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Foreign student workers disillusioned

"...The casinos that brought them here glittered distantly from their windows. In time, the students felt their own smallness.

"...The city's casinos have hired hundreds of Eastern European college students in earnest over the past few years to serve summer's swell of tourists. They work as housekeepers, cocktail servers and bus people at seasonal rates, earning less money than year-round workers here but far more than they could in their homelands.

"This summer, Harrah's Entertainment Inc.'s Atlantic City division alone hired about 750 J-1s - so named because they come here on J-1 work and travel visas. The local casino union that covers lower-level employees says it has 1,000 such members.

"They work long hours for barely minimum wage. Sometimes they earn money to take home, beyond the $2,000 to $3,000 they fronted to come here.

"...Once the students arrive, some of them perceive that they are being taken advantage of by the casinos, Boardwalk bosses and landlords. They learn to become opportunists, too.

"They learn that casinos only allow you one free meal a day in the employee cafeteria, but no one notices if you eat three. They realize that landlords charge them higher rates, so they tell them that six people live there when there are really eight. They realize that you can work a second job legally on the Boardwalk, which means paying taxes, or you can get cash under the table.

"...Harrah's Entertainment, which owns four Atlantic City gaming halls, stepped up its international recruiting program two years ago and set up a separate recruitment center for these students last year. Trump Entertainment Resorts, which owns three casinos here, began recruiting in Eastern Europe about the same time.

"The companies say it has worked well for both parties. But some students say the agencies they paid in their country to arrange for them to work here misled them into thinking they could make more money and have better positions. They say they were rarely informed that they would have to pay dues to a casino union or that finding the second job they needed would be difficult in a crowded labor pool..."

copyrighted material written for and appeared exclusively in The Press of Atlantic City

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