News

After a six-month investigation initiated by the protests of foreign exchange student workers on a cultural exchange visa program, the US Labor Department issued fines of $283,000 for health and safety violations on 20 February against Exel, which operates a plant in Palmyra, Pennsylvania for Hershey’s chocolates. In the ruling, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that the DHL subsidiary intentionally failed to report 42 serious injuries to workers, which required medical treatment, over four years. Many of the injuries were related to lifting and moving big boxes of Hershey’s chocolates along a packing line.



The fines, which are high for workplace safety offenses, were due to the fact that six of the nine violations were for willful failure by Exel to protect its workers.



The issue came to light after the student workers from countries such as China and Nigeria took part in strike action to protest their low pay, physically exhausting work and large withholdings from their pay for rent and other costs. UNI Post & Logistics passed a resolution and had a speaker from the Guestworkers Alliance, an organisation that supported the workers in organising and filed the health and safety complaint, at its world conference in September.



In this case, the sub-contracting relationships are quite complex as Hershey's hired Exel to operate the plant who in turn hired a subcontractor, SHS Staffing Solutions, which brought in the foreign students. The student workers' visas were sponsored by the nonprofit organization Council for Educational Travel-USA (CETUSA). The Department of Labor said its wage and hour division has been investigating possible violations regarding the students by CETUSA, which sponsored the students, and that a dispute over the agency’s subpoena of the organization remains in federal court. In the same ruling, SHS was cited for one safety training violation and fined $5,000.