My recent post, Bonnie’s Sad Tale, noted the use of the term “volunteer” repeatedly to describe working as an org staff member.
I commented that this “volunteer” status is a legal sham. It is simply a way of taking advantage of the law — and that no org staff are actually “volunteers.” It’s simple to prove. If they cease to “volunteer” before completing their contract, they are given a bill for services they have taken in “exchange” for their work (a freeloader bill). That, by definition, is not a volunteer. And they also have to sign a contract. And they are promised “wages.” And they can’t pick and choose the time they come to do their volunteering or leave from it.
One of our readers sent me this Flag Order.
It makes clear the disdain Hubbard had for “volunteers”…
Once again, despite their claims of being “on Source,” scientology picks and chooses what they do and don’t follow of Hubbard. Generally, when something protects scientology from legal liability or makes more money, Hubbard’s dictates are malleable, if not entirely discarded. But heaven forbid you try to avoid a Hubbard policy that directly generates income and hell hath no fury like the wrath of a registrar stymied at the close.
The wiki on indentured servant is enlightening. Seems 1/3 to 1/2 of emigrants to North America sold themselves into servitude to get TO America. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time….
Looked it up the Employment Development Department Web site The church does not have to pay there taxes.
Special Exclusions – Nonprofit Entities
The following persons who work for religious, charitable,
educational, and other nonprofit organizations described
in section 501(c)(3) of the IRC are excluded from UI and
SDI coverage:
• Persons in the employ of a church or convention or
association of churches.
• Persons in the employ of an organization operated
primarily for religious purposes and which is
operated, supervised, controlled, or principally
supported by a church or convention or association of
churches.
• Duly ordained, commissioned, or licensed ministers
in the exercise of their ministry. (Also excluded from
PIT withholding.)
I’ve got more questions: If they bring immigrants in from other countries and pay them $50.00 a week. At the end of a year they would have made $2,600.00 US money. They would need to file taxes on the money to receive an income credit for such low wages. How does the IRS let them get away with this? I wonder if these people got their stimulus check back in March? In all the years I was a bookkeeper if you had illegal’s working for you without a Social Security Number you had to get rid of them or you paid a fine. They must pay them in cash or not at all.
Barbara, they do pay in cash. Just some bills stapled to an invoice. When I started in 1979 it was $17.50.
At one time it was considered to be an “allowance” and was not reported to the IRS or SDI etc. but after the 1993 agreement that changed. They started deducting a tiny amount for SDI and reporting the payments.
Really they should be reporting their room-and-board and training benefits as income. If they can force someone who is leaving to pay for it, called the “Freeloader Debt”, then they are acknowledging that is has monetary value.
A wise and caring IRS Director could wipe out Scientology in a few months by prosecuting them for this massive tax fraud. They have some income streams but nowhere near enough to actually support their bloated staff contingent. They’d have to close down all but a few boutique operations like the Flag Land Base.
They don’t know about “Earned Income” or at least they didn’t up to when I left in 2004. I submitted no tax forms from 1979 to 2004. My reported income is zero for many of those years. They get around the Social Security number issue by applying for Religious Worker Green Cards, which they are granted for some reason. Probably they have a mole in the Immigration office.
Some of them have other income or inheritances etc. that make it necessary for them to file taxes, but most don’t.
You would think that the Affordable Care Act would have devastated this arrangement, requiring them to provide some sort of health insurance and bankrupting them in the process. Apparently not. Hiding behind the First Amendment again.
I always thought they liked to bring in their victims from foreign countries because before the dollar crashed (I believe it may be in the process of losing most of its value), I cannot be certain but I always thought that if they paid Americans say … twenty dollars, they would pay workers from Mexico 20 pesos and they would pay the same amount like 20 Yen to Japanese workers etc. because in that way, the wages they would pay would equate to almost zero and that is just another way that Tubby arranged to cheat and screw all the people who worked for him (except of course the ladies who would screw him … oh dear … the image of that really sickens me.
