2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHRC's Final Paid Speech
Why would a 501c3 non-profit organized to promote summer camps spend 10 per cent of its annual budget[1] on a Hillary Clinton speech?That was the simple question I wanted to answer when I began researching this piece. Id flippantly doubted that the American Camp Association would pay $225K for a speech and was corrected by kossack northleft that the actual amount was $260K. Intrigued by the notion that Hillary Clinton knew anything about camping, I soon found myself exploring a much deeper set of issues.
On March 19, 2015 Hillary Clinton made the last of a series of paid speeches to the Tri-State Chapter of the American Camp Association (ACA). Twenty-four days later she would declare her candidacy for the presidency. While much has been made of her behind-closed-doors speeches to Goldman Sachs, the ACA speech and its follow-up Q&A session with former NY Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs, who owns Timber Lake, an overnight camp in the Catskill Mountains, was available right here on Daily Kos[2].
The Clinton speech was a departure for the ACA, which typically presents keynotes by child development experts and professionals associated with camp-related issues. It was a light and conversational 26 minutes that touched on politics only to the extent that Clinton facetiously suggested that the adults in Washington would do well to go to a bipartisan camp. It was Blue Cabin meet Red Cabin fluff, which got a couple of good laughs. The Q&A session lasted 36 minutes. So who was she talking to?
The American Camp Association is a national non-profit 501c3 that has 10,000 members and three regional affiliates that represent 2,500 summer and day camps throughout the U.S. It provides professional development and educational opportunities for the camp industry and among its top public-policy priorities lobbies for the Camp Counselor[3] and Student Work Travel (SWT) [4] categories of the J-1 visa program administered by the U.S. State Department.
State Department J-1 Visa Program Advocacy
According to the ACAs own advocacy materials, 25,000 individuals were placed in ACA camps through the State Departments Exchange Visitor Program in 2011 20,000 from the specific Camp Counselor category; and 5,000 from the SWT category. Both categories of student workers are facilitated by a network of 49 State Department-approved sponsors. In effect, these are staffing agencies that work with feeder organizations in dozens of countries that recruit international students and workers to come to the U.S. for a four-month cultural/work experience.
The SWT program grew dramatically from 20,000 participants in the early 1990s to a peak of 153,000 workers in 2008. It is currently capped at 109,000 workers after public outrage over widespread abuses of working conditions, accommodation, compensation and a non-existent cultural component.
Participants pay significant fees to the sponsoring agencies ($1100 to $2000) in the hope they will experience America and make some money while they are here. In reality, the experience is often far removed from the exciting marketing materials on sponsor web sites. Sixty to eighty-hour weeks of making beds, flipping burgers, working the night shift and sleeping four, six or eight to a room in poor accommodations for minimum wage are all too common.
Employers in such resort towns as Ocean City, Maryland, employ thousands of these SWT workers for a variety of reasons divorced from any notion of cultural exchange. For starters, they save 8 per cent over the cost of employing domestic workers because they dont have to contribute to Social Security, Medicare or Federal Unemployment Insurance.
The Camp Counselor program which the ACA fully embraces, offers similar advantages to employers. State Department rule changes in 2012 sought to draw a clearer distinction between counselors and SWT staff roles but tremendous ambiguity and virtually non-existent enforcement remain.
Those sponsoring agencies that do present an accurate picture of the job explain that counselors work 10 to 14 hours a day, six days a week during a nine-week camp placement. Sponsoring agencies describe compensation as a stipend[5] and an ACA 2013 FAQ as pocket money[6]. Even using the high end of the stipend range ($1800), you get abysmal compensation: $1800 for nine 72-hour weeks, works out to $2.77 an hour.
Undoubtedly there are some cultural benefits for young campers exposed to international counselors, but it would be naive to think that the obvious financial incentives for the camp owners are not front and center in the decision to hire staff from abroad. For arguments sake, if we simply distributed the 20,000 counselors and 5,000 SWTs that the ACA claimed were employed in its 2,500 camps during 2011, each camp would have employed eight J-1 visa counselors and two J-1 visa SWT workers. In other words, the camp industry relies heavily on this cheaper international labor force.
