Hershey exploitation

Originally posted by drfeelme
IT IS called work..

If they do not like it, they can leave..

Lazy loosers like they do not understand how many

AMERICANS would love to have a chance at working their..

Dude, did you watch the video? The beef is not necessarily with the work, it's with the fact that they are kept economically captive and clear $130 a week after Hersheys robs them of a "housing fee". This AFTER they dropped 3 or 4 large to get here.

Also, take a spelling and grammar refresher at your local community college. It will make you sound more credible.

I'm not saying the working conditions were ideal, but no one was forced into anything. They knew exactly where they would be working, and under what pay and living arrangements before they ever came down. They can leave anytime they want, though if they want to stay on their J-1 they have to continue to work. They are free to live outside of the company housing, but they will have to pay for this themselves.

You do the real issues a disservice by equating this to slave labour, which is still a very real problem, just not at the Herseys factory. I feel sorry for some of these people that they put themselves in a situation where they are trapped, but millions of Americans are in the same situation. Working at a #ty job, with a #ty apartment, barely getting by. But they are there through no fault of anyone but themselves.

This is unskilled labor at it's core. If any job should be minimum wage, it's this one.

Originally posted by AwakeinNM
How long do you think American citizens would keep quiet about having their pay docked for housing? About a week? This is why they hire from the 3rd world - they are largely unaware of our laws.

Housing is pay, both legally and morally in fact. It is even considered income by the IRS. I'm not sure I see why you use the word "dock" their "pay" when in fact it is "pay".

Could you explain why company provided housing is not pay??????? Why would any rational person complain about getting company housing as part of their pay if they need it? Sour grapes? Irrationality? Certainly not for any credible reason. Of course there are always those that think the world owes them a living who suck at the teat of the government trough and parrot whatever they are told to say as long as they get money they did not earn.

Who let these foreigners in our country to begin with?

Originally posted by AwakeinNM

Originally posted by drfeelme
IT IS called work..

If they do not like it, they can leave..

Lazy loosers like they do not understand how many

AMERICANS would love to have a chance at working their..

Dude, did you watch the video? The beef is not necessarily with the work, it's with the fact that they are kept economically captive and clear $130 a week after Hersheys robs them of a "housing fee". This AFTER they dropped 3 or 4 large to get here.

Also, take a spelling and grammar refresher at your local community college. It will make you sound more credible.

Then let them pay for their own housing..

Don't spend the 3 or 4 grand..

It was their choice..

WE HAVE WORSE PROBLEMS

then these leeches butt hurt whining..

Must be the hershy highway grammar police!! WHAT AN ADVOCATE

Originally posted by AwakeinNM

Originally posted by drfeelme
IT IS called work..

If they do not like it, they can leave..

Lazy loosers like they do not understand how many

AMERICANS would love to have a chance at working their..

Dude, did you watch the video? The beef is not necessarily with the work, it's with the fact that they are kept economically captive and clear $130 a week after Hersheys robs them of a "housing fee". This AFTER they dropped 3 or 4 large to get here.

Also, take a spelling and grammar refresher at your local community college. It will make you sound more credible.

These workers are not being forced to live in Hersey housing, they are welcome to find housing elsewhere and not be 'robbed' of this fee. You know why they don't? Because it's probably even more expensive.

That $130 a week is pure pocket money. They don't have to worry about food, housing, etc. That's more than I have left many weeks when I get done paying the necessities. The difference with 'captive labor' seems to lay solely with whether you like your job or not.

Originally posted by AwakeinNM

Also, take a spelling and grammar refresher at your local community college. It will make you sound more credible.

The Troll fallback position when they don't have the capacity to debate issues without getting emotional. The classic Straw Man position.

Debate does not include bullying and mean spirited criticism, simply because people have their own opinions.

When we close our minds to others ideas, we are intellectually dead from that point forward. Are we not?

Wow, I watched the video and you guys certainly have gleaned a lot of information from it that wasn't even in there. Did you forget about the closed-door threats made by management that they could be fired and deported? Did we forget that part? How about the working conditions that left healthy young men with chronic pain? Forget that part, too? You sound like politicians with your cherry-picking arguments. I am going to go out on a limb and say that if the working conditions were that bad, then the housing situation probably wasn't much better. And I don't know about you, $130 a week doesn't buy jack in my neck of the woods.

Hey if Hershey didn't hire these kids they would have been preyed upon by Whangdoodles, Hornswogglers, Penispinchers and Snozzywangers... They are doing the oompa loompas a favor seriously!

Blood Chocolate.

What is going on in Pa. in the American factory, is mild to what is being done in Africa, on the Ivory Coast.
And it's not just Hershey's. It's many of the chocolate companies, continuing to work with the cocoa people, knowing full well they are often using five year olds to go through the beans, and they are denied school when doing so.

Many folks have banned chocolate altogether until this situation is corrected.

"Blood Diamonds" are a dangerous business in Africa, and Chocolate is headed in that direction, as well. The dealers/corporations make mega bucks, but the Africans themselves are being abused. It's disgraceful.

Our form of government will only work as long as we have a moral and ethical people.

I don't remember who said that...maybe James Madison?

But it is true...and it applies not only to the people, but to the businesses and corporations.