This scam has yet another scam under every rock and crawlway. Every agreement is just part and parcel of yet another way to lie and cheat the so-called “volunteers”. I just don’t get it. Was his technique of “love bombing” actually that good that people would lay down and die for him?
It is to wonder. It is to despair.
Bruce, sadly there isn’t “A wise and caring IRS Director”.
They’re too scared to TOUCH scientology again. “Once bitten, twice shy”.
Bruce: You got 17.50 in 1979!? Must have been a GREAT GI week. Recently I learned that Social Security had records for me while I was at Flag/flog (1975-1980). Weren’t much, but they duly noted it. Was almost impossible to save the $100 it cost for a round-trip train ticket each year so I could visit my aged mother who was the very antithesis of the “Jewish Momma” someone parodied earlier. Just basic supplies like shampoo, and doing our clothes at the laundromat chewed up most of out “allowance” each week. Smoking was roll-your-own or bumming from others, and EVERYONE smoked, was almost a requirement. It helped stave off hunger pangs, I believe.
It is such a crack up that L Con designated himself as commodore after his horrific tour in the navy.
“Commodore” hadn’t been a real rank for decades when he started his “Sea Project”. It’s only used in modern days for the poor volunteer leading a local sailing club, and means little except to members of that and other clubs. Hubbard’s “rank”meant nothing outside of the “Sea Org”, of course, though I suspect some port Captains held his self-assigned title in disdain, and would gladly have held him in the local dungeon, the danker, the better.
His whole 3 years! Lol
I volunteered at the foothills mission , just one night a week to help them out , a long time ago . When I refused to join staff , I was told that I was no longer needed .
Fine with me .
You have to be all in or you are out , no room for genuine desire to help outside of the culture.
Marie,
You summed it up very well.
The origin of the word volunteer comes from Latin and means willing or wanting by his own choice.
In Scn i dont believe anybody really is a volunteer by his own choice. Someone else wanted them to be that (or else). Try to say no twice when you get asked to be involved on something they want you in. Pathetic.
Last volunteering I did was at ASHO fdn (early 80’s) at the request of a SO word clearer so he could take 2 weeks vacation. Two nights before his return date I told the course sup that my time was almost done and where was ‘joe’, err… well… seems he decided to blow. I said your gonna need someone and the sup said “You can’t leave post without finding a replacement yourself.’ Wrong says I, but I will hang in for one more week to give you time to find your own word clearer. Several nights later el Sea Orger in uniform comes up and says in his Tone 40 (imitation) ‘you have to remain on post or we will put you in lower conditions’. Wrong says I. First I am not SO, second I’m not staff, and third I made an agreement with ‘joe’, not anybody at ASHO, to do this job for 2 weeks. You have no hold on me. WE’LL SEE ABOUT THAT! as he stomped off. At the end of 3 weeks I packed up my dictionaries and meter and told the sup ‘good luck’. Zero ack or even look at me.
The tech I had/have use for, the Policies…. never.
Jim,
So often the “policy” was whatever they wanted to have in place for “today”, just to cope with the immediate problem. Frustrating, as you found (and dealt with so well).Wish *I* could have gotten out of the rat race so easily. I DID sorta get out, but am still not quite free of the insanity, as evidenced by my STILL visiting the scn-watcher sites after all these years. and STILL, KSW means something to me even after I recognized that item 1. was a false premise, and all the others worthless as a result.
Thanks Jere,
I did get benefits from the training on the grades and auditing through ot3. The promise of exterior abilities kept me hanging around until 83/84. *I* became satisfied there was nothing more in ‘Hubbard’s Cupboard’ and left.
The fact that staff never got paid well, or trained and audited, and the endless cope of the organization had always kept me at some distance. If it works so well— why the hell doesn’t it work so well! Its still interesting to follow the decline of the movement even as Hubbard lived. The ‘Cupboard” IS bare.
There’s GOT to be some story about “Old Hubbard’s cupboard” sitting around…. bare as … mountain air?
