... There's evidence that they are.
Violation of Labor Laws
Scientology policy is replete with directives that are at odds with US labor law. It dictates that staff members be paid based on org income (often resulting in paychecks that are far below minimum wage standards), that overtime pay be disallowed, that staffers be required to submit to invasive security checks, and that "free" courses be billed and turned into a debt if staffers leave before their contracts are up. There is also evidence that child labor laws are routinely disregarded, in keeping with Scientology policy that children be encouraged to produce and contribute just like adults.
Staff pay is based on the organization's income, not hours worked
HCO PL 3/19/80
PROPORTIONATE PAY PLAN FOR THE 80s
This is the new Proportionate Pay Plan for all Class IV Scientology Orgs.
The primary basis of pay in terms of units shall be by post.
Staff who moonlight are paid one quarter less basic units.
No bonus units are paid.
CONDITION UNITS
Under this new Proportionate Pay Plan,
upstats are rewarded and downstats are penalized in both the Salary Sum and the Bonus Sums
(which are covered later in this PL).
PENALTIES
:
For conditions below Normal Operations, the following applies:
EMERGENCY - loss of 10% basic units
DANGER - Loss of 15% basic units
NON-EXISTENCE - Loss of 25% basic units
LIABILITY - Loss of 35% basic units
DOUBT - No Pay
ENEMY - No Pay
TREASON - No Pay
CONFUSION - No Pay
PAYROLL SHEET
The Salary Sum is simply handled by totalling all the individual units of the staff, dividing this figure into the Salary Sum which results in the UNIT VALUE. This UNIT VALUE is then multiplied by the individual's units to get the individual's PAY.
HCO PL 12 Nov 1971R
Corrected and reissued 6 Oct 1985
HOW TO RAISE YOUR OWN STATISTICS AND PAY
There is a statistic for the Qualifications Division (Division 5) which measures the average valuable production of the individual. This is “number of staff members dividied into the gross income of the org” for the week.
Let us say this figure is L18 or $43.20 for example. Now out of that gross income must come the expenses of running the org - the rent, phone, lights, promotion, etc. This runs to about 66% of the gross income. This means that there would be only L6 or $14.68 for pay for each individual on an average.
Thus, low delivery and low pay come directly from the production on post of each individual staff member.
The staff receives pay in proportion to what they themselves produce, each one of them.
If a staff as a group tolerates out-ethics, loafing, poor delivery and low individual stats, it will be badly paid. That's the way it is.
HCO PL 10 Sept 1982
EXCHANGE, ORG INCOME AND STAFF PAY
... org income and staff pay depend upon which of the above four exchanges is in practice by (a) the org or group; or (b) the staff member in the group.
It is up to the individual staff member in a group what the group income is and what their own staff pay is.
(I believe there is a more explicit policy letter than this, but I haven't yet found it.)
Extra pay for overtime is forbidden
HCO PL 22 Dec 1960
NO OVERTIME
There is no such thing in a Scientology Organisation as overtime.
A person can hold down two jobs and two hats or more and occupy these at different times of the day, and he is paid units separately for these separate hats.
There is no such thing as a person, like the Day HPA Instructor, being paid overtime for handling his duties of Day HPA Instructor.
It is expected of a staff member that he gets his particular job done. If because of his own inefficiency he cannot get this job done during working hours, then he should not be rewarded for such inefficiency by being paid overtime.
If you hold two different jobs at two different times of the day, you are paid for each job with a different pay cheque and different units. A person working an eight hour day draws units and no overtime on it ever, no matter what time he puts in. If he or she holds another 3 to 4 hour job evenings or mornings, it is paid as another job, has its own hat and duties and its own unit allocation and its own pay checque.
I will not OK further overtime lists nor will I pay them.
Staff members may not take sick days
(I'm not sure if this is saying that the policy only applies to auditors or only to non-auditors. I believe it applies to all staff members except those whose job it is to audit.)
HCO PL 21 Feb 1964
STAFF REGULATIONS
AUDITING VERSUS JOB
A staff member may not be absent from his or her job to give or receive auditing during working hours. Exception: only staff members whose job it is to audit. Exception: severe temporary illness or physical injury.
A staff member may not use his working hours for being instructed or trained and, aside from Academy personnel whose job it is to train students, a staff member may not employ his or her staff time to instruct.
Final paychecks are withheld until the employee has been sec-checked
HCO PL 7 Dec 1976
LEAVING AND LEAVES
As the actual reason behind blows is overts and withholds, the excuses for leaving are usually simply justifications and are actually a third-party action of associates, usually false reports.
Therefore, informing fellow staff members and others that one is leaving is hereby properly labeled a suppressive act.
Where a person is secretly planning to leave and ... does leave (blow) and does not return within a reasonable length of time, an automatic declare is to be issued.
All persons whose contracts expire without renewal and all persons who wish to leave are to be security checked
by an auditor who is qualified in Qual to make prepared lists read.
LEAVES
All persons before going on leave must be given a Security Check ...
Final pay before departure is to be withheld until this action has been done.
All persons returning from missions or leave must be security checked.
Unproductive workers have no rights
HCO PL 27 Apr 1960
SECURITY OF EMPLOYMENT
People who don’t do their work don’t have rights.
Sec checks may not be refused, and dishonest people have no rights
HCO PL 20 Oct 1961 RB
Re-Revised 11 Jan 1985
NON-SCIENTOLOGY STAFF
3. This group is composed of people who can handle insanity and psychosomatic illness by certain technology or of people who do not think it is bad to cure insanity and such illness.
