Student workers at Hershey facility win back wages

[Bozita]

Source: Associated Press

November 14, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Student workers at Hershey facility win back wages
By Peter Jackson


Hershey, Pa. — Three companies have agreed in a settlement to pay more than $213,000 in back wages to hundreds of foreign students for summer jobs they held at a Hershey candy company facility, the U.S. Department of Labor said Wednesday.

-snip-

Westerville, Ohio-based Exel, Lemoyne-based SHS Group and San Clemente, Calif.-based Council for Educational Travel USA agreed to pay $213,042 in back wages to 1,028 foreign students who held summer jobs repackaging candy for promotional displays. The payout is an average of $207 per student.

The three companies overcharged the students for housing, reducing their wages below what they were supposed to be paid, the department said.

-snip-

One protester, Yana Brenzey, a 19-year-old journalism student from Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, said she had no idea that she would be lifting 40-pound boxes or netting only about $200 a week. Other students who took part in the protest were from China, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania and Turkey.



Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121114/BIZ/211140461/1361/Student-workers-at-Hershey-facility-win-back-wages

[Cal Carpenter]

1. Good for them.

How fucked up. Such exploitation.

Seeing so many sparks of workers' rights action lately, especially given what's happening in Europe today, well...

[freshwest]

2. This is great news. Just wish it'd been more money. They truly ripped them off.

And this is by no means the only instance.

[eggplant]

3. It's nice when American companies stop outsourcing to foreign sweatshops.

I say, let's bring all those sweatshops back here, where they belong.

[justice1]

4. Hershey's should have been fined, companies need to be held accountable for sub-contractors.