A volunteer gives up their time ,for example,at a local hospital,to help out with extra work.They know they will not be receiving any money for it.Scientologists,as I have read so far,”volunteer” their services but are forced to work incredibly long hours and recieve hardly any wages.Sometimes no wages at all.I heard the Naziies implemented this policy in the thirties and forties,only they were called labor camps.Interesting.
Right, Nancy: There wasn’t a totalitarian abuse L Ron didn’t embrace with a big old bear hug.
The only way that a Sea Org “Volunteer” can leave without reprocussions is to do it the way I did it.
All you have to do is die.
( In my case I was still alive but certain people thought that my death was imminent. They did not want me dying on the ship so I was FBed out and told to report for duty next lifetime.)
But before I give the impression that this is a good solution I must warn you that these people do not like to be made wrong.
If they Declare you dead and route you off they will work to ensure that you are really dead.
After the machines in the Engine Room fail ( which did happen after I left) and some senior exec says ” Comm-Ev the Mechanics Chief and are told “We don’t have one to Comm-Ev and are asked “Where the hell is he?”. When they tell the exec that they got me off the ship because they were certain I would die soon and the exec says “Good job”. Is Straass dead yet?
“No sir” “What! It’s been 18 years and he is not dead yet! Are you totally incompetent?
Since some of these people were friends of mine I have been claiming to be dead so that they would not get in trouble.
Allah knows they tried hard enough to ensure my death.
In their last almost successful attempt, they told my then wife to put me into a hospice to die. That would have guaranteed that I would never get any medical treatment until I was dead.
Addition:
Another “Perk” of leaving this way is no leaving Sec Check before you leave. They were in a panic to get me off the ship before they all got AIDS (of course, it is not transmitted that way). The Chief Officer Bill Bragg actually carried my bags from the ship and put them in the taxi to be able to report to Herr Captain Napier that I was safely gone.
Imagine what he must have thought when I called him that night and told him that the plane had turned around and come back after having ” A structural problem with the airframe. He was afraid that I would come back to the ship which I did not.
After taking me away from the doctor, Dr Denk, they sent me to a chiropractor to be treated for AIDS.
Why would they send their most senior mechanic to a person who was neither trained, nor by his own statement, had never seen an AIDS patient? Could it be so as to eliminate any possible chance of his recovery? By then the real doctors had effective meds for HIV/AIDS.
The chiro told me that whatever you do, stay away from those doctors who will give you those deadly drugs. “Those drugs will kill you faster than the HIV. ” I was also living as his house so that I would not wander off and perhaps come across some real treatment.
There was a continuous and covert and deadly series of actions they undertook ; any one or two of which should have guaranteed my demise.
But unless you want your loved ones (in my case my wife) held against their will so that they cannot interfere with “Command Intention” , and you do not want to have dementia so that you cannot even recognize them I recommend some other means of getting off the ship.
The idea that anyone on the Freewinds could possibly do anything not in my best interest was totally not in my thinking. After all, the Captain Freewinds had told a staff member in the Captain’s Office, in my presence ” Straass would lay down his life for this ship”. And it was certainly true. On any fire drill or sudden leaks or any disaster my post was Port Watch Engineer On Site. That means for instance that in a fire I would report to the scene of the fire or leak with my walkie-talkie and be the liason between the engine room and the scene. In a fire for instance, I would tell the ER to turn on the fire pumps so that there would be water to put out the fire.
But I was also the coxswain for Lifeboat Number Nine. In an abandon Ship order, I would muster the passengers and command the boat as we motored away to watch the Freewinds sink or burn.
These two posts conflict, i.e. the persons at the site have to handle the situation at least enough for the boat people to get all the passengers into the boats and lower them.
And I was responsible for keeping the ship afloat!
I had determined after the 1st week that if Abandon Ship was rung that I would just keep handling the fire or leak even if it meant going down with the ship. The last thing I wanted to do was to be in a Lifeboat floating safely watching as the ship burned or went down. You might think that ” Oh, if you are not there, the Starboard Engineer on Site will handle it”. The problem with that was in the 16 years I was there simply ” THERE WAS NO SB Engineer on Site.
