The Bull Speaks!

Is it possible that the equivalent of slave labor is alive and well on the Gulf Coast in this year of 2006?

Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. As far as The Bull is concerned, that is exactly what the McDonald’s fast food chain is engaged in at this very minute with Russian students brought to this country under contract. Contracts that were broken as soon as the first Russian shoes hit U.S. soil.

After reading a story in the Mobile Press-Register yesterday during our family’s weekly pilgramage to Maw Maw’s house for brunch, I became simply furious at the fact that a Russian student visiting America could say, with conviction, that they have been mistreated while guest in this Nation while working for one of our corporate icons, McDonald’s. Further, I must agree with Denis Balakin when he asked: “What would (an American) mother think if somebody did this to their children in Russia?”. Granted, I’m just a displaced Appalachian Hillbilly, but it kind of hurts to hear someone say of the Gulf Coast: “I can’t say it’s beautiful here”. Even after hurricane ‘Katrina’. Though, when one takes into consideration what these students have been put through, as well as when and where they were sent, one can’t truly blame them for feeling that way.

My Gods! Have we gone so far down the road of corporate greed that we will resort to trickery to bring into our Nation what amounts to slave labor? Methinks that America, McDonald’s, and most especially Big D Enterprises along with any other franchise owners involved, owe these students a lot more than a simple apology. That would be a nice start, though.

McDonald’s needs to be taken to task for this offense, perhaps by means of a Nationwide boycott. The franchises involved must be revoked, and a lot of corporate execs need to be called out onto the carpet to answer for this outrage.

What is next? Bring in Chinese students as forced labor in construction? Oh wait! I forgot that we already have all these Mexicans for that.

Here’s the story in its entirety:

Wednesday, July 12, 2006
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter

FOLEY – Denis Balakin, a 21-year-old radiophysics student from Russia, and nine other foreign workers taking part in a U.S. State Department program say they have either been fired from or forced to quit working at the local McDonald’s and now may find themselves homeless.

“The main thing that I can’t understand is how people did these things to foreign students who were asked to arrive,” Balakin said. “What would (an American) mother think if somebody did this to their children in Russia?”

Restaurant owner/operator Donna Connor said through corporate officials in a statement issued Tuesday evening that McDonald’s takes employee matters very seriously and has taken immediate action to gather facts and investigate the students’ claims.

Connor said that the restaurant has complied with the terms of the students’ work contracts and that the workers have been provided with “affordable housing with full utilities and are paid competitive wages.”

Balakin and some of his colleagues would beg to differ.

The foreign student-work program, which has operated largely unnoticed by the public, has grown in recent years as fast-food establishments and other businesses compete for employees.

But as the program’s numbers have increased, so have opportunities for housing and employment complaints.

On the Gulf Coast, those problems have been compounded by the lack of housing for workers in the wake of last year’s Hurricane Katrina and, in places like Baldwin County, by a generally strong rental market.

Ideally, the students say, they are supposed to earn enough during their stay in America to pay back the $3,000 it costs to get here, and to travel around the country for the remaining month of their visa.

What Balakin and his roommates say happened to them, however, is this: Months before they left Russia, all 10 students signed contracts to work at the Foley McDonald’s, which also agreed to house them. The students say they were promised 40 hours a week at a rate between $8 and $9 per hour when they signed up.

A contract dated March 3 and provided by one of the students, Yuriy Kruchinenko , contains terms consistent with the students’ claims.

When the students arrived in Foley in June, several of them were scheduled at the restaurant for as few as 14 hours a week, they said.

When they asked why they weren’t working more often, Balakin said, they were told that rather than 50 foreign workers, which the contract says the local restaurant expected, 150 arrived.

The contract provided by Kruchinenko also specifies how many of the students would share rooms (two to three), how many would occupy each house (six to 10) and whether the dwelling would be furnished (some).

The document also states the weekly price per person would be $85, which multiplied by 10 tenants is $850 a week, or about $3,400 per month.

Homes in the Ashford Park subdivision, where the house is located, generally rent in the $1,000- to $1,200-a-month range, according to newspaper classified advertisements and online rental listings.

Balakin said that when he first moved in, there were 12 roommates in the house. And for the first 2½ weeks of their stay, he said, there was no furniture.

Eventually, according to Balakin and his roommates, a truck emblazoned with the logo of Exit Realty, the company that rents the home to the restaurant, arrived to unload love seats, chairs, a kitchen table and other furniture. Paper window blinds were hung.

Still, the students said, there are no beds, no phones, no washer or dryer, and no television.

“It’s not too important to have a TV, but a washing machine and proper beds — not air mattresses,” Balakin said, pointing to the house’s living-room-turned-sleeping-quarters. “For $340 they sleep on air mattresses.”

The students said that with much of their take-home pay going back to McDonald’s in the form of rent, several of them sought second jobs. But a fluid schedule at the fast-food restaurant resulted in lost days at these other jobs, causing some students to be fired. Others were let go by McDonald’s for indiscretions, they said, such as getting drinks when they were not officially on break. They were also scolded for speaking to each other in Russian, they said.

“So we decided to quit from this organization,” Balakin said.

Connor said in her statement that the students were offered additional hours of employment but decided on their own to pursue other employment opportunities. “As with all employees,” she said, “the foreign student workers are required to adhere to my employment practices and policies. Beyond that it would be inappropriate to discuss the specific personnel details of these individuals.”

The students who spoke with a Press-Register reporter said that while the problems had been brewing for several weeks, things came to a head late last week when one of their McDonald’s supervisors arrived at the house and ordered the Russians to move out.

