Complaint Review: Salvation Army

I also worked for the Greenwood Indiana Salvation Army donation store it's absoulutely true they do not provide toilet paper in the restrooms for employees or customers. I worked during the summer and we did not have any a/c either.

Obviously we did our homework. We were THERE. Everything cited in this complaint is 100% true and it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the corruption, fraud and outright greed of this band of thieves. I've posted in several other places around the internet about the Indianapolis ARC, the sweat shops and the criminals who run them. Christine Hudgens is an abysmal person and has no business calling herself a "counselor" of any sort. She is an immature, abusive little snot who would be better suited to sewing dresses than working with anyone in recovery. Every set of officers who goes through there lives rather high on the hog, taking the best donated goods for themselves. Furthermore, Ljmans, where in this report did the author complain about a "bad breakfast"? I think you're the one that needs to grow up. Actually, I suspect you're a bootlicking little SA toad who monitors these boards for anyone attempting to expose the wrongdoing by these creeps. 

A bad breakfast? Did you really type that? Did you read anything this woman said or did you simply throw out out that (I'll be kind) ad hominem attack in a futile attempt to defend the indefensible? I was there. I worked in several of those stores and this report is spot on, although it doesn't cover everything that is wrong with this fraudulent charity. Take a look to the left side of this page. Better yet, go to Google and type in "Salvation Army fraud". This is happening at SA locations all over the country. I won't even go into other goings-on at SA locations in Marion County, Indiana, but you might also google "Jonathan James Hartman". These "officers" are the most corrupt bunch of scam artists you will ever run across. Why do most of the donated materials go to the rag-out trucks? Because these people keep the decent donations for themselves to furnish their own houses and clothe/feed themselves and their own families. They care nothing for their employees or the "beneficiaries" (there are almost no benefits for them whatsoever) they use for indentured servitude. I could go on and on but the fact is a lot of people have already woken up to this scam and more are chiming in all the time. Yeah, I've seen the SA help a few people when the tornados hit in Indy but other than that I don't personally know anyone that has been helped by this so-called "charity, and I was involved for 2 years. 

For someone that doesn't care you sure seem to be upset. Folks like you are a hoot. You think because someone gets a bad breakfast that the entire organization is bad. Grow up...Three million people got badly needed help from The Salvation Army last year. Shelter, food  and senior programs, disaster services...and more.

Do your home work...before you assume you are the voice crying out against injustice.

I have to separate this all because there is a lot to go over.
"Welcome to the Salvation Army." A friendly cashier greets you as you enter one of these family stores. She tells you about the latest sale this week and leaves you to browse the many racks and shelves for something you might like. You find all kinds of things that look nice and new , well depending on the store you go into, and a a low price. What a deal! And on sale this week too! You couldn't be happier as you make this purchase. But you do not wonder what goes on behind the doors labeled "Employees Only". I know...I work behind these doors.
Want a job? ok, you start monday.

 After months of searching for my first job to help me pay for my college, I found an ad for help needed at the Salvation Army. So I sent my resume, Just as I had for any place hiring. I really wanted to find a job. A few weeks later I was called for a phone interview, nothing really significant was asked in my opinion, and was told right after where and what time i could go to orientation. The Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) which houses the "Beneficiaries", this is what they call the men in the drug and alcohol rehab program, the Salvation Army church, and the main Indiana Salvation Army Thrift Store, was where i was sent for orientation. The place was a mixture up updated and rundown from every angle. we were told what to expect from out new jobs, standing for at least 4 hours, a 15 minute break, may have to lift heavy items up to 30 pounds, no paid vacation or paid holidays, no benefits, $7.25 per hour starting out . I signed the form agreeing that I understood. Then we were sent to our training stores.

 A Small Fortune in Trash
The training was pretty straight forward, just sort through the garbage and put out good things on the floor, everything else is "Rag Out" and get sent out on another truck. "Rag Out" is what we call items that we can not sell. Its ripped or stained or broken, and so we send it off on a special truck. For each truck load the Salvation Army is paid a certain amount. Every day we send out tons of clothing and other items that are deemed trash in the rag out, and every monday we pull items with a certain color tag off of the floor for rag out because it has been in the store for over a month. Piles and piles of rag out are sent out everyday from every store.