It was up to me. The Captain knew this, being a WOG Captain before the SO.
In the 16 years I was on the ship no-one else thought about the contradiction. I.E. if Abandon Ship is called the persons handling the emergency will leave the Emergency to lower the boats when their duty is to put out the fire or at least slow it to buy time to get everyone off the ship.
Point being that I could not imagine that everything possible was being done for me.
5 years after I was sent off to die I ran into the wife of Keith Turner, the Deck Engineer and the one most likely to succeed me as Mechanics Chief. She was a supervisor and was suping a Ship Only course in Los Angeles. I asked her if Keith was now the Mechanics Chief.
She said excitedly,”No Bill, nobody could possibly replace you”.
I thought ” You got to be kidding me.’
It was my job to get the main stat of the Engine Room; Percent of Operational Equipment up each week for the 16 years I was there. I don’t recall it being down more than 5 times in 16 years. And that was because I personally made damn sure it was up, even if I had to work all night, which I did at least a hundred times. The Chief Engineer did not come around issuing orders to get the stat up. I just got it up and reported it on Thursday after 2.
For there to be no-one running the stat meant inevitably that the stat would go down; machines run because they are maintained to run. When that stops they are toast.
The probable reason Keith was not made Mechanics Chief is that his PR was bad; I.E. in drydock when the forward sewage tank was torched out and replaced, Keith Painted the letters: Hell’s Cooking Pot” on it.
So when COCMO Jennifer (Rostig) Alpers came to take a picture of it to send to RTC, that was the picture. And she had to take the picture because the CMOSHIP’s main stat was “Number of Project Targets complied with with Cars sent to RTC.
It probably did not help that Keith called COCMO a “bitch” when he was drunk one Christmas Eve at the Bosun’s Party.
I always wondered about your profile name. Thanks for sharing. Congratulations on surviving scientology.
Minor addition: FBed out is, I expect, “Fitness Boarded” out, and possibly “Beached”: Left on the nearest street without any assistance to get back home, only “the shirt upon your back. Dumped far out in the wilderness like an unwanted pet. It was ESPECIALLY cruel when crew were beached in places like North Africa, where getting anywhere else was a real struggle even if you were flush with cash. That’s the level of cruelty scn is capable of to its foreign “volunteers” it no longer wants to support even to the minimum level it ever does. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt Bill was even given a ride to the airport, much less a plane ticket back to his home state.
I was not “Beached” per se. I had a flight to LA and $1800 in cash and the org paid my room and board.
My beef with them is mainly that they held my wife against her will and, since I was clearly dying, I did not know if I would ever see her again. This along with the bogus medical treatment, ensured that I would die unnecessarily. My wife got off the ship just in time to get me to a real doctor.
Bill, your nightmare floors me. I would be surprised if there weren’t some “officers” who would have liked to treat you more humanely, but the bastards won out. Of COURSE I’m sure they were scared that if you stuck around, you’d spread the disease just by breathing the same air as them. I was that scared, myself, by HIV/AIDS in the early days. ‘Course, back then, we didn’t have the Internet, Google & Wiki. Some complain the last is too biased, but by comparing wiki on a few subjects to the “trusted” information sources I found by doing deep dives, I tend to trust wiki more. MicroS**t’s Encarta had/has known, well-documented biases, like giving different answers based on country. I’m astounded how good the wikis are for scientology topics; neither too much party line nor particularly anti-. I doubt I could be so fair to the organization now claiming to be scientology. Wiki’s strength is that all sides, within reason, can contribute to pages they are concerned with. Also that it often is “right up to the minute”, so sometimes updated only a few days or hours ago on current news/topics. like MAGIC!
Jere. There were some officers who told the Captain that she should be allowed to leave. However, as you are no doubt aware, Scan is not a democracy. My wife later told me that the Captains main beef with her was that ” She split his E/C ; meaning some wanted to hold her there further and some wanted her released. From the Captain’s viewpoint, she had fomented a mutiny.
