Fed-up foreign students leave McDonald's jobs

ABINGDON, Md. — Peter Kasprzyk and several other students from Poland and Slovakia traveled to this Maryland town this summer to work for the McDonald's restaurant chain. They say they were told that they would make a lot of money, "more money than you could imagine."

But Kasprzyk couldn't buy an item from the dollar menu with his first paycheck. It was zero.

That's because he and four fellow students were docked for $2,000 monthly rent on a shared two-bedroom apartment that normally goes for $750. That deduction wiped out every cent he made flipping hamburgers for $8 an hour in nearby Edgewood.

On top of those deductions, Kasprzyk had to pay $200 for a security deposit on the apartment, and share the $20-a-day roundtrip cab fare to work.

"We were taken advantage of," said Kasprzyk, 22, who on July 26 walked away from the job and risked forfeiting his apartment security deposit.

McDonald's, listed as his landlord on an unsigned duplicate of the three-page apartment lease received by Kasprzyk, declined to comment. Officials at corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., referred questions to the regional office in Baltimore, which referred questions to Donna Maertens, of Stafford, Va. She recruited about 400 foreign students this year for temporary jobs at McDonald's outlets from Maryland to Virginia.

"Before they came here they signed a contract," Maertens said. "They were told everything. They have orientation sessions. They know all the conditions. No one holds the pen in their hands. No one's forcing them to do anything."

Kasprzyk and his colleagues, though, said they were pressured by Maertens' agent to sign the English-language rental agreement without adequate time to read it. Similar pressure was exerted by her overseas agents when the students signed an employment contract, the students said.

The students came to the United States under J-1 visas as part of a work/travel program authorized by the State Department. Under the program, foreign students may spend as long as four months working in the United States and take an additional month to tour and travel.

Stanley Colvin, head of the State Department bureau that oversees the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), said the complaints were being investigated.

Kasprzyk and his fellow workers said they paid $500 to sign up with Maertens' program and an additional $1,000 for airfare.

They expected a profitable summer but were swiftly disappointed. Instead of working eight-hour shifts at McDonald's, they said they were sent home when business slowed.

Kasprzyk worked 17.22 hours in his first pay period, which ended July 6, and earned gross pay of $137.76, according to his pay stub.

The pay stub, which misspells his name as "Piotor J. Kasprzyk," shows $2 was subtracted for Medicare and $8.54 for Social Security. Students participating in the J-1 program are exempt from those payments, Colvin said.

The largest amount subtracted was listed under the category "voluntary deductions." A total of $127.22 was taken out for "crew housing deduction." Deductions totaled $137.76, matching his gross.

Kasprzyk was not the only student to find his pay wiped out by deductions. When the students complained to the McDonald's manager in Edgewater, they were first told to take it up with Maertens.

But "after a big (argument), he gave us $40 or $50 apiece," Kasprzyk said.

Kasprzyk said the students also complained to CIEE, but were told the same thing they had heard from Maertens: You signed a contract; you have to live with it.

"That doesn't sound right," said CIEE spokeswoman Pamela Posey, adding she was not specifically aware of the complaints.

Maertens said rent was more than normal because it was a short-term lease and included furniture and utilities.

"You're not going to get to talk to anyone else (from McDonald's) — that's why you were referred to me," said Maertens, who wouldn't say whether she was an employee of McDonald's.

Several students fled the situation, including Pawel Syscz, 25. "It's just not fair," Syscz said. His first McDonald's paycheck also netted out to nothing and he said he doesn't know whether he will receive his second paycheck, still due him.

The problems became apparent to Kasprzyk as soon as he and Syscz stepped off the plane in New York. Arriving on a Friday and finding no one waiting, the two said they called Maertens and heard a recorded message telling them she would not be available till Monday.

That left them in New York for two days, where they used up much of the $475 in cash they had been told to bring. Following Maertens' instructions, they said they took a bus to Baltimore on Monday, where they were met by a man sent by Maertens.

Kasprzyk said the driver charged them $15 each for the ride to Abingdon and then told them about the $200 deposit required for the apartment. They said they were told they had to sign the three-page employee lease agreement immediately, plus several other forms, including an authorization to have rental payments deducted from their paychecks.

The agreement also calls for forfeiture of the security deposit if they "are asked to vacate the company-secured housing for any reason whatsoever." The only company mentioned in the agreement is McDonald's.

Whenever the students objected to their situation, Andrea Mikstajova, a Slovakian who is part of the group working at McDonald's, said there was a stock answer.

"They said 'Take it up with Donna,' " she said.