Balakin then called the police and they, he said, told the supervisor that the Russians couldn’t be forced to leave without first going through the eviction process in court.

Balakin alleged that that further rankled their boss. A utility crew arrived at the house and their power and water were shut off.

By this time, several of the Russians’ neighbors had taken up their cause, calling newspapers to complain about how the students were being treated and helping them deal with the eviction process. Two neighbors drove Balakin, of the Black Sea city of Krasnodarsky Kray , to Riviera Utilities, and an account for power and water was set up in his name.

Though they are living for the time being with jobs, water and electricity, the Russians said they weren’t sure where they’ll be in a week. As they have learned so far, the work part of the work-travel program has swallowed the travel portion.

“We thought, ‘We’ll work here three months and then travel,’” said 20-year-old Oxana Tereshchenko, a math and computer programming student. “Not on our salaries.”

Travel so far has been limited: A 16-hour Greyhound bus ride between Miami and Pensacola when they arrived — “It was not fun,” said 22-year-old Ivan Vakhmistorv — and the daily peddle along Alabama 59 to work each day.

A neighbor has offered to let them use an extra car, Balakin said, but they don’t have the proper insurance and therefore declined. He said he has enjoyed most of his stay, his new Winn-Dixie supermarket co-workers and the neighbors. Even some local police officers, he said, have become friends.

It’s only been the work and home experience, Balakin said, that has bothered him and his companions.

That is not how McDonald’s wants the arrangement to work, according to Connor’s statement. “We value their contribution to our business and our goal is to ensure that foreign students enjoy a positive experience while working with us,” she stated.

Foreign workers at McDonald’s restaurants in Mississippi say they have faced problems of their own.

Java Umarov of Uzbekistan said he and his seven roommates had been told they were going to Mobile, but weren’t alarmed about going to nearby Mississippi. International news reports focused on Katrina’s impact on New Orleans, and Umarov didn’t know Gulfport also had been in the storm’s path.

Now, Umarov said, he finds himself in a place where workers are still removing debris, rental housing costs are higher than he can afford and living conditions are substandard.

“I can’t say it’s beautiful here,” Umarov said of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Umarov said he may have reconsidered had he known he would be sent to an area struggling to recover from the worst natural disaster in United States’ history.

Both the State Department and Craig Brewer, an employee of IntoEdventures, said it was not true that the students in Mississippi were living in crowded and uncomfortable conditions.

Brewer declined to discuss the students’ concerns, such as whether their contracts were being violated by the number of people sharing a room.

A spokeswoman for the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs defended the program, saying there were only four major complaints last year. One complaint was related to an Okaloosa County police report reviewed by the AP that alleges substandard housing for students in Florida.

The spokeswoman said the complaints were “thoroughly investigated,” but she did not elaborate. “The bottom line regarding students’ perspectives (in Gulfport) is that we did not receive complaints from anyone,” she said.

Police reports in the Florida Panhandle describe problems with the program, ranging from an assault to nonpayment of workers. None of the complaints has resulted in a conviction.

Michele Nicholson, a spokeswoman for the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department, said it’s not unusual to hear complaints about the foreign students’ housing in Florida.

Bill Descher — whose family owns Big D Enterprises, the owner of 15 McDonald’s restaurants — said few people are willing to work on the Mississippi coast despite an unemployment rate of about 13 percent. Descher said the contracts his student workers signed with Babylon, N.Y.,-based IntoEdventures are being honored and a new, four-unit apartment building is in the works to ease crowded conditions.

Cheryl Egan, a regional human resources director for McDonald’s Corp., said McDonald’s and its franchisees are committed to strict hiring and employment practices, but the franchisees “set their own employment hiring and employment policies,” Egan said.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

This morning’s issue of the paper had the following correction:

(Thursday, 7/13/2006, Press-Register )
A story in Wednesday’s Press-Register incorrectly reported that a Foley house where Russian students are residing as part of their work contract with McDonald’s restaurant was rented from Exit Realty. Exit Realty of Gulf Shores did not rent out the house and does not operate a rental company, said broker-manager Carla McLain.

Fine, but who does rent out that home?

There are always ‘Letters to the Editor’ when a story like this is published. Here are what we’ve seen so far:

The slaves have long been freed
I’m calling about the McDonald’s in Foley, where they brought these kids over from Europe to work, and then all the money goes right back into the rent, and they don’t get any money. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.

Go home if you don’t like it
Concerning the Russians working at McDonald’s: If they don’t like what they’re doing, they should go back to Russia. No one asked them to come over here in the first place. They come here to work at McDonald’s, and when things don’t go their way, they start griping. All they have to do is follow the rules. (There is always at least one idiot. These are the same ones that cause us to have all the warning labels like “Don’t use electrical appliances in the bathtub”. ~Bull*)

Enjoyed meeting Russian youth

I really hate to read this about the Russian kids being mistreated. They always seemed very happy to be at McDonald’s and were always very friendly to the customers. It was nice to see smiles on their faces. They worked hard, and their attitudes were just wonderful. I hope we’re not taking advantage of them.

Hopes a charitable group will help
I’m calling about the plight of the Russian students in the paper. It’s really a shame that this is what they get as a taste of America. This lady should also be investigated for charging them $3,400 a month for a $1,000 home. Some charitable organization should step up to the plate and help these young people.

Folks, thing about this story before you take the kids out for yet another Happy Meal. Your money would be better spent elsewhere. I’ve written to McDonald’s USA Corporate Social Responsibility Division, (yeah, right…), and await a reply. If you wish to rake Micky D’s over the coals for this horseshyte you can send them a corporate email here.

Bull, out!

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