RU: Labor Exploitation for Jesus: Part Fourteen

Honestly, I never expected this series to get this long - but the more I read about this program the more freaked out I got.  In fact, my husband argues that signing up for RU's Schools of Discipleship should be legally admissible as a sign of mental incompetence.

Today, we look at the work information that RU wants prior to acceptance.

Previous Employment:

1. Notice the conspicuous absence of the standard box under each job that asks "Can we contact this employer?"  I don't want RU to call anyone I've ever worked with...ever....for any reason.
2. RU doesn't seem to care about length of employment either.  
3. What do you do if you have more than three previous jobs?  I've had nine paying jobs since I was 16.

Skills Section:

1. Later in the application, RU argues that all of the work completed during the ministry is similar to an unpaid internship.  Without going into all of the problems with their interpretation of an unpaid internship, the first legal requirement of an unpaid internship is that the intern is learning new skills that can be applied to other employment opportunities.  As such, if you have any of these skills before the program, you can't do an unpaid internship to learn the same skills.
2. Let's do some math on how much money RU is actually making on each "student volunteer".  To find salaries/wages, I used salary.com for median salaries in 61101 which is the Rockford, IL zipcode.  

Example One: A woman who working in the shipping/orders department for 40 hours a week, completes 2 hours of chores that the facility should have paid wages for and 5 hours of janitorial work on Saturdays.

• Median salary for shipping clerk in Rockford, IL is $30,995 per year - so that would be approximately $15,497.50 in six months.  
• Minimum wage for 2 hours per week which is 48 hours in six months at $8.25/hr = $396
• Median salary for janitors is $13.00 per hour for 120 hours in six months = $1,560

Total wages to RU: $17,453.50

Example Two: A woman works as an office assistant for 40 hours a week + the same 7 hours of extra work in Example One.

• Office assistant median wage is $19.00.  Six months of 40 hour weeks is 960 hours for $18,240.
• Seven hours of additional work across 6 months = $1,956

Total wages to RU: $20,196.00

Example Three: A woman works in the North Love Christian School or College as a substitute or "specials" teacher.  

• The first quartile* (25%) hourly wage for teachers in Rockford is $22.00 for $21,220
• Seven hours of additional work across 6 months = $1,956

Total wages to RU: $23,185

Example Four: A man works as an intermediate level carpenter or auto mechanic for 45 hours a week with 2 hours of additional chores.

• Carpenter II median hourly is $23.00 per hour for 960 hours for $22,080.
• 120 hours of over-time for $34.50 per hours for $4,140.
• 48 hours of minimum wage chores is $396.

Total wages to RU: $26,616

Example Five: A man works as an intermediate level electrician for 45 hours a week with 2 hours of chores.

• Electrician II median hourly is $27.00 per hour for 960 for $25,920.
• Overtime wages: $4,860
• Chores wages: $396

Total wages to RU: $31,176

RU gets a good amount of cash from each of their "students".  In addition, RU Ministry manages to avoid having to pay the matching taxes and workmen's compensation that would be required if the jobs done by "students/patients" were done by employees.