Salvation Army Pay : ‘Beneficiaries’ Must Get Minimum Wage, U.S. Rules

The Salvation Army may do the Lord’s work, but the government says it must pay earthly wages to those required to labor as part of a residential rehabilitation program.

Under a recent U.S. Department of Labor decision, the Salvation Army was ordered to pay the federal minimum wage to the men and women, mostly alcohol and drug abusers, who perform various jobs while getting help for their problems. The participants fill 11,000 slots in more than 115 centers around the country. Southern California has 1,000 beds at 10 centers.

The work falls under the Fair Labor Standards Act because the goods produced by the workers end up in interstate commerce, said Labor Department spokesman Bob Cuccia in Washington.

The Army’s position is that participants in the program are “beneficiaries,” not employees with work being a part of the treatment protocol, much the way movie stars at the Betty Ford Center must take out the garbage.

The Salvation Army was founded in 1865 as a religious and charitable organization and is a branch of the Christian church that is run in a quasi-military fashion. The church affiliation is another argument for not having to pay wages to those in the rehabilitation programs.

The Salvation Army is appealing the ruling to a higher authority. The group, a national institution for more than 100 years, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday challenging the decision.

The local organization is also appealing to the court of public opinion, inviting reporters on Wednesday to tour its 180-bed facility at 7th Street and Towne Avenue downtown.

There, Salvation Army officials and the men at work unloading trucks, packing lunches and refinishing furniture for resale at the thrift stores, explained their philosophies and beliefs. Officials said the ruling by the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor is disastrous to the organization’s self-supporting program and the people it serves.

The wage issue has been kicking around since the first term of the Reagan Administration, according to an official on an appointed Labor Department committee that recommended program workers be paid.

The committee, chaired by the president of Goodwill Industries of America “urged us to take an enforcement stance,” Cuccia said.

Goodwill, the Easter Seal Society and other similar organizations all pay wages to their disabled workers, Cuccia said.

But Army officials counter that if wages were paid, needy substance abusers would be out on the street because the Army would have to charge for the treatment program and nearly all participants cannot afford to pay.

Salvation Army Lt. Col. David P. Riley said the program costs about $50 a day per person to run. The “beneficiaries” receive a stipend of up to $20 a month for candy and cigarettes. To give them more would be “a very damaging practice” because those with substance abuse problems would take the money and run, said Riley.

Riley insisted that as long as the people are “working their treatment program”--a combination of spiritualism, Tough Love for adults and an Alcoholics Anonymous-type 12-step program--they are not being exploited.

Several current residents interviewed while at work espoused a similar view. “I didn’t come here to acquire a job. I came here to get myself back in society,” said George Upsey as he popped packets of mustard into sack lunches.

Upsey, 40, a college graduate who majored in biology and chemistry, said he is an alcoholic who would not be in the program if it cost money.

Out on the loading dock, a 28-year-old self-described cocaine addict, Michael Lawrence, said a paycheck would be fair, but “it’s not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for help.”

Wayne Diviak, 51, who has been in the rehabilitation program more than once, was stripping the finish from a table as he explained he doesn’t feel taking advantage of what he calls “work therapy.”

Or as Riley puts it, they’re learning the “work ethic.”

Not everyone agrees with the Salvation’s Army’s approach. Retired Navy Rear Adm. David Cooney, president of Goodwill, said in a telephone interview that the “best way to get people adjusted is to give them a job and pay them for it.”

Speaking of Goodwill, Cooney said: “We don’t say ‘Gee, you’re getting a lot of good out of this so you should work for nothing.’ That’s saying their work is worth nothing.”