McDonald's foreign student guest workers locked out of basement home

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(Gallery by Joe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.com)

The door was locked, and they couldn't get in.

Left standing in the bitter cold, the four female foreign student workers figured the owner of the Hampden Township house had the door leading to their basement living quarters locked because he was upset with them.

Yimeng Zang of China, Cheryl Len, Sabrina Tan and Kah Inn Lee of Malaysia — foreign guest workers participating in the U.S. State Department's J-1 Visa Exchange Visitor Program — joined in Wednesday morning's protest at the McDonald's they work at on Trindle Road.

And Andy Cheung, who owns the house they live in, also owns the McDonald's where they are employed.

More than 50 foreign student workers and supporters protested Cheung's operations today, claiming he has exploited his guest employees who work in three of the six midstate McDonald's he owns.

They also said Cheung forces guest workers to live in cramped, deplorable conditions in the basements of three houses he owns in the Harrisburg area.

Cheung did not respond to repeated interview requests Wednesday.

Jason Cheung refused comment, as did Johnson, who told the four women before police arrived they could re-enter the house, only if their friends and a PennLive reporter and photographer left the premises.

Rodrigo Valenzuela, 22, a foreign student worker who was employed by Cheung at the Trindle Road McDonald's, lived in the house with Zang, Len, Tan and Lee until Monday.

Valenzuela, who accompanied the group to the house tonight, said through an interpreter that he expected to work 40 hours per week, not the 14 he often was given. He also said he thought he was going to stay in an apartment, not a cramped basement.

The eight people living in the basement paid Chueng $65 per week, deducted out of their minimum wage paychecks, totaling $2,000 per month to reside in the subfloor of the house, he said.

Valenzuela slept in a utility area of the basement housing the water heater, furnace and an oil tank.

He said he put his mattress there because he worked the overnight shift, and it was the only way to find a quiet area to sleep.

"There were eight of us living in the basement. There was one room where we were all sleeping together. The room was separated by a curtain, with four men on one side of the room, and four women on the other side of the room," Valenzuela said. "In the same big room was the kitchen and the dining area. It was a very disappointing experience."

Lee, a speaker at the protest, said the conditions she has lived in are horrible.

"The basement doesn't even have a room. The boys and the girls [are] just a curtain away from each other," she said.

A similar incident occurred in 2011, when roughly 200 foreign students and AFL-CIO union members protested outside a Palmyra distribution center run by Ohio-based Exel under a contract with The Hershey Co.

A third party, the SHS Group, under a subcontract with Exel, hired the students and placed them at the Palmyra site.