A group of five former rehab participants have filed a class-action lawsuit against The Salvation Army, alleging they were not paid for work they performed at the venerated charity.
The Salvation Army is one of the largest providers of drug and alcohol rehabilitation in the United States. Participants typically do not have to pay for a place in the residential program. But once there, the main mode of treatment is what The Salvation Army calls “work therapy” at the charity’s thrift stores, which generate more than $598 million in annual sales.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that the charity violated California labor laws by not treating the workers as employees and failing to pay them minimum wage and overtime. According to the complaint, the participants worked more than 40 hours a week in “physically grueling and sometimes dangerous” jobs. Some picked up donations and worked in warehouses and stores, where they sorted, priced and displayed clothing, linens, shoes, accessories and housewares. Others performed maintenance jobs, repaired goods or operated heavy machinery. In exchange, they received gratuities of between $1 and $25 per week or “canteen cards” they could use to buy soda, chips or other snacks at The Salvation Army canteen.
The program provides room and board to the participants but requires them to sign up for and then relinquish their food stamps, according to the complaint. It also provides other services, such as spiritual counseling, Bible study and recreational outings.
But participants in the programs spent the vast majority of their time working. The charity admits only applicants who can work and routinely kicks participants out of the program if they get sick or injured and are no longer able to work, participants said. Most people do not complete the program, according to the complaint.
The Salvation Army did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the lawsuit. The organization has previously argued that rehab participants are not employees and are therefore not entitled to wages.
Jessica Riggin, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, alleges that the organization is violating labor law by not treating the workers as employees. Whether or not the program helps people is irrelevant, she said.
“There’s no nonprofit exemption to the labor code,” she said. “Even if they do good, that’s not a reason for them to not comply with the law like every other California employer.”
The suit, the attorneys said, was filed in response to an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, which found that The Salvation Army is among hundreds of rehab facilities across the country that put participants to work without pay. The federal Department of Labor previously found the charity in violation of labor law in 1990, but after The Salvation Army filed a lawsuit and lobbied federal lawmakers, the federal agency dropped the case. The Labor Department then added specific language to an internal handbook that effectively ended federal enforcement actions against The Salvation Army for wage violations.
The participants are seeking certification as a class and are demanding back wages for work performed by participants at 15 Salvation Army rehab facilities in California over the past four years.
Their attorneys filed the case under the Private Attorneys General Act, a California law that allows private attorneys representing employees to file lawsuits on behalf of the state to recover civil penalties for labor code violations.
This story was edited by Esther Kaplan and copy edited by Nikki Frick.
Shoshana Walter can be reached at swalter@revealnews.org. Follow her on Twitter: @shoeshine.
Salvation Army faces lawsuit over labor violations is a story from Reveal. Reveal is a registered trademark of The Center for Investigative Reporting and is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.
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