What are you doing to help??

[asagai]

Please keep us up to date on what happens with minimum wages in the UK! That would be a huge win!

It would but I am not sure that HMRC will give out any information even if it does act. Perhaps the only way to know would be to keep a close eye on the UK Orgs. The scions always have the option of staffing to near 100% Sea Org to get around this law.

It is an "option", sure. But it would be a big deal. I don't know how many of the current Class V org staff would be interested in joining the SO merely to stay on post, so to speak. And it's not like there are lots of spare comparable people lying around at Saint Hill.

I'm expressing this in terms of how it would be viewed by the people concerned, not the underlying realities.

Paul

HMRC and the PMs office have to reply to each of the petitioners and to the individual claimants who have put in a claim for non-payment of the National Minimum Wage. They can't hide the judgement. ESMB will be told what they say when they say it!

I suspect the individual files have been combined and we have been told the cases have gone uplines. Obviously what this comes down to in the end is whether HMRC are willing to take on the CofS, but they will have to do some considerable wriggling if they decide not to apply the NMW legislation to the CofS!

From the point of the HMRC judgement onwards, it is not as simple as making all outer orgs be manned by the SO. For SO staff to be exempt from the NMW under section 44A of the act, they must be residential members of a religious community, so outer orgs would have to provide SO accommodation for all the staff.

Anyone non-SO on a non-residential 2.5 or 5 year "contract" are subject to the NMW under section 44.

Also even if they change things so that all Org staff become SO living in residential accommodation they would still be liable to paying back-pay to all non-SO staff for the past nine years. All ex-staff would have a claim, for the difference between what they were paid and the NMW. The CofS would have to pay and HMRC could also impose further penalties on them.

We are talking about the best part of 10 years non-payment of the National Minimum Wage for everyone on a non-SO contract.

 

[RolandRB]

HMRC and the PMs office have to reply to each of the petitioners and to the individual claimants who have put in a claim for non-payment of the National Minimum Wage. They can't hide the judgement. ESMB will be told what they say when they say it!

I suspect the individual files have been combined and we have been told the cases have gone uplines. Obviously what this comes down to in the end is whether HMRC are willing to take on the CofS, but they will have to do some considerable wriggling if they decide not to apply the NMW legislation to the CofS!

From the point of the HMRC judgement onwards, it is not as simple as making all outer orgs be manned by the SO. For SO staff to be exempt from the NMW under section 44A of the act, they must be residential members of a religious community, so outer orgs would have to provide SO accommodation for all the staff.

Anyone non-SO on a non-residential 2.5 or 5 year "contract" are subject to the NMW under section 44.

Also even if they change things so that all Org staff become SO living in residential accommodation they would still be liable to paying back-pay to all non-SO staff for the past nine years. All ex-staff would have a claim, for the difference between what they were paid and the NMW. The CofS would have to pay and HMRC could also impose further penalties on them.

We are talking about the best part of 10 years non-payment of the National Minimum Wage for everyone on a non-SO contract.

Yes, but not all ex-staff will claim as they will be Declared and/or labelled SPs.

 

[Free to shine]

Yes, but not all ex-staff will claim as they will be Declared and/or labelled SPs.

Yes but can you imagine the doubt that would creep in? That they should actually be paid a decent wage? It would create a few cracks in even the most devoted!

 

[Dulloldfart]

Yes, but not all ex-staff will claim as they will be Declared and/or labelled SPs.

True. But it would sure act as an incentive, wouldn't it? Very rough figures for a 60-hour week at £5 an hour is £300 a week, £15,000 a year. Four years of that is £60,000.

The prospect of getting a cheque for £5,000 or £50,000 or £100,000 might help sway a few to the idea that getting declared isn't so horrible after all.

Paul

 

[asagai]

Yes but can you imagine the doubt that would creep in? That they should actually be paid a decent wage? It would create a few cracks in even the most devoted!

"There is a crack, a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in!" L Cohen.

So what if some don't claim?