 Lying About Numbers
One day we were told that we were being sent to a new store that was being opened up (30 minutes drive on the interstate from one store to the other) we had to be there the next day at 8 AM and for the first few weeks would be working 8 hours rather than the 4 we were hired on for. We worked endlessly in a dirty back room for 8 hours sorting through clothes and other items ( quite often finding a box fill of just broken glass). Numbers was the name of the game . We had to produce tens of thousands of items each day to meet their standards, and that was only counting what was allowed on the sales floor. Sort through the bins. Make a straight pile. Send it to the hangers. Hang the clothes . 100 pieces per rack. 3 racks per hour per person. tag the rack. price the rack. hang the rack on the sales floor. 20 minutes to hang on the floor. We did this every day until the grand opening, and were consistently being yelled at by our supervisor that the store wasn't being filled fast enough. Racks were sometimes counted twice by him to make production numbers seem higher. Robbed the Store AND $14.50 from my pay check (and thats a lot when you get paid so little).

 Twice before Grand Opening our store was broken into and had many of our most valuable items stolen, we all suspected the same person. We had walked in one day, not noticing anything and went to work as always. until the boss came in ( he was not there when one of the managers unlocked the door to let us in, it was his day off) followed by the other two managers pointing out things then told us all to go wait in the parking lot. we had to stay outside as the cops questioned us and looked around in the store. 2 hours we waited to be let back in the store so we could get back to work. we were told that we would not be paid at all for those two hours because we weren't working, and we were not given a lunch, or one of our 15 minute breaks because "[we] had plenty enough time to get something to eat if we were hungry". We had been kept outside from 8am to 10am for questioning. I have to ask, who gets lunch at that point?

 Forced Religion?
Every morning our boss would have a meeting at the front of the store to say who would do what job. and then we were all required to stay while someone said a prayer, a long winded one at that. half the employees were not religious. music was allowed in the work room as long as it was christian music. Beneficiaries (they work in the stores as "work therapy") say they must attend church as part of the rehab. Each day the same 10 songs play through the store on a loop, their message all obviously about the worship of god.

 Bad Behavior
Our now former boss was once suspended for sexually harassing one of the female employees. He was sent away for only a few days and then was allowed to return as our boss once again. He often through childish fits in the store, yelling sometimes at customers and employees. Once one of the employees had gotten a call from the school that her child was sick and needed to come pick him up. she was yelled at for it and told that the school needed to call the store number if they needed her. the school has said they tried the work number but the phone was never picked up. another employee was called by child protective services and was told she was not allowed to talk on the phone unless it was break time. during the drought my state recently had the back room became a 90 degree oven and employees that left their work station to get a drink of water (we weren't allowed to keep drinks in the work room with us) were often yelled at about slacking off and taking unauthorized breaks. This particular boss has been in many Salvation Army stores, he has also been written up and suspended for sexual harassment multiple times. They have fired him just as often and then made him manager of a different store again later.

 Rehab or Money Making Scam
We work along side the men in the rehab program and find out many interesting things about it. Like many of them are not allowed to go any where out side the building unless it is to work in one of the stores. They get no pay out of this as it is part of their treatment. Two of them told me that when they enter the rehab program they are made to get foodstamps. The Salvation Army then takes the food stamps and feeds the beneficiaries out dated food that was donated to them. Some times now I still see them with food in christmas packaging in their lunches. Another tells me that in order to get bus passes for all of them so that they can take the bus back and forth between work and the ARC the Salvation Army has them listed as "mentally handicapped" on the form so they all get free bus passes. donations of razors, soap, shampoo, and deodorant are often set aside to be sent to the ARC for them.

 Poor Work Conditions
the work room is an incredibly dirty palace. the floor is covered in dust and trash and dirt. Along the walls there are mountains of donations that never seem to shrink making the room very crowded and hard to move in sometimes. i've come across many spiders wile working here some the size of a half dollar coin and once while I was working in the shoes and checking inside for the size, a Brown Recluse crawled out. It was close enough to have bitten me.( and i can only imagine the hospital bill for bite from it). Our break room never seems to be clean either, there is food on the floor. old food in the fridge thats been there for months, and the tables are dirty. flies like to spend a lot of time in there and we've even found a few roaches. no matter how many times its cleaned it gets trashed again, there is no designated janitor. The restrooms are also foul (we only have 2 single stall rooms, one for men and one for women). they are rarely ever cleaned. the company doesn't supply us with toilet paper, we are required to bring our own if we want some. there are also no paper towels to dry our hands on after washing them.
There is so much more I could say about all this ....