ABC's Lateline - Fair Work Ombudsman inquiry

Tim Tams? PASS!!!

I Love this Stick it to those Scum-Bag BASTARDS!

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Hi TinyDancer, any month now?

Church of Scientology faces backpay bill to former members
Melbourne Herald Sun 28th August 2011
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/mo...o-former-members/story-fn7x8me2-1226123609542

Oh Golly!

FAP FAP FAP FAP!

Less than 1 month. TD knows her shit...

seem to be needing "you pulled it in" fine posters quite a bit this week. lol.
(thumbnail below, full size-> 8.5 X 11 google docs)

Thank you, everyone, who made this happen. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Miscavige suffering from explosive diarrhea in 3 .. 2 ..

This is exactly the sort of thing that Scientology has worked to avoid throughout its history.

Here's hoping that Miscavige and CO$ get the kick in the arse they deserve!

happy dance!

I can't stop watching...it's hypnotic...

Wait until the final decision is published...

It may not happen "any week", although I'm getting indications from various sources that it's imminent.

Yaaahh.
Nice to see you posting again TD.

This tonight from a friend in Oz:
there are 120 current staff at award wages that makes their wages bill 120 x 600 per week--72,000 per week. thats only Melbourne. backpaid 6 years!PLUS long service leave, plus overtime rates, weekend loadings etc.

So we are looking at $40M at least over the whole country for the past 6 years. That will finish them.

Right, so if you know anyone looking for investment property in Australia, you know where to look.

Ah, the burocratic imminent! That would mean sometimes before Christmas then.

Ya know, I might actually see this in my lifetime. Probably got less than a year.

I daresay they wouldn't have that much money, given how pitiful their income is and consistent amounts going up-lines.

Then they will have to sell their assets which are the ordinary Org buildings plus whatever berthing buildings they own. What do you think it adds up to?

Wouldn't have a clue. The property would be worth a bit but other than Melbourne Ideal Org they're all in pretty shit condition. Significantly less than what it should be worth and even less of what they owe.

This is not yet a sure thing, the Scientology corporation will drag this out in the courts as long as possible.
Then if they eventually lose and have to pay, they will play the shell game and hide the money, take out second and third mortgages on the properties, etc. Declare bankruptcy if necessary, but the money will be safe in some offshore numbered account.

The Scientology corporation will then do what it usually does when it wants more $. It will force its clients to pay under threats of SP declare. If they can't raise it locally, they'll raise it internationally.

The game is far from over.

I had nearly forgotten about their shell game for one moment. True, all their property will have liens on it from the offshore Scientology Religious Trust that they owe huge amounts of money to so the Australian government won't get one thin red dime even if they win. Then they start a church with a new name and carry on as before.

They tried that in the Hill v Scientology case in Canada. The Toronto org suddenly turned out to be double-mortgaged to the hilt. The court said "Uh huh. Then the mother church can and will pay. Now." They paid.

CoS considers it a mortal insult and religious bigotry when wog courts refuse to be fooled by obvious shell games. Too bad for them.

In my opinion, if there is any legal argument from the cult then it will not so much be about whether they are liable but rather how deep their liability goes. i.e. precisely which staffers are/were true volunteers (with another source of income and free to come and go) and which are/were soley employed by the cult in the true sense of the word.

A concern that has already been mentioned, assuming the cult is forced to pay its workers a full wage at the end of the day, plus back pay, is whether those existing workers will be pressured by the cult to hand back wages in the form of "donations". Basically, the question is: what is there, either in existing law or under any specifically worded FWO order, to prevent the cult from doing this (whether blatant or covert)? I mean, you can't exactly tell people how they should spend their money but surely there must be something that can be done to prevent the cult from circumventing its obligations in this way. I guess they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.

Isn't this only about people who are no longer current victims of the Scientology corporation and who are asking to be paid for the work they did when they were slaves?

Do you have Carly Crutchfield's contact info? Oh, wait...nm.

RIP, Joe Strummer! <bawwww>

One can't stop adults from donating their pay, if they wish to do so. Of course, if they are under duress, they could claim it back later.

But even if all of the workers gave back their back pay, the unpaid tax won't be waived by the ATO. And I reckon that alone could amount to tens of millions.

As a taxpayer, albeit not an Australian one, this is what chaps my ass so bad ... that my tax dollars (and our sovereign debt) are funding this fucking cult.

That's not my impression. It may well have been former slaves who instigated the initial complaint but the benefits from any positive ruling doesn't just affect them.

Unless scientology is suddenly paying its workers a proper wage (and as TD points out, all the associated taxes too) then any ruling will affect existing workers/slaves (ongoing wages and still for back pay for all the time the cult wasn't compliant).
That's the beauty of this because it is not like a one-off civil law suit by an individual with whom the cult can string out in court, harrass, wear out, and then settle quietly. It is the Fair Work Ombudsman, with the emphasis on fair, upholding legislation such as the Fair Work Act & Supplementary Fair Work Regulations 2009.

See here for more: http://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/investigations/pages/default.aspx

Even if the cult tries to hide employee-slaves, the FWO still takes the money.....

^^ sounds like if the Fair Work Ombudsman investigation goes in due to ex-member complaints, they're going to look at all the records, including current members.

Excellent!

Wasn't there something in Marc Headley's Blown For Good which mentioned a similar situation in the U.S., and the bank immediately stopped it?

I'm sure it's a different situation and everything, but maybe not too different...

It was when I worked at ABLE INT. They were having to pay us minimum wage as we were not part of Scientology, and they were trying to blow smoke up the IRS's back end. The ED ABLE INT ordered that we get our paychecks and then endorse them so they could be cashed and then redeposited into the bank under ABLE's account. When I went to deposit them, the bank told me NO WAY NO HOW - ILLEGAL. From then on we were getting paid min wage at ABLE. Of course we were only reporting 40 of the 100 hours per week, so it was not what we should have been getting, but still around $230.00/wk after taxes. They also made us pay for our own housing and food out of our $230/week.

If Scilons get ordered to pay min wage they will:
1. False report the amount of hours staff are working
2. Make the staff pay for their own food
3. Make the staff pay for their own housing
4. Make the staff pay for whatever else they can to get the money back into the org.

Best thing is that there are laws about how those things get charged and billed for. Scilons are not the first people to try and beat the system. Governments have been killing loopholes in the system for years. Scilons will get caught every time they try and cheat.

Also, back pay, if enforced will be a bitch. People will coming out of the woodwork everywhere if back pay gets ordered. I have a SCILON BACKPAY CALCULATOR PGM. It is programmed for the US min wage amounts, but could be reconfigured for any currency and min wage rates by year. You enter in where you worked, when and how much you got paid. The calculator figures out what the Scilons should have paid and spits out the amount owed. It can also be programmed for legal interest rates and fines as well.

If the Aussies will have me, I would gladly go there and tell them everything I know about the Scilons treasury & finance systems and how they will try and circumvent any new decisions/laws being enforced on paying what they should.

If you think lube is slippery, you have not met a Scilon that is ordered to give a government some of their money.

Until next time...

BFG

added for reference...
An article by the Village Voice, posted in media:
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/threads/scientology-game-over-australia-may-be-about-bankrupt.93048/

That puts Aus Co$ in an unenviable position, doesn't it? They either lose all the records or they go bankrupt. And even going bankrupt ought not to do the trick (although it, or the adjoint of shutting down that named company/organisation, has worked before )

Better raid the heck out of 'em right away (I mean, in a law enforcement kind of way.)

Best Regards

Jens