Major Problems with the J-1 Labor Pipeline
In 2014, The Southern Policy Law Center (SPLC) presented a report titled Culture Shock: The Exploitation of J-1 Cultural Exchange Workers,[7] which argued
Bernie Sanders, during debate on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill S.744 , called the program a scam.
In response, the ACA lobbied to keep the program alive. Quoting from its 2014 annual report, it argued that the ACA successfully mobilized the community to advocate for the continuation of the government program that allows for international visitors to serve as camp staff, thereby providing amazing cultural exchange programs for American kids and foreign nationals. This program was at risk during the Congressional debates regarding immigration reform.[9]
Daniel Costa, Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute, summed up the disastrous state of the program exactly one year to the day before former secretary of state Clinton delivered her American Camp Association speech.[10]
Placing a $260,000 Bet on Favorable Executive Action
Consider the final paragraph, on the final page of the ACAs FY2014 financial disclosures (New York Section), which I might add are not available currently on the ACA NYNJ site (as of 2/21/2016). It took some digging to find the information on charitiesnys.com.
Returning then to my original question: Why does a non-profit spend 10 per cent of its annual budget, ten times what it would normally pay for a keynote speaker,[12] increase its annual total expense line item for speaker presentations from $102,784 to $350,619 for a high-profile politician and present her to an audience probably split in its political loyalties?
The answer is obvious. It was a strategic calculation on the associations part to secure future consideration for the J-1 visa programs the industry relies on. As a near-term-future president the former Secretary of State would have tremendous discretion in rule-making given both her familiarity with the subject and the likelihood that immigration reform in a partisan Washington may be achievable only through piecemeal executive action.
There can be no doubt that Hillary Clinton was and is aware of the industrys focused immigration interests. Of course you can make the default argument that this is just the way things are done in American politics and that there is no proof that any quid pro quo will ever take place, but it appears even more cynical to accept $260,000 from this organization in the context of these immigration and economic issues than the bottomless pockets of Goldman Sachs.
Its disappointing that even this innocuous paid speech, the last in series of speeches rife with high-profile question marks, has a lousy backstory upon closer inspection.
Daily Kos w/Links
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Footnotes
1 - New York Section of American Camp Association 2014 Financials
2 - Daily Kos Diary containing full video of Clinton speech to American Camp Association
3 - US State Department J-1 Visa - Camp Counselor
4 - US State Department J-1 Visa - Student Work Travel
5 - Camp Counselor Stipend
6 - Camp Counselor "Pocket Money"
7 - Southern Poverty Law Center - Culture Shock: The Exploitation of J-1 Cultural Exchange Workers
8 - Bernie Sanders Comments on J-1 Visa Workers During S.744 Immigration Debate
9 - American Camp Association Lobbies for J-1 Status Quo 2014 Annual Report, pg 9
10 - Daniel Costa, Economic Policy Institute Article J-1 Program Poorly Regulated my emphasis
11- New York Section, ACA financial disclosure Notes to Financial Statements June 30, 2015 and 2014
12 - 2016 Tri-State American Camp Conference Closing Keynote,
Dr. Angela Duckworth (Speaking Fees)
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)Epcot especially uses these programs to hire people at slave wages. Then they have to live in Disney condos and buy everything thru the "company store" -- at the end of the experience they're lucky if they don't OWE Disney money for the luxury of working their asses off for them.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,760 posts)One of the guys a play with does a great version of this song, too. I have to admit, I've never heard the author, Merle Travis's version. YouTube here I come.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)wrote it thanks for setting me straight I just listened Merle
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)THey're responsible for every "modification" of the Copyright Act over the last 50 years. That sad, battered piece of legislation is more properly called the "Protect Mickey Mouse in Perpetuity Act."
