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Salvation Army ARC Labor Class Action Lawsuit Overview:
- Why: The workers allege The Salvation Army exploits vulnerable individuals through its Adult Rehabilitation Center program.
- Who: Four former workers filed a class action lawsuit against The Salvation Army.
- Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in Illinois federal court.
The Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) program takes advantage of vulnerable individuals and profiting from exploitative labor by force and threats of harm, say four former workers in a new class action lawsuit.
Specifically, the lawsuit accuses The Salvation Army National Corporation and The Salvation Army, known as Central Territorial of The Salvation Army (SA Central Territory), of violating the Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. SA Central Territory oversees The Salvation Army work in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
The lead plaintiffs are Darrell Taylor, Kevin Lewis, Darrell Burkhart, and Leevertis Page, all of whom worked in the ARC under SA Central Territory.
Plaintiffs Allegedly ‘Threatened’ and Coerced By ARC Employees
Taylor, Lewis, Burkhart, and Page claim they were each required to work at least eight hours per day and at least 40 hours per week for food, shelter, and “gratuity” between $1 and $25 per week.
They say their food assistance EBT cards with their SNAP benefits were confiscated upon their arrival at ARC as a “condition of [their] participation” in the program. When Page left the ARC, his EBT card was returned with a $0 balance, says the Salvation Army class action lawsuit.
All four men say they were threatened during their time at ARC if they worked too slowly or failed to follow instructions, were cut off from the outside world and were forced to rely on ARC for survival.
Plaintiff Burkhart says he was also threatened with an arrest warrant unless he worked as instructed although he was sick at the time. After four or five weeks, he left the ARC “because he could not take the grueling, forced labor any longer,” and was taken to jail as this violated his probation.
The class action lawsuit seeks damages, including punitive damages, and reasonable attorneys’ costs.
ARC Operates Under ‘Work Therapy’ Guise, Class Action Says
The Salvation Army bills the ARC program as a “no-cost program [to] tackle the symptoms and causes of alcohol and drug dependence” by placing participants in “work therapy,” says the class action.
Participants in The Salvation Army’s ARC program are required to “labor long hours in physically demanding jobs” in the company’s commercial thrift stores and other business locations as part of their program requirements, according to the complaint.
ARC program participants are either referred to the program by the courts as a term of parole or probation or are walk-in participants who are “often extremely economically vulnerable,” the class action says. Justice-referred participants must abide by the program or else face violating parole or probation and being sent back to jail.
In exchange for their work, participants are given cash “gratuity” between approximately $1 and $25 per full week of work, says the Salvation Army class action lawsuit. This low amount prevents participants from saving a significant enough amount to get back on their feet, keeping them reliant on ARC, the class action argues.
Participants must also work for food and shelter from ARC, and are supposedly limited from seeking additional paid work elsewhere, says the lawsuit.
Additionally, ARC employees allegedly regularly threaten participants with removal for failure to comply with instructions; Page says he saw participants kicked out of the program “during wintery conditions and in the middle of the night.”
The class action lawsuit proposes a Nationwide Walk-In Class and a Nationwide Justice-Referred Class which cover all participants in The Salvation Army’s program, both walk-in and justice-referred, who performed labor in the ARC program within the 10 years before Nov. 15, 2021. There is also a proposed Central Territory Walk-In Class and a Central Territory Justice- Referred Class which cover individuals more specifically to The Salvation Army’s Central Territory.
The Salvation Army is not the only organization accused of forced labor practices. CoreCivic, a for-profit operator of prisons and immigration detention centers, along with US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been accused of forcing detained immigrants to work for little to no pay.
Have you or a loved one participated in The Salvation Army’s ARC program? Tell us about it in the comments section below!
The plaintiffs are represented by David Fish and M. Nieves Bolaños of Fish Potter Bolaños, PC.