A great number of times I barely pulled off the Engine Room’s stat at 10 seconds to 2 PM after working all Wednesday night.
That was easy compared to getting my wife off the ship. Had they held her there another week or two, I would have been dead, just like the Captain said. In the end I came close to death solely because he commanded it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrLsmXusESU
Just how many VOLUNTEERS will be needed when the massive SHREDDING PROCESS kicks in to destroy all that information that would be enough to cook the goose of the COS when a surprise visit is made by the likes of the IRS CIA FBI & any and ALL branches of government looking to find all the SKELETONS HIDDEN in those deep dark closets in in that SECRET UNDERGROUND BUNKER……
Balletlady, shredding would be an ALL HANDS and everyone else they can dragoon into doing it. Never mind that SOMEbody’s likely to fall into the monster and get shredded, themselves. All that blood would help obscure the writing on a TON of sensitive documents, like that week’s student points’ graphs.
In the end it comes down, as usual, to money, sex, and power. Religion, politics, cults, whatever. All the same.
Idols with feet of clay…how many religious leaders have “fallen” as in “I HAVE SINNED” to admit affairs with other women during their marriage….& all sorts of stealing large sums of money.
David M DOES NOT STEAL MONEY….he uses “donated to the church money” to cover his extravagant lifestyle of the rich & famous.
He apparently Keeps his horns hidden under his well coiffed hair….his cloven hooves hidden in his expensive shoes & his Satan’s tail curled up in the seat of his shortened length expensive tailored suit pants…….SATAN nonetheless.
Balletlady, Tubby never admitted NOTHING publicly, Dwarfenführer® will be incapable of intelligibly admitting anything after all the fine spirits he’s consumed — and someone ELSE actually did all those bad things, and he’s been discovered and expelled since. ALL gone, no one to blame, anymore. It was ALL that SP, Bill Straass’s doing, and he is paying for his transgressions now, doncha’ know.
Jere Great! Far out! At least I know now why I was declared as I have never seen the issue. And all this time I thought that it was because I was in comm with the likes of you
Brett: USUALLY, it is money, power, sex, but for Dwarfenführer, it’s money, Money, MONEY!, fuck the sex, *I* got all the power.
O/T. To recap, multiple reviewers of the Amazon TV series “The Boys” have picked up on the fact that the show is now satirizing Scientology disconnection. See:
https://ew.com/tv/recaps/the-boys-season-2-episode-7/
https://tv.avclub.com/the-boys-penultimate-season-2-episode-is-one-of-its-mo-1845252308
https://nerdcoremovement.com/the-boys-recap-butcher-baker-candlestick-maker-internal-combustion/
/
“Volunteers’ don’t have to be paid. That alone means they will be recruited and used. Money talks, Lron walks. Walks (actually is driven) to the bank.
Yes, absolutely, S.O. members are volunteers, just like the Sondercommandos (jews who were volunteers to drag the bodies out of the gas chambers).
They were not forced to do it, they volunteered on their own free will. Of course, those who did not volunteer were sent straight to the gas chambers.
Not totally dissimilar to the SO. Once in the SO; a volunteer is owned property of Captain David Miscaviage to use or dispose of as he sees fit.
Zee, yes, he was driven, but if he’d been a more manageable weight, he’d have gladly been carried in a golden litter by his messengers
While driving through East Tampa this morning, there were dozens of NOI volunteers working the intersections and selling newspapers. This morning the paper sales seemed brisk and I bought one myself for $2.00. I asked the seller who he worked for and he replied “The Minister Farrakhan”. I said “Are you with NOI?” He said “Yes, Sir” with conviction near his red bowtie. Very interesting paper. There was a feature article that NOI wants “land rich in minerals paid for by the white slave masters for 25 years”. There was also a feature article claiming that Africa’s response to the virus was far superior to the response in the USA. Going to buy one of the books recommended. These people are somehow into Scientology OT levels. They believe in “mental resurrection” and this implies theta which might be their link.
