Records show foreign students who come to America to work still owed pay

[Omaha Steve]

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5il-g7DjAUfkXTEhkVEIMeNyZ3gtg

ALBANY, N.Y. — The young workers came from Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, spending their own money to work in summer resort towns desperate for labour. Many of them wound up cheated out of wages and overtime pay, working jobs that violated child labour laws or docked pay to cover room and board.

A state investigation last year found that nearly 200 foreign workers were cheated by several companies in the Lake George area, a collection of resort towns an hour north of Albany. The state ordered the businesses to repay the employees, plus interest, and pay state fines.

Some of the companies are appealing the ruling and more than four months later, about 180 students who worked for the companies between 2002 and 2006 are still owed US$103,000 in pay, interest and fines, according to state Department of Labor records.

"Forcing these international students to work overtime without pay is criminal," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, a human rights organization. "To overcharge them for rent, what an image it gives. These students go back as ambassadors to their countries. What they'll have to say about the United States is that this is a nasty experience."

Nationally, The Southern Poverty Law Center found "legal guest workers" in the U.S., in some cases students, are at risk for abuse and exploitation. A report issued in 2007 by the centre said many workers were promised higher wages or were given fewer weeks of work than promised.

In 2006, the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of State, about 600,000 guest workers were issued U.S. visas, not including highly trained workers, athletes and entertainers.

FULL story at link.

I don't see this in the US press at all.