If HMRC decide that non-SO staff are and were entitled to the NMW, we will still get the situation where non-SO orgs will have to be either manned by SO only with full residential accommodation or they pay the NON-SO staff the NMW for every hour they work, plus they will be liable to penalties for failing to pay the NMW, plus any ex-staff can claim the thousands of pounds back-pay they are each owed, plus the NMW wage legislation would have to be enforced across the whole EC. Plus the US and Australian labor laws could then be invoked, plus....

We already have "Staff Wanted" signs taken down from UK orgs last time I looked.

So we will have a huge reduction in raw meat coming into the orgs thanks to anons pickets, a revolution in how Orgs treat their staff, huge penalties and back-pay spreading across Europe.

Of course HMRC may try to wriggle out of enforcing the NMW with some religious organisation cop-out, in which case we move on to remind them of the legislation and further push them to apply the law. The legislation is quite specific as regards section 44 and they have confirmed that to me (as per the words from them in my earlier post), so we would just demand that they must apply the law.

 

[Dulloldfart]

If HMRC decide that non-SO staff are and were entitled to the NMW, we will still get the situation where non-SO orgs will have to be either manned by SO only with full residential accommodation or they pay the NON-SO staff the NMW for every hour they work, plus <snip>

This is all good. We know they simply cannot afford to pay Class V org staff the NMW without huge changes in numbers of people coming in regularly for paying services, and it ain't going to happen.

The residential accommodation is not so hard to set up, though. It could be that they will set up a whole new workaround, a halfway house between non-SO and SO, to pay lip-service to the law but without requiring Class V org staff to join the SO as such. It's not just signing the contract--even if an SO member is on "garrison mission" to a Class V org he is still an SO member, and would be required to do the EPF and be liable to be reassigned to some other planet with zero advance notice, and so on.

So I would guess if push comes to shove the CofS will acquire residential accommodation for the outer org staff, fill it with bunk beds and wardrobes and cockroaches and so forth, have a few people living there, and for government inspections move people IN from their regular outside accommodation where they really live all the time anyway. It would be a different flow to usual--temporarily moving people IN for official inspections instead of moving them OUT!

Paul

 

[Iknowtoomuch]

Knowing the church, they will cut the check to the staff then order them to give the money back to the church.

 

[byte301]

Yes it does help. ESMB gets 3.5 million page views per month.

Wow! That's a lot of views. It must be Tansy being a voyuer!

 

[asagai]

Knowing the church, they will cut the check to the staff then order them to give the money back to the church.

That would be a violation of the National Minimum Wage legislation!

The legislation is perfectly clear and not something the CofS can dodge out of like that. It is not a voluntary thing, the legislation is already in place.

Also the SO contracts and pay may also be in violation of the legislation - it's just that is a little more tricky, for the reasons HMRC gave in their answer above.

So for now the focus is on non SO staff. When we get HMRC to enforce the legislation for non-SO, who are non-volunteers by definition and by the legislation rule about payments, then we can see about using legislation as regards SO contracts. As well as NMW legslation there is also the EC legislation on Human Riights.

But one thing at a time. So it is the non-SO staff for now that we are asking HMRC to make a judgement about.

 

[RolandRB]

True. But it would sure act as an incentive, wouldn't it? Very rough figures for a 60-hour week at £5 an hour is £300 a week, £15,000 a year. Four years of that is £60,000.

The prospect of getting a cheque for £5,000 or £50,000 or £100,000 might help sway a few to the idea that getting declared isn't so horrible after all.

Paul

That would get them up the Bridge in the freezone!

 

[Wisened One]

Ugh.. HAD to use those words for your thread, eh?

I'm here (on the boards) as much as possible as a shoulder to lean on, to cry on, to encourage, to uplift, to let them know that life is beautiful and kind and good and wealthier OFF the Bridge, OUT of Co$, OUT of Staff/SO!

I'm a Div 6'er on the other side, now.....

 

[Boldgirl]

I'm interested in stories of people you've talked to or things you've done to spread the word about Scientology and it's crimes.


