Blog #3: Closing the Student Sweatshop

On Wednesday, the State Department started to take action in cleaning up one of their biggest embarrassments. The State Department’s Summer Work Travel program that was created for foreign university students to promote goodwill, education, and cultural exchange has turned into something completely different. Now, the program is a poorly regulated, abuse-prone foreign guest-worker scheme. One of the program’s largest sponsors, the Council for Educational Travel, USA (Cetusa) will be excluded  from bringing in people after sending a significant amount of young people to work in a Pennsylvania factory. The students had many endless hours of packing and carrying heavy boxes, working for almost nothing (paychecks were between $1 and $3.50 an hour) while risking getting serious injuries. Many students walked off the job in August, protesting dangerous working conditions and low pay. Professor Jennifer Gordon, a labor expert says that the summer program is the country’s largest guest-worker program because basically, the program is unregulated and workers lack basic labor rights. The State Department is promising to put a handle on keeping sponsors in line and students out of dangerous industries.

If I was a student visiting another country with a program for a summer under the same conditions I’m sure I would be feeling the same way as the students who left. Unfortunately, things like this happen to people all the time.  People pay money to be a part of something only to find out that the program is not exactly what it proclaimed to be. For this program, the students paid between $3,000-$6,000 for the “privilege” of joining the J-1 visa program, which promised them a summer of a chance to see America and a taste of Willy Wonka (the factory where they worked). Many students would love to have to opportunity to visit another country to explore and gain an educational experience that they wouldn’t receive in their respective countries, however this type of thing deters students from the great experiences they could have with the right program. I believe that they should put more regulations on this program and check other programs to make sure they are conducting these programs accordingly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/opinion/closing-the-student-sweatshop.html?ref=educationandschools