4. This group believes that honest people have rights and that dishonest people have sacrificed their rights by being dishonest. The definition of dishonesty is whether or not a person is trying to hurt his fellow human beings with malicious talk, hidden actions and injustice or outright crime.
5. This group reserves the right to test the honesty of its members. ... If a member is being dishonest, the group wants to know about it and can require that the dishonest person be given processing to make him or her sane.
6. This group frowns heavily on trying to prevent people from being processed by cautioning them against it, lying to them about it or just being ignorant of it.
7. This group believes that people who refuse security checking or processing are trying to hide something they are ashamed of in their lives. The group believes this because it has always been found to be the case.
8. This group believes that making a commotion around or talking around an injured person can hurt his chances of recovery. As this has often been proven to be true and can be demonstrated, members of this group do not talk to or around or make commotions around people who have just been jurt.
9. A member of this group may be a member of any religion. There is no conflict of faith as Scientology is all-denominational.
(Note that, in addition to reserving the right to test employees' honesty, this policy claims that Scientology can cure insanity and psychosomatic illness (3), requires employees to receive processing (5), and misrepresents Scientology not being in conflict with other faiths, which is false.)
New employees must be sec-checked; all employees must be sec-checked after theft or breach of security
HCO PL 20 Jul 1966RB
Re-Revised 24 Nov 1985
SECURITY CHECKS
Security Checks should be given any new staff on a meter.
When a theft or insecurity has occurred, staff should consent to such a check and such a consent is contained in the hiring contract.
Refusing a sec check or auditing results in pay being docked by 1/3
HCO PL 7 MAR 1965R
Corrected and Reissued 1 Oct 1985
OFFENSES AND PENALTIES
2. MISDEMEANORS. These are
-
Mistakes resulting in financial or traffic loss
-
Continued association with squirrels
-
Refusing an E-Meter check
-
Refusing auditing when ordered by a higher authority
Such offenses are subject to direct punishment by order, and for a staff member
the punishment is the assignment of a personal condition of Emergency
for up to three weeks and for an executive staff member the assignment of up to a three-month personal condition of Emergency.
Personal conditions of Emergency reduce pay or units one third for the period assigned.
Collective bargaining is a crime
HCO PL 29 Apr 1965
PETITION
1. Any one individual has the right to petition in writing any senior or official no matter how high and no matter by what routing.
3.
No two persons or more may simultaneously petition on the same matter
, and if so the petition must at once be refused by the person petitioned.
Collective petition is a crime under Ethics
as it is an effort to hide the actual petitioner; and as there may be no punishment for a petition, collective petition has therefore no excuse of safety and is to be interpreted as an effort to overwhelm and may not be regarded as a petition.
Freeloader Debt
Scientology employees are given "free" auditing and training, but all such services are invoiced. If the employee leaves before the contract is up, Scientology policy is that the employee now owes the org for the full cost of all these services. Although this "debt" is almost certainly not legally enforceable, many Scientologists believe that it is, and are effectively victims of extortion due to this policy.
HCO PL 20 Jul 1966RB
Re-Revised 24 Nov 1985
STAFF STATUS
Staff Status Two, if on contract, may receive free training and processing to the level of training and processing delivered by the org. He is entitled to a 50% discount on further training and processing at a higher org.
PENALTY
If a staff member breaks his contract, leaving employ or going to a higher org with contract incomplete, he is then liable for FULL PAYMENT of all courses and processing he has received at FULL RATE (not just 50%), and owes for all transport or expenses he may have been paid.
Note that this applies to any staff member who breaks his contract, even if he is going to a higher org - ostensibly a promotion. Remember, too, that a staff member may not refuse processing. Thus, a staff member can be made to rack up a huge debt, which is then supposed to become a debt if the staffer leaves before the contract is up.
HCO PL 27 Sept 1970
CUTATIVE PRICES
Price cuts are forbidden under any guise.
1. PROCESSING MAY NEVER BE GIVEN AWAY BY AN ORG.
Processing is too expensive to deliver.
Adv payments are sometimes refunded.
9. ONLY FULLY CONTRACTED STAFF IS AWARDED FREE SERVICE, AND THIS IS DONE BY INVOICE AND LEGAL NOTE WHICH BECOMES DUE AND PAYABLE IF THE CONTRACT IS BROKEN.
Employees must repay any discounts out of their own pocket
HCO PL 20 Jan 1979
INCOME CUTATIVES AND SALARY SUM
ANY FINANCIAL LOSS OCCASIONED BY ILLEGAL DISCOUNTS OR GIVING AWAY SERVICES OR MATERIALS SHALL BE RECOMPENSED TO THE ORG BY THE GUILTY INDIVIDUAL AND ANY SUMS SO RECOVERED SHALL BE PLACED IN THE SALARY SUM OF THAT ORG.
In short, if a staff member wishes to give away services or make illegal discounts, he is liable for the difference between the sale or delivery price or cost and what it should have been charged.
Staff members must file written reports of others’ mistakes or wrongdoing; making amends for these errors (which is mandatory) results in loss of pay
HCO PL 1 May 1965
STAFF MEMBER REPORTS
These reports are made to the Ethics Section of the Department of Inspection and Reports.
These reports are filed by Ethics in the Ethics Files in the staff member’s folder or int he folder of the portion of the org.
The most serious reports ... are .. misdemeanors, crimes and high crimes.
But
the person’s staff pay is also suspended entirely during and auditing or training undertaken as amends.
This page was last updated on August 6, 1998.
This page was last updated on May 8, 1999.
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