Having obtained a special four-month J1 visa without much trouble, students from different countries go overseas, where during the resort season there is a sharp increase in demand for hardworking, modest and unpretentious migrant workers. «Itogi» assessed the comfort level of young seasonal workers in America.
Dream of a laptop
I was lucky. I was flying to New York, and already on the plane, an animal came running to the hunter. Or rather, two at once. And in the guise of cute girls who turned out to be neighbors in the crowded Boeing cabin. 22-year-old Ulyana Pavlova was flying to earn some extra money in America for the third time, her peer and friend Evgenia Bondareva was flying for the second. They had just graduated from the Social Pedagogical Academy with honors diplomas, which I congratulated them on.
Curiously, until recently Americans did not give J1 visas to graduates and first-year students of our universities. Apparently, they feared that among both groups there is a higher percentage of potential non-returnees. But whether reality dashed their fears, or a top-secret Washington plan provides for encouraging the influx of educated youth from certain countries, the restriction is no longer in effect.
Why America? Ulyana, while still studying at an English special school, dreamed of going there. She and Zhenya arranged the trip through an intermediary center. They passed an interview, filled out papers, paid for everything, including the plane ticket, about $2,000 each. They need to provide confirmation from a future employer, but that's not a problem - the intermediaries can find it, for which they charge another $100. Ulyana, when she went the first time, found a "job offer" herself on the Internet.
But these virtual arrangements, as I later found out, give no guarantees. 19-year-old students Olga O. from the journalism faculty and Marina B. from economics, for about half a year had been searching for a potential employer on the World Wide Web. Finally, they found one. The owner of a hotel in the resort town of Cape May at the very south of New Jersey sent his consent. But when the girls arrived, he shrugged: sorry, there is no work, because the hotel is half empty. What to do? Olga and Marina began frantically thinking where to find a job. Until recently, they worked as ice cream sellers in a town neighboring Cape May and were looking, so far unsuccessfully, for a second job - to make ends meet, at least to pay for housing...
In the tiny state of Delaware, in the resort town of Rehoboth Beach, every summer one and a half thousand seasonal workers land, including from Russia and Ukraine. 20-year-old Maria Kuzmina dreams of earning enough for a laptop and an iPhone, and maybe even a used car. "Back home," she said in an interview with a correspondent of the local newspaper «News Journal», "it would have taken me two or three years, no less, and it's also harder to find well-paid temporary work."
21-year-old Russian Madina Marzhokova took two weeks before she found a second job at 25 hours a week in a restaurant in addition to her first, 36-hour job at a bakery. 20-year-old Dima Danilchenko from Ukraine works for the second summer in a row at the "Bellyfiller" cafeteria. The economics student earns $8 an hour, working 60 hours a week. He lives in a house with ten other guys, for which he pays $100 a week. Actually, it's a flophouse where they come only to sleep.
For Ulyana and Zhenya, finding work was incomparably easier than for the other guys - they are, so to speak, veterans, have learned the ropes, and made contacts. Ulyana was firmly expected in Ocean City, on the Atlantic coast of Maryland. She will again stand at the checkout of a local supermarket. And she will live in an apartment that the store manager provides to seasonal workers. Who said there are no communal apartments in America? In the rooms for visiting workers, they put four to five people, who fork over a $200 deposit to the landlord, and then pay $85 a week.
"When I came the first time, they were very nice to me," Ulyana recalled. "They put up with my broken English, taught me the tricks of dealing with customers. The second time they raised my salary. But to earn decently, you have to work all day, from 9 am to midnight. And weekends are not full. It's very hard." One involuntarily recalls the classic immigrant joke about America as a labor camp with enhanced rations.
What about money? Over the first summer Ulyana earned 5.5 thousand "greenbacks", over the second - 7.5 thousand. First thing she returned the two "grand" borrowed from her parents for the trip. Not everyone is so open about their income. But from conversations it is clear that the average range of figures today is $6-9 thousand per season. Waitresses earn a bit more, but it's very hard to find a job, practically all spots are taken. Guys prefer the work of lifeguards on the beach. You sunbathe, ogle girls. Those who are cooler and handier prefer the construction industry. Officially - no way, unions fiercely guard the labor privilege for their own, the natives. But the gray business, mainly in large cities, willingly hires seasonal workers, especially for crash projects, paying them an order of magnitude less.
Living in resort towns that stretch in a chain along the Atlantic coast has one undeniable advantage for migrant workers over the deep, one-story America. You can walk or bike to work and for other errands. But Zhenya had a hard time. Last summer she got a job as a ride operator at an amusement park in the town of Frederick, Maryland. A typical American lifestyle structure with private houses along highways, no public transport. The park owner found a three-story house for his seasonal workers, which included Russians, Ukrainians and Jamaicans. They chipped in to buy a beat-up Dodge Caravan minivan. The boys, those who had licenses, drove in turns. The Dodge broke down almost daily, what a hassle, Zhenya recalls with a laugh.