The reference to the Nation of Islam wanting “land rich in minerals” comes from the NOI’s official Muslim Program. The program is excerpted from the book “Message To The Blackman in America” by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Point 4 of the program states:
https://www.noi.org/muslim-program/
* * * * * BEGIN EXCERPT * * * * *
4. We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own–either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years–until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.
Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.
* * * * * END EXCERPT * * * * *
The Muslim Program, and particularly Point 4, are regularly promoted by Scientology Freedom Medal Winner NOI Minister Tony Muhammad, Scientology Youth For Human Rights Award Winner NOI Brother Rizza Islam, “Highly Commended” Scientology FSM NOI Sister Renata Muhammad, and other NOI members who are also Scientologists.
Thanks for the additional information.
Hasn’t the NOI’s “land rich in minerals” been replaced by 5 states with all their industrial and agricultural infrastructure as a new demand? Like Scientology’s ‘when orgs say what’s legal or not’ and ‘cleared planet’ it’s a complete fantasy without any basis in reality, and the organization has in fact become one of largely uneducated luddites who can’t really manage their own failing affairs competently, and are certainly not capable of governing.
The reference to children and grandchildren of slaves shows how old and dated the idea is – much like Scientology. It’s also peculiar to the Blacks who migrated from the South to the industrial upper midwest; the NOI has never gotten a foothold in the South itself, presumably the area of the US that they would like to be given part of, and in fact attempts the original NOI made to set up farms in the South with the aim of self-sufficiency showed that they were incapable of achieving it even given decades, and couldn’t generate any interest among the Blacks actually living in the region.
NOINEWS: When you say “Honorable Elijah Muhammad”, there should be some quotes somewhere in there. My first thought would be “Honorable”, but the whole phrase will do, since it’s a fictional title.
“receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced”
Well, they don’t read much history, DO they? North Korea has them beat by miles. North Koreans’ average height is significantly shorter than their (literal)South Korean cousins, after less than 70 years’ separation, perhaps 2 or 3 generations. Meanwhile, the current “Comrade Kim” is tall and fat.
“… our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years–until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.”
That is SO laughably short-sighted. It’s not as if the NOI is in a similar situation to the Jews returning to their promises land. Excuse my delving back into scn-think and suggesting they should DEMAND their followers to get a real secondary school education and demand that the “former slave masters” (whomever THEY are) pay them through college, JUST like the athletically gifted are, and NO basket-weaving courses for them to get easy passing scores and demonstrably cheapen their education.
–No, of COURSE that won’t work. As we’ve already found out, when “everyone” has a college education, having that level of education will be worthless, and they’ll only be suited to drive taxis or wait tables. Is there anything less marketable than a PhD in philosophy? A: how ’bout a Masters degree in philosophy?
Through all I’ve read/heard about NOI, it’s no more than a gang of ne’er-do-wells who want to assume power without doing the necessary work to deserve it, or know HOW to wield it effectively
(end of scn-think.)
I’ve assumed some minor org positions have to be staffed by volunteers these days, or at least by part-time staff on some nebulous basis little different from volunteering. at one org i went in to a couple of years ago, the receptionist was on the phone obviously taking care of some personal business, and didn’t seem to know enough about the org to answer my questions once they were free, and so came off as someone probably pressed into helping out a few hours a week.
It seems like org boards still have 20 to 30 positions filled on paper, even when they only have 40 to 60 active members. I think that in the case of St. Louis and maybe at least one other, insiders confirmed that they do have a ridiculously high ratio of staff to members – even if only half those positions were real nominally full-time staff, and others volunteers, the ratio would still be one to four.
Ultimately, I still have yet to see a fully satisfactory explanation of just how org staffing works these days – and just what all those people really do, lots of bureaucratic paperwork and make-work I imagine. The standards for staffing a normal church are around 1 minister and 1 full-time administrator per 100 parishioners.
Peacemaker, I believe the real way org staffing works these days is Davey-Boy orders tons of staff to “man up” the org on Opening Day. The next day, they return home on the busses that brought them, never to return; who would WANT to?
