/08/18/gIQAng5POJ_story.html

Hmmm....now about that staffing and diversity? After examining the fairly monotone Kansas ethnic stats:

White persons, percent, 2010 (a) 83.8%
Black persons, percent, 2010 (a) 5.9%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2010 (a) 1.0%
Asian persons, percent, 2010 (a) 2.4%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2010 (a) 0.1%
Persons reporting two or more races, percent, 2010 3.0%
Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2010 (b) 10.5%
White persons not Hispanic, persons, 2010 10.5%

[mopinko]

36. mars is evil

they are the enemy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_family

personal admission- they made my mom quit her job because she got married. lots of people did that then, 1941. although i would likely not be here if they hadn't, it was the first step down a miserable path for her. as such sexist bullshit can be.

[Yon_Yonson]

10. Thank you Tom Delay who's policy lingers on

I know this is old news but I recall Delay's trip to Saipan and how he wanted to bring their slave labor to U.S. of A. Looks like it's in full swing and how many other American companies are involved in this form of Company Store Slave Labor.

:hippie:

The real scandal of Tom DeLay
Monday, May 9, 2005 Posted: 12:14 PM EDT (1614 GMT)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Creators Syndicate) -- Forget the freebie trips across the Atlantic and the Pacific. Forget the casinos and the allegedly illicit contributions -- they represent only degrees of avarice.

To grasp the moral bankruptcy of the public Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, you only have to know about Frank Murkowski and Saipan.

Today, Frank Murkowki is the governor of Alaska, but from 1980 to 2002, he was a conservative Republican senator from Alaska.

How conservative? His voting record earned him zero ratings from organized labor's AFL-CIO and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, and perfect 100s from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Conservative Union.

But as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Frank Murkowski became furious at the abusive sweatshop conditions endured by workers, overwhelmingly immigrants, in the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, of which Saipan is the capital.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/09/real.delay/

[madmom]

12. So they get to learn what life for the American worker is REALLY like.

[swilton]

15. Solidarity

If you eat candy (which I don't) boycott Hershey!

[rug]

16. Foreign students walk off Hershey’s factory job in protest

Source: Yahoo News

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.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/foreign-students-walk-off-hershey-factory-job-protest-214310205.html

---

Additional information:


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/us/18immig.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all?src=tp

[IamK]

17. Sounds like a crap job, but I think quitting your job

with a J1 visa gives you just a few days to get out of the country....

[maddiemom]

20. student interns.

A little perspective here. If these students are indeed losing money on the deal, it IS outrageous. Many internships in various careers in this country are unpaid, however, especially when the internship is with a prestigious employer. Student teaching is definitely an internship, but student teachers are not only unpaid, they PAY a semester's tuition and living experiences while student teaching.

[joeybee12]

31. With student work visas, they can find another job and stay...

they're more flexible tahn the regular work visas.

[whathehell]

18. Good for them...$8.35 an hour with rent and fees taken out?...That's ridiculous!

I was making that TWENTY SIX years ago for a clerical job in Philadelphia.

This is slave wage stuff.

[54anickel]

40. "Slave wage"? Pretty much where standard American wages are headed. n/t

[whathehell]

50. I have no argument with the fact that it's "headed" there, only that it's stopped before it arrives.

[indurancevile]

52. it's like the old company store arrangements -- or like migrant labor, where the

owners take out money for "renting" out chickencoops.

the "education" "non-profit" uses homestay families. and take a cut of that "rent".

[avebury]

19. I think that people should start emailing Hershey

and letting them know what they think about their treatment of the students. I did. I will have no problem boycotting their candy.

[Mojorabbit]

49. Here is the address

https://www.thehersheycompany.com/contact-us/contact-us-form.aspx

[Yon_Yonson]

21. Company store slave labor

I don't eat to much candy but it is not going to be Hershey when I do

:hippie:

[bloomington-lib]

22. I wasn't paid anything for my internships...acually I had paid to work there

[PassingFair]

23. These were factory jobs.

Not "internships".

This is indentured servitude.

[kath]

46. and so are most internships, frankly. It's total bullshit that companies have people doing work for

NO pay - another crafty way to get around labor laws - just call it an "internship".

[indurancevile]

53. were you interning to be a minimum-wage factory hand?

[bongbong]

24. A vision of the future

This is what the future holds for workers in America (and elsewhere). WWII was just a battle; we actually lost the war.

[Yo_Mama]

25. Why were they even hired in the first place?

You can't tell me that they couldn't have hired local people.

I agree that $8.35 an hour when you had to pay travel costs to get here and pay for lodging while here isn't going to do you any good, but this really points up to abuse of a system designed to provide cheap labor for firms.

