Fulano: Why the question Anyway?
It seems
that since I have left the JWs two years ago, I keep hearing/learning about
really bad things about them and it keeps surprising me. How could I have been
so blind?
Recently, I was reading the Branch Organisation rule
book which was leaked not too long ago… I than noticed that the working
conditions in Bethel are far below standard if we compare them to what is set
by law; the government of Quebec in Canada for instance. In Quebec, you have 9 public holidays + 12 vacation days by the end of the first year. That is a total of 21
days.
To reach the same number of vacation days, a bethelite needs
to work 14 years! They work longer
hours, they may get dismissed if they fall sick more than 10 days, they have no
retirement plan, and… they don’t even get 200$ per month!
Call it dedication, I call it abuse. At conventions, they
tell everyone that there is no better employer than Jehovah and yet, they don’t explain the working conditions until they are in. Many sign up, without
questions, trusting that everything will be fine. Then, once they're in, they
read these things and suddenly realize that they got themselves in a mess.
Yet, everyone at home is so proud and they gave their word that they’d be there for at least
a year. So they stay. In the meantime, they get the message that if they leave
bethel, well, it will be a failure, not “good enough” and blah blah blah. So they stay a few more years. All the while, any thought of self entitlement is crushed at every turn: They don’t
matter, the group does. As the years pass, they lose their connections at
home. People move, they get married, they die, and the world becomes a scarier
place. Summers and winters still come and go, and they are unable to put a penny aside: it appears
all the more impossible to make a new start somewhere else. Than, 36 years have passed and all that they have in return is 30 vacations days per year, the absolute maximum. So they get curious, they go online, and notice that most companies give that time away after only 5 to 7 years of service.
All the meanwhile, talks are given, telling people that the world is evil, loveless, while they treat their own with less privileges than the bare minimum provided by the laws of this system.
Even worst, recently, they're dismissing a good deal of these
bethelites telling them to be pioneers out in the field. Its already bad enough that they are sending them out with nothing, they had to send them out with a guilt trip!
It really saddens me. As time passes, I realize
that they are far worse than I thought; with things like these, I find
them beyond redemption.
As Oubliette keeps posting at the end of his messages: It’s a cult.