The Salvation Army ARC Labor Class Action Lawsuit is Taylor, et al. v. The Salvation Army National Corporation, et al., Case No. 1:21-cv-06105, in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
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49 thoughts onThe Salvation Army ‘Forced Labor,’ Abused ARC Participants, Alleges Class Action
Add me plz
Yes every word is true and even if you were sick you still had to work . If you didn’t give them your link card they change everything and when you got it back it was empty . It was difficult to get it fixed. Working in the North Ave store the people who weren’t in program anymore degraded us. We recieved tokens ,if we were in trouble they took the pay back which wasn’t pay. There’s more ,,,,,,
This is all true. I am.currently.in this program in davenport Iowa they are threatening daily to be.kicked out from everything from getting a covid vaccine to smoking a cigarette outside in the parking lot. DRS Vernon hill assaulted another beneficiary a few days ago while he was on a mental health screening call with a psychiatrist. They won’t allow us to call our parole and.probation officers and are telling us they will call.for us. We are.forced to week through the week during business hours therefore preventing us from being able to make doctor calls ect..we just got off a.month lockdown because half the residents contracted covid because of their negligence and their ignorance. They were aware of it and allowed it to infect everyone and forced people back to.work…or.to call an ambulance instead of make.dr appointment or quarantine. Thats how they are trying to justify forcing us to get vaccinated. They had us hide in the basement and.lied to insurance people doing s walk through saying we are payed employees and that we have been trained on lock out tag out procedure when operating their clothes Bailer. We are not provided PPE when bailing clothes that are bloody and soiled and sometimes covered in numerous things as well as numerous items such as hypodermic needles ect. Are found in the clothes being processed which are taken by hand from a Gaylord to the machine. The major has had outbursts and tantrums like a 3 year old child and has made intimidation towards other dtaff even. This place is very screwed up and someone needs to help us
I was in this program for about a year is this a real lawsuit
I have been in the same program a few times,once, I left because they wanted me to change my healthcare provider and I didn’t want to so I was given an ultimatum so I left. I went back and I was getting$200.00 a month, but I was only getting$50.00 of that, the rest was for room and bored as they said.
Yes the Minneapolis ARC is the same way they ship you out to there stores at 7am work until 5 pm .75 a day they gave us a brown bag lunch food was always expired donated candy or chips half a sandwich and sometimes an apple. If we needed a pair of pants or shoes we were forced to take only one pair and it had to be from there ragout box aka the box of stuff they can’t resell because it’s to dirty ,stained,or very out dated . Stay far away from the ARC salvation army unless you want to be there slave for almost free
And when I say donated food I’m not saying all donated food is bad but the donated food they gave us was almost 2-3 yrs old hard as a rock kinda food
Would about california
I was in the ARC program in the midwest from September, 2008 to March, 2009.
I experienced the same conditions and some of the higher ups threatened to kick me out of the program if I didn’t shut up about their slave labor practices. I toughed it out for 8 months because they promised me a real job and get a voucher for an apartment when I graduated the program. I couldn’t leave the property for the first 30 days, I couldn’t make a phone call unless it was to my family member who wanted me to finish and graduate from the program, so I would be closer to my faith, have a job and good connections.
After about 2 weeks I knew it was a scam – I saw the main chaplain stealing from the electronics section of the processing warehouse, I saw boxes of seafood (Shrimp, Lobster, expensive fish) getting “donated” to us and it all went to the Salvation Army Captains and underlings – None of it for the hard working poor who busted their butts all week for some measly pocket change and a few “canteen cards” for snacks at a little Bodega for the after hours from 6-9pm.
I have more stories like this and remember so much because I was there for so long. There was drama every day about a different guy getting kicked out and a new guy coming in, some of the older guys who went through the program more than once would place bets on how long a new guy would last. It was crazy.
Please add me to this it’s about time that this has been brought to the forefront, by myself as a formally a worker there knows this pain I’m glad it was brought to the attention of the world.
How do i get on the class action suit
Yes everything that has been said about the ARC program is absolutely 100 percent true. As a former beneficiary and employee of the SA ARC. There is no doubt that the plaintiffs are telling the truth. I hope they win. I would like to know how to sign up for that class action suit. If anyone knows please let me know
“The plaintiffs are represented by David Fish and M. Nieves Bolaños of Fish Potter Bolaños, PC.” Contact them.