[Raschel]

27. My thoughts exactly, YYM.

[hedgehog]

56. How many high school and college students in the area are

desperately looking for a summer job? Problem is, they don't face being exported if they complain or quit.

I've read from other sources that some of the J-1 students paid the recruiters for the chance to work in America, and are actually still in the hole as far as making any money is concerned. Knowing your family still owes a couple thousand dollars to pay for your American adventure is another tool for forcing these kids to keep their complaints to themselves.

[Quantess]

58. Exactly! This stinks to high heaven.

And it ain't the exchange students who are stinking up the place...it's Hersheys.

[Raschel]

26. Good for them but I think it's time to get rid of the J-1 program. We have teens and adults here

who need jobs. No need to ship workers in, other than the reason being to pay them crap wages. Insourcing, outsourcing, same thing.

[elleng]

28. Hershey's gonna be sorry for this!

Remember, Halloween's coming up! BOYCOTT!

[swilton]

30. +++++

Solidarity!

[mother earth]

29. Of course they used outside staffing firms, that's what is done,

when you are slashing costs. This is not new (only slightly different) even for people who live here and are hired by factories. The staffing firms take care of benefit slashing, hiring for decent wages, overturn, etc. Where else can a manufacturer go when they want to pay low wages and no benefits?

There are no good jobs left in this country for those without a college degree (& precious little for those with one) & they're working on cutting out unions for what's left. This absolutely is about slave wages...it always has been & will be when it comes to the corporations. This is where GOVERNMENT should be protecting taxpaying citizens and laws should be revised to serve the economic/labor needs of the populace. They get away with this because we let them.

[SemperEadem]

32. staffing firms take care of recruiting and staffing the workers, not running the plant

once the workers are working, doesn't that fall under hershey's purview?

I am allergic to chocolate, so I don't eat theirs, Mars', Wonka or any one else's chocolate. I'm already boycotting them.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[SemperEadem]

34. at the end of the day, the CEO of Hershey is responsible for this.

they are responsible for the fact that they either don't know what's going on under their noses or do know and are playing the nut role.

[dotymed]

37. This is "the new America."

Now we are encouraging foreign countries s to send us their students so that we can fire Union employees and use these young people as slave labor. This is all done for the mighty God of Profit.

Even though this plant was profitable, supplied living wage jobs for 1500 Americans (many of which had families and children depending on this income) and made money for it's investors, it was not enough in our culture of greed.

So "our" politicians allow American profiteers (at all costs) to completely go against everything that America has stood for (at least since the abolition of slavery) and TRICK foreign students into "coming to America" and becoming

slave labor. Our country's image is once again destroyed so that a very few people can PROFIT, while hard-working Americans are thrown away because they have collectively bargained for a living wage job. It would have made a

difference (to some anyway) if, the Hershey plant was not profitable before they implemented this American worker destroying, slave labor operation on unsuspecting foreign students. Yes we need an American government,

we need to regulate business' and enforce the new and old laws that made America a nation that was a symbol of fairness throughout the world. Our nation has become a third world, thief and bully.

My God, how much longer before we demand that our workers are treated fairly and rank profit below country? Most first world nations already do this. Until the past few decades America did too. We MUST do whatever it

takes to return our country to a country of laws and yes, regulations that are applied equally throughout our society. Allowing business to do whatever they want, in the name of profits, is an unsurpassed evil.

[LeftinOH]

38. There are surely lots of locals who would be willing to work for $8.35 an hour

(with union representation, of course). What's this foreign slave labor scam about, anyway?

[Mr K]

41. What about everyone else working for Hershey?

I guess it's ok for Americans to suffer speed ups and ultra low pay!

[SoapBox]

43. What a bizarre story...

just bizarre.

[Trillo]

48. Does "multiple layers of contractors" lead to lower base-level wages?

I wonder what the wages would be without layers of contractors, perhaps conceived as pyramids, as each layer needs to skim some money for their own firm's wages, unless the contractors are all volunteers.

Are too many contractors the reason there is not a living wage, and instead a minimum wage? Is the difference in those wages what creates the financial opportunity for "too many contractors"? Or, is the existence of the contractors what creates the political inability to have a living wage instead of a minimum wage? This seems much like the chicken-and-egg "which one came first" brain teaser.

Multiple layers of contractors = Multiple layers of denial = lower base-level wages?

[indurancevile]

54. using labor contractors allows the main firm to 1) avoid unions/union challenges

2) distance themselves from labor violations, as in this case: "it wasn't us, we didn't know".

staffing agencies often set up legally so that if one of their units is busted in one jurisdiction (i.e. state, province, prefecture) the others can carry on without being penalized. this particular staffing agency is global, ultimately owned in germany.