1. Bogus Pay Rate: Engineers Paid Well Below Minimum Wage
SCETA Students are told that they are “paid” throughout the school year, when in reality, the money that they have earned and is owed to them from co-op, has payments stretched out over a longer period. Students are not “paid” at all throughout the school year, they are just slowly collecting money that they are already owed by the company. My effective pay rate was $7.06/hour.
2. Threatening Contract: Students Can Be Fined Tens of Thousands of Dollars to Leave
The SCETA Contract states that students may need to pay up to $40,000 if they leave the SCETA Program for any of the following reasons (1) GPA Drops below 3.0 in Final Year (2) Withdrawal from the program (3) Fired from Program (4) Siemens is not able to find a suitable post-grad position.
This is an entirely predatory practice, trapping students and causing undue fear and stress. If Siemens wants better retention rates, they should create a more positive environment for students instead of threatening them with penalties mirroring what they already owe in student loans. This is a disgusting and embarrassing practice.
3. No Education Consideration: Do Not Expect to Complete a Co-op Related to Your Field of Study
The SCETA posting is purposefully vague when applying. It’s suggested that students will get to work on different teams and with different business units during their co-ops and have a choice in the direction of their career path. It seems that SCETA hires a batch of students each year, and then approaches business units asking if they need a co-op. This leads to co-ops being placed in roles that do not fit their skill-set, or co-ops sitting on their thumbs for months at a time.
The students are used as placeholders and are given to incompetent managers, which is enitrely disrespectful of the hard-working students that are hired into the program.
4. No Leverage for Real Wages: Don’t Expect Any Change, The Contract Locks You In.
The contract leaves students with no leverage when it comes to being hired at a real wage during the co-ops. The contract also stipulates that we will be fined if we leave the program, forcing grads to sign whatever full-time offer is given to them.
5. Contract Changes: Working for Less than Minimum Wage for Half a Year
Some students of my cohort were moved from Siemens to Siemens Energy, and were forced to sign new contracts. Initially, we were promised a set amount of money paid over 16 months, which was then changed to 17 months with the contract change. This new contract essentially asked us to sacrifice almost half a year of appropriate wages, for graduated engineers, for almost half a year.