When a person or business does what it can... even if it is by all accounts legal... and not equally moral.... then we have lost the heart of what the USA stood for.

If we pay the lowest wage possible, because it is legal, and we do not pay the best wage possible while still able to turn a profit... then we have surrendered the laws of a civil society to the laws of the jungle... only the strongest survive.

This in turn takes away the potential for the weaker to become the stronger... and ensure the perpetuation of economic equality, growth, entreprenuership, and a thriving and growing middle class... the very heart of a free society.

Greed and economic tyrrany will in turn evolve into political tyrrany... these are the seeds we have sown and of which we are now harvesting so richly... economic disparity and slavery.

In contrast, despite being a morphing Communist government...China has a growing middle class... and it is being born and if left to grow and mature...will overthrow the Chinese Communist ideologies that are trying to keep it in check. The growing number and intensity of riots and the increasing demands for freedoms in China betray the course that is being set over the next few decades.

It is possible that one day... China may actually be more free than the USA.

Originally posted by Blaine91555

Originally posted by AwakeinNM

Also, take a spelling and grammar refresher at your local community college. It will make you sound more credible.

The Troll fallback position when they don't have the capacity to debate issues without getting emotional. The classic Straw Man position.

Debate does not include bullying and mean spirited criticism, simply because people have their own opinions.

When we close our minds to others ideas, we are intellectually dead from that point forward. Are we not?

Really?

Troll. Straw Man. Terms that I see leveled at people with great regularity on ATS when people don't agree with THEM.

Also, the spelling and grammar comment was constructive criticism, not some "troll fallback" position. Surely you could see the value in my suggestion. If we are to become less "intellectually dead" as you suggest, then I think a good place to start is with a little spelling and grammar lesson.

How about using some restraint yourself when labeling people you don't know.

Linamar in Guelph does the same, they always hire Chinese and Indian workers there but there is the odd white and black person there as well but they always go on lay off sprees and when a worker ears too much they let them go.

Wow...

While I have a difficult time agreeing with the scam that is Hershey, I also have a hard time feeling sympathy for these workers. Nobody forced these people to come to the States and work like slaves. They could have chosen a different company, applied for an education grant, etc. etc.. When Mexicans enter this country legally or illegally, most of them seek employment in agriculture. Hard work with moderate to decent honest pay.. Just one example.

Nobody and I mean NOBODY forced them into this.

Just my two cents.

reply to post by Blaine91555


That's where I seriously disagree. It does not divert hate from one entity to another in my mind, it only gives me one more thing to hate and I'm all okay with that lol. Plenty of hate to spread around, my friend.

reply to post by frozenspark


I will tell you that this is quite common for companies in America to hire foreign exchange students to do their work. In fact one corporation I worked for did exactly this. They laid off a bunch of American workers. Then they reclassified the positions on paper adding and subtracting duties and bringing in foreign exchange students to fill the newly created positions, which are just the same positions with the duties moved around between positions and a new title. You see the law under layoffs is usually that a company must offer reemployment to a person laid off if that company rehires for the same position within 6 months (I believe). So to get around this, companies just rework the job title and duties and mix them together with other position roles.

And the unemployed American worker gets unemployment benefits.

reply to post by NewWorldDisorder


Honestly, I don't really care about the plight of the workers. Yes, I realize that they are human beings and whatnot, however it is the corporations that hire "prospective immigrants" who garner all of my disappointment. The CEOs and chairmen, I think, just seem to guess that if they migrate the people into the US that people won't notice it as much as when they ship jobs overseas.

reply to post by frozenspark


Pansy foreigners....stay in your own country if you think our companies are so bad! I don't see mass groups of American's running to their countries for college. Shut your welfare entitled months and get to moving boxes you bunch of ungrateful children! This is sickening.

I mean for crying out loud, there working in a CANDY factory!!!! not the blasted Russian gulags! No star, no flag.

Poor little town of Hershey PA now killed by exporting tradition. My first and only visit to the town was a memorable experience for a young boy, the Hershey Kiss street lights, and those chocolate tubs in the factory as big a swimming pools. Now gone like Latrobe since they moved Rolling Rock to New Jersey now made by Budweiser. Makes me wonder when they will move Punxsutawney Phil out of beautiful PA. *sob*

reply to post by AwakeinNM


Like others have said this isn't as devastating as most are making it out to be. They took part in a program that allowed them to come to this country, have a job and housing waiting for them and schooling provided for them as well. And yes factory work is not easy, its manual labor, and when you do manual labor of course you're going to be sore when you get home. How is that something surprising? As for the "If you don't want to work here then you have to go home" threat, wouldn't that make sense? "Here is a program you can take part in to have temporary, and maybe leading to a permanent, visa/greencard. Oh ok, you don't find it satisfactory to your wants/desires? Then alright you can opt out of the program and go home" It does not seem as heartless as a lot have made it out to be. Also, ok, they pack the product and build it into pallets to be shipped out correct? Those pallets get set to where I work and i unload them and put them up for display, doing just as much physical labor as they do, and I only make double minimum wage for doing so. And at the end of week when i subtract what money I need for bills/housing/food etc i'm left with much less then the 150-130 they are left with each week. I would not even be able to afford to go to school. Its called lower-middle class and its what most Americans are considered.