Bicycle-to-Work Greencard Scam by Pool Companies
Posted by:
3rd Generation
()
Date: September 08, 2015 12:32PM
I am a 3rd generation resident of Fairfax County, and would first off say, I don't hit this site as much as I use to because it is a haven for flamers (and mindless flaming like on this thread) though I have never personally been flamed or gotten in any tete-a-tetes with anyone here (as is apparently common, just witnessed other do it to others) and I don't feel it bears a good representation of my community or that I can tell people proudly I visit this site (the flaming rants on race & politics in particular are an embarrassment). I tried to find a "core" of sane people here. This is mostly addressed to them. The other ones that are jeering about a dead father of three or using it as an opportunity to blow their anti-cycling horn need not reply. We are different beings and you have nothing meaningful to say to me, so as they say "just move along" (to your next self-indulgence, porn site, or what ever).
To the occasional "core of the sane" here...
I work for a pool company which hires many internationals. I did not know Andrew Gooden, or ever meet him. That being said, I will say most of the internationals I have met & worked with, who come to work here are pretty no-nonsense straight arrows who often work 6 days a week or more (these people have work ethics that went out of style in America after the frontier days - they work holidays, weekends and often all of them, for no extra pay). The Jamaicans in particular are noticeably hard working (they are no strangers to long hours and hard work). The wrinkle which has bothered me is, these pool companies are not regulated enough in bringing internationals over here, they put them up in apartments, sometimes breaking zoning laws to do so (apartment stuffing), and locate them so they can bicycle to their pool jobs. Many internationals I have known did not own their own bike, or (on technicality) it was 'credited' to them by the company or people in the company (and sold repeated again & again, from employee to employee). And as these companies are corporate sponsor for green cards, they have a responsibility, AND ESPECIALLY since these pool companies have made a profit-making endeavor out of this - I think it should be beholden upon these pool companies to provide bikes that are properly geared out AND/OR inspect their employees bike at the beginning of the season, especially when dealing with not just strangers to our culture & city but bona fide foreigners who are often being railroaded in their jobs to doing stuff they did not sign up for. And as foreign workers do not have the recourses that you & I (as locals) may have. We all have experienced bad bosses who push the limits to anything they can get away with and that's with local people like us who have more recourse and know better.
The internationals that come here through these pool companies, do not sign up for a bicycling jobs at bad hours of the evening. (Andrew was bicycling at twilight because many pools close at that time, AND only recently as summer shortens has twilight just started coming before 8pm for the first time this summer, I noticed this at my pool where many of the auto-sensor lights went on for the first time before closing and then earlier, the deeper into August we got, it did not do this in May when the season started for Andrew). Internationals like Andrew Gooden do not decide where they live or where they work like you & I do (the pool companies who sponsor their green cards do). They do not dare decline or protest if they want to stay on and be welcomed back (as Andrew Gooden was back for his second season).
The pool company & Andrew Gooden's green card sponsor, to its own interests, has remained in the background of this story BUT I will tell you, I live within 5 minutes of Sunrise Valley & Copermine (& would love to work in one of my nearby neighborhoods) but the pool companies put me out in Prince William County because I can drive and they can have internationals bicycle locally. (and they pay me twice as much as some internationals, so I am not begrudging or complaining, just noting the irony). But this is all done so the pool company's can operate on the lowest, bottom dollar and at the expense of international workers like Andrew Gooden. They are horribly taken advantage of. As I say, I have seen international workers stuffed into apartments with two bunkbeds in every room including the family room (breaking zoning laws, and this is the corporates doing this, not greencard-renters). They are then price-gouged for their rent (even though it is being illegally reduced to less than a tenth by the apartment-stuffing they will pay a "normal" rent), price-gouged for their uniforms (I've seen internationals price-gouged $20 for a t-shirt locals would refuse to pay for, with a minimum required of 5). I can tell you it is quite the racket, they whittle these guys paychecks down to nothing like "the company stores" of old. (like the song says... "Saint Peter don't ya take me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store"
One international worker I gave a ride to for two weeks (during the extended season of some pools in September) had previously biked to work the whole summer and had to make an appointment with a driving supervisor to go to a grocery store with a car. It was a big deal to get an appointment with a supervisor to do this once every two weeks. Because of this, when I drove him I would take him by the grocery store on the way home. This was quite a perk for him, so much so that after a while his room mates began to give him lists of stuff for him to get for them once they learned I had willingly become his "grocery store connection". At the grocery store they pay full price for everything regardless of the discount listed because they didn't know the discounts were available to them for a card for the asking. When I saw this, I told the guy please stop paying full price and use my phone number (which he already had for work) and he would get the promotion discounts. He was perplexed by this and asked me if I was sure it was "legal" and on the up-&-up for him to use my phone number. This is how timid, unobtrusive, & unknowing many international workers are. I assured him, it was completely safe, that the card is a just a promotion, and it was ok for him to use my phone number/membership card for grocery store discounts (equivalent to coupons) and that I had used an old ex-girlfriends phone number for years and no one objected even though her name would show up and I obviously wasn't a female (I eventually bothered to sign-up for my own). He was afraid he could get in trouble for impostering someone else and sent back to eastern Europe. He was completely unfamiliar & befuddled with the whole grocery store discount card schtick we go through. I bring this up to show there is a culture-shock of the simplest things, that we are completely unaware of and take for granted. And I think it is ridiculous that these pool companies are not brought to bear greater responsibility for their "sponsors". That is a legal term after all, they are literally & legally "sponsors".
We should put pressure on the pool companies who are profiting off of these absurd circumstances (ie, hiring internationls to bicycle locally, while hiring the locals to drive outwards *lol*) to make sure all their green-card sponsored employees have lights on their modes of transportation, should they have to work late, get held up late at work, or if summer starts to shorten at the end of the season. Unchecked corporates will jeopardize human life to save pennies on bicycle-to-work green card labor instead of hiring local people who know the roads and have vehicles to drive, and then just shrug it off as an unfortunate accident while making no changes. And corporates benefit from compliant workers who cannot stick up for themselves (it is why companies target internationals) and it is why we need to stick up for these people and put the pressure on the companies who are profiting off of running their businesses on bicycle-to-work green card labor. It certainly is not necessary to run their businesses on bicycle-to-work labor, it's just a way to improperly inflate profit margins by getting compliant international labor to do what American labor would not do (bicycle to work at lower wages). I have no problem with internationals working here, but we need to make sure they are taken care of by their employer and not just put in absurd situations to maintain their employment and green card (noteably like minors & railroad workers were). The pool companies have created this situation. It is a shame, and I cannot help but to wonder if it was preventable. My condolences to Andrew Gooden's wife, their 2 children, the unborn child on the way, and his other family. He was working here in not the best of circumstances, to make a better life for them... and it backfired horribly.