In the meantime, there ain’t really no staff.
Once again, they’re trying to play the “heads I win, tails you lose” game.
If the Sea Org members are employees, lots of labor laws are being violated. So they are described as “religious workers” and somehow it’s all cool.
Even if those “religious workers” don’t even speak English, are in the US under really skanky tricks with green cards that they don’t remotely understand, essentially a form of human trafficking that goes back to the “indentured servitude” of the 1700s. They came willingly, perhaps, but they can’t leave. They don’t have access to their passports and documents. They have no cash. All their relatives who could help are thousands of miles away.
Sons and daughters of all-in Scientologists are under incredible pressure to join the Sea Org and not waste their parents’ funds on frivolities like college, cars and careers.
This often doesn’t work out once the actual conditions of the Sea Org “adventure” are experienced first-hand. If they stay in long enough to go past college age, they really have few options in life other than to stick it out. Slaves of no-sleep.
Then there are the old-timer true-believers.
Many once had dreams of a real career in the Sea Org, high offices, the occasional bonus, three week leaves every year and so on. A very tiny minority actually do OK, mostly by kissing up to Dave.
The rest only last until their first screw-up, flirting with the wrong person, in the same office as someone targeted by Dave for something, making a serious unforgiveable mistake like selling gold right before the run-up and losing a few million. If they aren’t kicked out, they may spend a few years on the RPF or end up in some job like dishwasher or grounds keeper. Who ever “volunteered” to make $50 a week and room-and-board mowing lawns? Still cheaper than a lawn service, I guess.
The Sea Org will go on using them this way until they finally can’t work anymore and then chuck them out on one excuse or another. A lifetime at far below minimum wage doesn’t add up to much in terms of social security or Medicare benefits.
The ever-hungry Sea Org has some other tricks, like calling someone an “outer org trainee” and using them as slave labor while they supposedly get training so they can go back to their org. They get payments from the outer orgs sometimes, never have to pay these guys and use their labor as they choose.
It does not seem like any prosecutors are ever going to notice these flagrant violations of the law.
The only ray of hope in all this is that the abuses have been exposed. Scientology has been dwindling for decades. They no longer need thousands of staff at the big central locations like LA, Copenhagen and Clearwater Florida. Some are being shipped out to places like Kansas City apparently.
Eventually it will all implode and become something more like the Shakers. Still around but with only a few fanatical real members who refuse to reproduce. Darwin always wins in the end. Evolve or die, Scientology.
“receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced”
Well, they don’t read much history, DO they? North Korea has them beat by miles. North Koreans’ average height is significantly shorter than their (literal)South Korean cousins, after less than 70 years’ separation, perhaps 2 or 3 generations. Meanwhile “Comrade Kim” is tall and fat.
scn’s dear leader of course ain’t neither, and there will NEVER be a heir apparent, it seems, UNLESS Davey-boy was a badder boy than we’ve been led to believe.
I guess all the folks pushing for “volunteers” to clean up Central Files in various orgs need some serious ‘Sec Checks’ on why they’re ignoring ‘Policy 6’ on page 2.
Right, PickAnotherID;
Unless they quit throwing all sorts of “other” purposes in to CF, they’ll never get up to PT. By finding, learning and ENFORCING the basic CF policies, I was able to single-handedly bring Flag’s CF up to PT for the first time in its history. After I was “let go”, I heard that they had three people in there and it was getting progressively more a shambles. They
HAD my full hat and write-up, and the tools I’d built with my own two little hands, yet they couldn’t resist adding “stuff” to their workload that threw them ever into confusion and disarray.
Before he became a film star Steve Bushemi was a NYC firefighter. After the events of 9/11/2001 he took his turnout gear (which he still had) and reported to his former firehouse then did numerous shifts, to recover bodies, without pay. He doesn’t like to talk about this, but that’s volunteering!
Yup, otherles, Steve Bushemi was a real volunteer — and hero, but isn’t trying to profit from it somehow. Just another example of what scientology is NOT.