How do young migrant workers spend their free time, of which there is very little? Beach, discos, ice cream, chatting on cell phones. If there are many of us, they immediately flock together, often organizing Russian clubs.
Why John Doe was rioting
What can I say, our girls are irresistible. Ulyana was persistently asked to marry - first a Bulgarian, then an American. But getting married abroad is not in her plans yet. And also: passionate Latinos won't leave her alone. Sometimes in conversations with potential employers and landlords, they have to listen to nasty hints: I give you salary or housing, and you, sweetie, give me... They should be hit right between the eyes with a phrase about sexual harassment - in America they are very afraid of such accusations, you'll be in a lot of trouble. But somehow the girls don't know these key words, they aren't instructed, no memos are written, and they are afraid of scandals in a foreign country. Although why be afraid - visas are legal, work is legal, so assert your rights to the fullest, don't be timid.
Sometimes serious incidents occur. For example, last year about fifteen Russian seasonal workers were taken to the police. As a rule, the guys were detained for minor offenses like shoplifting and fights with local boys. Of course, the violators are a handful compared to the mass of decent guys and girls. But the press loves incidents involving foreigners - journalistic standards are surprisingly universal here.
It happens that they pick on our people, but in principle America is friendly to young workers who came to help it.
Exam for seasonal workers
The program for 'importing' seasonal student workers was blessed by Congress in 1961 for 'strengthening cultural mutual understanding between peoples.' I don't know about culture, but for many business owners in resort towns, seasonal workers have become the main labor force. The number of J1 visa recipients has grown sharply over the past decade - from 22,635 people in 1997 to 150,326 in 2007.
Quite recently, Gold Kay, the owner of seven coastal hotels in Virginia, sent his HR manager David Finwall to recruit students - first to Thailand, then to Eastern Europe. 'We simply don't have the hands for the tourist season,' Finwall said in an interview with a local newspaper. 'American students do not want to make beds and clean toilets for $7.75 an hour.' Employers unanimously praise this program because the number of visas per company is unlimited, and importantly, unlike most other cases with foreign workers, they do not need to provide proof of unsuccessful attempts to hire local staff. However, many Americans are unhappy with the use of foreign labor in the face of rising unemployment and stigmatize their own teenagers for their unwillingness to earn an honest penny through honest, albeit unskilled, labor.
The Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), a non-profit organization based in Maine, brings approximately 30-35 thousand foreign seasonal students to the US each summer. CIEE press secretary Melvin Harmon noted a decline in the flow, explaining it by the economic downturn and, consequently, the purchasing power of tourists and vacationers.
Yes, this summer has let us down. The seasonal job market for teenagers and students, both local and foreign (no difference here), is gripped by the worst crisis since World War II. In the newspaper USA Today, the highest-circulation daily in the country, the Institute for the Study of Employment placed a full-page ad: 'What worries young people most? Unwanted pregnancy? The smoking epidemic? The correct answer is unemployment.'
'Adult' unemployment reached 5.5% in May of this year, adding half a percent compared to April. The negative trend is largely the result of a spike in seasonal unemployment among teenagers, which rose by 3.3%. Why? Raising the minimum wage seems like a good thing. But each such increase reduces the number of vacancies in the unskilled labor segment, which includes teenagers and students.
Today it is extremely difficult for seasonal workers to get a foothold in retail, construction, and manufacturing, which have been hit hard by the economic crisis, still superstitiously called stagnation. Foreign kids also have to overcome an unspoken barrier like preferences for locals. Thanks to family connections, school recommendations, and of course native English, American teenagers find seasonal work much more easily than migrant workers. There are frequent cases of a kind of hazing: local kids sit around doing nothing while foreigners do the work for them. In the amusement park where Zhenya Bondareva worked, she was outraged by the obvious desire of Americans to slack off at the expense of foreigners. Complaining to the manager was useless: he openly sided with his own.
Dan Smith, who runs a website giving advice to seasonal workers, calls their living conditions slave-like. 'Many employers would never offer such conditions to American students,' he says. 'Foreign kids are often unaware of their rights. When they dare to complain, they are immediately fired. After all, there is a line of people waiting to take their place.'
Native recklessness
My new acquaintances, Ulyana and Zhenya, were shocked by many things in America. For example, the strong smell of garbage in New York. And also that strangers in small towns smile at you and say 'hello.' They don't really like the overseas strictness, when you can't even drink beer until you're 21, and everywhere they ask for an ID showing age.
The girls, as usual, buy gifts for family and friends. Ulyana's dad is a driver, mom is a store manager. Zhenya's father is a metallurgist, and her mother is an entrepreneur. Their parents reacted about the same to the idea of temporary work in the US. At first disapprovingly, because they were afraid for their daughters, lest something happen, but then they gave their blessing: 'We never saw the world, so at least you will see it.'