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)American corporations who can't take advantage of slave wages overseas, so why not bring the slaves here under the guise of an American cultural experience!?
This quid pro quo at the expense of the American worker is just so sickening.
A small outfit like that coming up with $260,000 for a 26 minute chat. This would be a great one for Bernie to bring up in a debate. And get her on record for what she's going to do.
The Clintons are so brazen it's almost breathtaking.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)SoapBox
(18,791 posts)I missed this.
The crap with her never ends.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)She will faithfully do whatever her corporate masters desire.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)kgnu_fan
(3,021 posts)UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)article, it is truly amazing how deep and wide this pile crap is.
FangedNoumenom
(145 posts)The spinning for this one is going to get intense.
olddots
(10,237 posts)MaggieD
(7,393 posts)Sadly for the Hillary smear folks there is nothing even remotely objectionable here. But bully for your creativity and imagination!
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)and why is this available???
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)WTF could you possibly find objectionable about this speech? Why charge? Because believe it or not she is a huge draw, people want to see her, and women are allowed to make a living.
BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)Do you think that audience would have rather watched Hillary or been paid $1000 each?
10% of this organization's annual budget on a Hillary "speech"?
Is there nothing you Hillary disciples won't defend?
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)Members of associations don't get paid, they pay for membership in the association.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)but why is this speech available and the Goldman Sachs transcripts are under lock and key???? Are we really going to pretend that if those speeches would help Hillary in anyway they would not be all over the internet??? Come on one does not have to be a detective to understand what is going on.........
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)Duh.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)and avoided my question about the transcripts
which we all know they exist inspector......
and have only one way out
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)And quite a living if your name is Hillary Clinton. $260,000 for a 30 minute speech is about 50% more than the annual salary of a U.S. Senator.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)MaggieD
(7,393 posts)Why so jealous of successful people?
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)jealous some people do not like corruption..........
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511348052
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)Are the intercept (and you) the last ones in the world to know that Stephanie Cutter used to work for Clinton's campaign? Should they put her resume over her face while she is talking for those not informed enough to know that?
SMH. Here's a clue - surrogates often work for campaigns. Dem surrogates support Democrats. Republican surrogates support GOP candidates.
Precision Strategies has been paid at least $120,049 from the Clinton campaign since June of last year.
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)And I see his mug on the TV all the time. Something wrong with that?
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)programs pretending to be neutral....hence the title of the article
TV Pundits Praise Hillary Clinton On Air, Fail to Disclose Financial Ties to Her Campaign
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)Stephanie Cutter, for example, has appeared on multiple networks to discuss Clinton, and is typically introduced as a former campaign official for President Barack Obama. What hasnt been disclosed in any of her appearances reviewed by The Intercept, however, is that the boutique consulting firm she co-founded, Precision Strategies, has been retained by the Clinton campaign for digital consulting, according to Federal Election Commission records. Precision Strategies has been paid at least $120,049 from the Clinton campaign since June of last year.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)libtodeath
(2,888 posts)BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)They prove me wrong again.
This kind of racket needs to be legislated out of business alongside the free labor scam called "unpaid internships".
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)The SPLC report does not contain a single example of a camping business abusing the J-1 visa program by hiring camp counselors and skirting the visa rules. Nor does it show or even mention a connection to Clinton. The ridiculous smears are just so over the top they now defy any sense of rationality.
THIS is why I can't take any of this crap seriously. Unbelievable. Man, I cannot wait until Bernie is sent home with his tail between his legs. It really can't happen soon enough.
CdnExtraNational
(105 posts)In my IT work in the Philippines I had heard about this from some Filipinos.
They told me they needed to pay 100,000 pesos (~$2100) to some business in Manila to get into this program.
I thought maybe it was a scam because well frankly it sounded too good to be true.
Now I am seeing it is true, but here is the fine print...
$2.77 per hour.