I took a bike ride this morning. At the end I road down to a couple of picnic tables where there was a woman sitting munching on a samitch. She had two wire hair terriers that were running about.
I said good morning and we started talking about dogs and such. Slowly (without really trying...do you really have to try!) we started to talk about religion. It was interesting. Of course I had to make sure she wasn't a Scientologist first.
She ended up being Buddhist. I almost busted out laughing when she told me to watch out from some factions of Buddhists. Which opened the door to my shortened version of my former Scientologisty story (at least till the church gets on trick if it ever does).
I of course told her some of the things I knew and she seemed to take it to heart. I was willing to be there all day to tell her more but alas, she had to leave.

+1

It's about all I can do because of my family situation.


Your turn!!

UMMM....guys......something happened in the last 3 -4 pages.....?

 

[Pixie]

UMMM....guys......something happened in the last 3 -4 pages.....?

I thought the same thing myself and got pissed off and wasn't in a fit state to say anything for fear of.. so I felt it best to let them get on with it. Very conveniently getting away from the point of being made feel guilty for not doing enough. I'm also not interested in reading other people's 'lists' of what they did or are doing, that kind of competition to see 'who's the best', 'who's done the most', 'who deserves a commendation'.. please.. smells like cult shit to me. When one knows what he has done was from the heart, one feels no need to boast about it. Like, 'what are you doing to help'.. classic cult shit from bull baiting you to join staff.. etc etc etc..

 

[Iknowtoomuch]

I thought the same thing myself and got pissed off and wasn't in a fit state to say anything for fear of.. so I felt it best to let them get on with it. Very conveniently getting away from the point of being made feel guilty for not doing enough. I'm also not interested in reading other people's 'lists' of what they did or are doing, that kind of competition to see 'who's the best', 'who's done the most', 'who deserves a commendation'.. please.. smells like cult shit to me. When one knows what he has done was from the heart, one feels no need to boast about it. Like, 'what are you doing to help'.. classic cult shit from bull baiting you to join staff.. etc etc etc..

I'm not sure how you took this thread that way at all. I'm simply asking for peoples experiences with things thay have done to get the word out.

It was meant to be a positive not a complete negative. You already said the above in no so many words and here I am again wondering why you're repeating what you already said earier in this same thread?

 

[byte301]

I think this thread is a good motivator for people. Don't take it as a guilt trip type thread guise.

You may get some ideas of things you could do even if you don't have access to an org.

You only feel guilty if you LET yourself feel guilty! That wasn't the intention of the thread at all imo.

Okay, I am organizing a flash raid and I am going to make a megaphone. I am trying to think of a place to go get some plastic that bends to make one with. I don't want to use cardstock or like that as I will crush it at one point or another if it's not sturdy enough. Anyone got any ideas?

 

[byte301]

Hey that was so fun....I just had this urge to write end thread at the end of EVERY thread with hysterical laughing smilies.....I better log off--I swear I really want to do that!!

Pixie and BG ending all the threads....like Emma painted everyone pink kind of prank !!!!!!

Except I am not going to let it end!

 

[duddins]

I'm not sure how you took this thread that way at all. I'm simply asking for peoples experiences with things thay have done to get the word out.

It was meant to be a positive not a complete negative. You already said the above in no so many words and here I am again wondering why you're repeating what you already said earier in this same thread?

For what it is worth, I understood where you were going with this thread and I thought it was a good topic.

I know that posting our stories on the ESMB helps.

I went away for a month or two and since being back, I have not seen too many testimonials, but I know that our lurkers read them and that they are truly helpful.

But aside from that, what are we doing?

 

[anonmom]

I am involved with my local anon protest group. I am the only ex member involved which surprises me. They are an awesome group of people and take great care of me. Sometimes I help explain scientology to them on the local anon message board. Sometimes I just confirm what they are saying from an exes point of view. I have only been able to go to one protest so far, but I make signs and donate a little $ for anti-scn fliers.

 

[duddins]

I am involved with my local anon protest group. I am the only ex member involved which surprises me. They are an awesome group of people and take great care of me. Sometimes I help explain scientology to them on the local anon message board. Sometimes I just confirm what they are saying from an exes point of view. I have only been able to go to one protest so far, but I make signs and donate a little $ for anti-scn fliers.

Hooray Anonmom!

That is very cool. When I protest there are no Ex-SO's about. So I know I can add my own spice to the day!

(Hope all is well with you!)

 

[Boldgirl]

Except I am not going to let it end!