Alleging unpaid wages and repeated retaliation, McDonalds workers in central Pennsylvania launched a surprise strike at 11 AM this morning. The strikers are student guest workers from Latin America and Asia, brought to the United States under the controversial J-1 cultural exchange visa program. Their employer is one of the thousands of McDonalds franchisees with whom the company contracts to run its ubiquitous stores.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are afraid,\u201d striker Jorge Victor Rios told The Nation prior to the work stoppage. \u201cBut we are trying to overcome our fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
The McDonalds corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The J-1 visa program is officially intended to promote educational and cultural exchange. But advocates allege that J-1, like the other guest worker programs that collectively bring hundreds of thousands of workers in and out of the United States each year, is rife with abuse. The National Guestworker Alliance, the organization spearheading today\u2019s strike, charges that such programs\u2014whose future is intimately tied up with the fate of comprehensive immigration reform\u2014offer ample opportunities for employers to intimidate workers, suppress organizing, and drive down labor standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cMcDonalds is just the latest in a long line of corporations that have hijacked the US guest worker program to get cheap exploitable labor, and that\u2019s what the students are,\u201d NGA Executive Director Saket Soni told The Nation. \u201cThe conditions are horrific, but have become the norm for guest workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The workers are striking over what they charge are rampant abuses at their stores in Harrisburg and nearby Lemoyne and Camp Hill. According to NGA, the visiting students each paid $3,000 or more for the chance to come and work, and were promised full-time employment; most received only a handful of hours a week, while others worked shifts as long as 25 hours straight, without being paid overtime. \u201cTheir employer is also their landlord,\u201d said Soni. \u201cThey\u2019re earning sub-minimum wages, and then paying it back in rent\u201d to share a room with up to seven co-workers. \u201cTheir weekly net pay is actually sometimes brought as low as zero,\u201d added Soni. \u201cWe are living in [a] basement,\u201d said Rios, \u201ccramped together, with no divisions, in bunkbeds which are meant for children.\u201d<\/p>\n