RU: Labor Exploitation for Jesus - Part 5

We're working our way through the Handbook for RU ministries.

Page Four outlines the weekly schedule for inmates disciples.  Since these are people who are dealing with legitimate mental illnesses like alcohol and drug addiction or anorexia, medical treatment programs would include group therapy, individual therapy, classes to learn about coping mechanisms and plenty of time for rest.  The rest time is as important as the other parts because when someone's brain is injured, the brain's way of recovering is through sleep.

(This is something I've learned both from a very severe case of depression when I was 19 and a closed head injury I received a few weeks ago.  I've started to tell people that my main daily activity is sleeping followed by hard-core napping followed by short-bursts of mental work which leads to more napping.)

Here's the weekday schedule.

Things I've Noticed:

1. The day starts very early and ends very late.  Assuming that you fall asleep immediately at lights out, men can get 6.5 hours of sleep per night during the week and women can get 7 hours of sleep per night during the week.
2. Somewhere in all of the materials for this program the fact that disciples have chores is mentioned.  I'm assuming that's included in the first hour of the day compared to the normal 30 minute dinner period.
3. I can find 3 hours of time to work on the "Phase" work - the cornerstone of the recovery bit - from 5:30-7:30 AM and 9-10PM for men and 6-8AM and 9-10PM for women.
4. Men put in a 9 hour workday; women put in an 8.5 hour workday which says quite a bit about the priorities of the program.  Unless the men get a full hour lunch and the women get a half-hour lunch, these work periods move into overtime rules.
5. You also get 3.5 hours of chapel, church services or something thrown together by the volunteers involved with the ministries a day.
6. I'm guessing that using the 9-10pm slot to actually relax will end up either slowing your program down to a crawl or end in disciplinary measures taken against the person.
7. I'm curious who provides lunch.

Here's the weekend schedule.  Men are on the left; women on the right

 Things I've noticed:

1. On Saturday, men get a Bible class.  The program overview describes the Saturday morning class as
    "College level classes will be held every Saturday. These classes may include: Theology, financial management, health and nutrition, basic computer skills, auto mechanics, driver’s safety training and childcare. The college classes give students an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of God’s word, life skills, and Bible doctrine. The classes also prepare students for greater usefulness to their local church when they return home."
2. On Saturday mornings, women clean the buildings.  Sexist much?  Actually, to bring the women up to 9 hours of work per day like the men, I'm guessing that the women are used as a local cleaning crew for either the ministry or businesses for at least 2.5 hours on Saturday after doing any grunt work needed around the campus.  Maybe it's the whole time.  RU sells a daft book for women called "Handing Her the Heritage of Holiness and Homemaking" so I can see how they could justify using the female patients as a cleaning crew.  This would also add to overtime pay.
3. Saturday gives you 1 hour of time to work on the Phases.
4. Is there really a monster chapel session from 5:30-sometime before 11pm?  That's overkill.
5. Friday night into Saturday morning gives a decent 9 hours of sleep for men and 10 hours of sleep for women, plus eight more hours of sleep on Saturday night. God knows they would need it at this point.
6. Looks like everyone get mandatory rest time on Sunday afternoon from after lunch to dinner.  That must be the time that the website talks about being able to enjoy their lovely campus because I can't find any other time on the schedule for it.
7. Sunday does allow you 2 hours of work on the "Phases" program.

 Summary Per Week:

• A maximum of 50.5 hours of sleep per week instead of 56 hours of sleep per week recommended for healthy adults.
• 18 hours of work on the "Phases" Recovery Program.
• 26.5 hours of chapel, services or other scheduled worship times (That could jump by 6.5 hours per week to 33 hours per week if you are male and the Saturday Morning Class is on a theological aspect.)
• 45 hours a week of "paid" employment for men; 42.5 hours + "cleaning crew" of "paid" employment for women.  In case you haven't put it together, the money earned by patients goes right into RU's pocket to "offset expenses".

How much can RU earn from their patients a week?
For one person working 45 hours a week at $8.25 per hour - the minimum wage in Illinois - the person makes 371.25 before tax and ignoring overtime.  Let's say that's $300 per week.  That's $1,200 per month.

For 80 women and 50 men, that's 156,000 per month income.

The numbers start climbing if the women do secretarial work and the men do construction work - but we'll get to that later along with the unethical ways they keep their costs low.

RU's emphasis isn't on recovery; RU uses desperate, hurting people as an income stream.