• @[email protected]
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    367 months ago

    Goodwill is built on under paying it’s labor. They take advantage of laws that allow them to pay disabled people whatever they want. The laws were meant to help provide labor, get disabled people back into a productive life, and provide some extra income so they weren’t completely reliant on Social Security.

    That sounds noble right? Well Goodwill has been caught paying people less than a dollar an hour. And as you see here, they aren’t giving discounts to the people who have to shop at a thrift store either.

    They’re walking away with a massive upwards redistribution of wealth from the lower classes to the upper classes. Also I expect someone will be along soon to yell at me, (a disabled person), about the dignity of work and how no one else is providing it. Also in this picture, the meat packing industry which has been caught using mentally disabled people for less than minimum pay in dangerous conditions.

    • @[email protected]
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      237 months ago

      Hi, I’m disabled although I’m still working (at the moment, may break further). I agree with you.

      The biggest issue to consider for any company hiring a significantly disabled person, whether mentally, physically, or both, is they’ll be less productive and may require much more oversight, meaning they contribute less to the company. This is the justification behind the lower pay. It makes sense if you’re a shit sack capitalist that values production above anything else.

      With that being said, Goodwill is absolutely taking advantage of the disabled. They’re ostensibly a non-profit charity that exists to provide employment, leading to training and work experience, to the disabled community. They pay their disabled employees the lowest amount possible, actively working to justify low pay. Imagine if your employer was constantly looking to drop your salary so you had to constantly fight them over it. Now pretend you have a significant TBI or are developmentally disabled (just imagine your mental capacity while drunk, but without the feeling good) and still having to fight that. Welcome working for Goodwill.

      Fuck Goodwill right in their “charity” hole.

  • Lovable Sidekick
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    207 months ago

    Frequent thrift shopper, I’ve noticed prices going so high I wonder if they know what “thrift store” means anymore.

  • @[email protected]
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    687 months ago

    I worked at Goodwill sorting donations 20 years ago. This is nothing new. They price according to what they think they can get for it. And if we got in designer stuff that we thought we could make money off of, there was a Goodwill website we sold it on. This is the way it’s always been.

    • @[email protected]
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      127 months ago

      I worked in goodwill industries last year. They were paying disabled people subminimum, their regular people $11/hr and Todd Schrieber $200k with a $50k bonus.

    • @[email protected]
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      287 months ago

      They’re also upfront about it: Goodwill exists to give (mainly disabled) people jobs, not to sell things as cheap as possible

      • @[email protected]
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        87 months ago

        Don’t make me laugh. They get their product donated, they get their labor at subminimum, and they sell at market price. That’s not a non profit that exists to help the people working there. It’s exploiting them and extracting money from them and the shoppers who are deceived into thinking it’s a thrift store.

      • @[email protected]
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        307 months ago

        Goodwill exists to make rich people richer. The disabled people they “exist to give jobs too” are super exploited.

      • @[email protected]
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        57 months ago

        Then why does anyone donate shit to Goodwill. I thought they purposely sold things cheap so that people that needed it could afford it.

        • @[email protected]
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          37 months ago

          This is a common misconception with “charity shops” in the UK and “opportunity (op) shops” in Australia.

          The assumption is that the charity/opportunity is for people doing it tough to be able to buy cheap clothes and home goods.

          But the “charity” is because many shops like this are partner retailers of larger charity organisations, eg: the “profit” from Salvos stores helps indirectly fund Salvation Army Housing and food relief programs.

          The opportunity comes from who they hire, if you’re disabled or elderly, these shops are more likely to hire you than other retail providers.

          But of course, a large number of charity and op shops abuse their staff as much as Amazon and Walmart do. Wage theft and unethical labour practices galore

        • @[email protected]
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          37 months ago

          That’s been their marketing for decades. It’s been coming unraveled recently though. There are actual thrift shops that charge enough to keep the doors open and do their other projects. There’s also homeless and near homeless donation places that will take your stuff in and use it to furnish a place given to a homeless person.

          Really we should have all been very sus of a “thrift store” with Goodwill’s marketing budget.

  • smokebuddy [he/him]
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    87 months ago

    Value Village around here is notorious for selling shit from the dollar store that has printed-on-the-package price tags of $1-2 for $3, it’s ridiculous.

  • CubitOom
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    27 months ago

    Someone please correct me if im wrong because I’m too lazy to look it up, but I was told goodwill is for profit.

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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    7 months ago

    Thank you for purchasing all these donated goods that we paid nothing to buy. Your purchase makes our job programme possible.

    Do you want to round up to the nearest dollar on your purchase of donated goods, in order to donate to our job programme that you’ve already donated to?

    … um… … No?..

    Edit: jokes aside, goodwill does do good for the community. I’m sure they’ve raised their prices in line with other price hikes, but I don’t think that negates the good they still do. $35 US for a used coat they received as a free donation, IMO, is a bit excessive, but I can’t blame them for trying to squeeze more out of their stock, since they do turn around and pour most of that back into the community.

    • @[email protected]
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      17 months ago

      There was a big expose in them in the early 90’s about how much the top got paid, that 80% of income went to paying staff, and rampant nepotism.

      Fuck Good Will

    • @[email protected]
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      17 months ago

      Why all the hate towards Goodwill ? They are a non-religious, pro-labor, vocational organization that gives everyone a chance at employment through donations and sales of donated goods programs that fund other vocational services as a non-profit.

      people treat them like a dumpster. but they are not a dumpster. and they work towards the good with people in difficult situations.

  • @[email protected]
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    237 months ago

    I understand the frustration but Goodwill sells all that stuff to support it’s job training and skills program. Here’s the mission statement . Most people see it’s value as a place to donate old stuff or to buy used clothes cheaply but the organization sees it’s purpose differently.

    • @[email protected]
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      117 months ago

      The jobs training program where they hire people with disabilities and then pay them below minimum wage because of a loophole in the law?

      • Possibly linux
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        47 months ago

        Goodwill does some good work for the community. A lot of the people they help would’ve been potentially homeless. I don’t know what they pay but somehow I don’t think it is the organization you think it is.

    • Electric
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      117 months ago

      “Friends of Goodwill, be dissatisfied with your work until every handicapped and unfortunate person in your community has an opportunity to develop to his fullest usefulness and enjoy a maximum of abundant living”

      Very powerful statement, but I somehow doubt they’d be so committed to the spirit of it. Like someone else said, companies are allowed to underpay disabled employees.

    • @[email protected]
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      17 months ago

      So fun fact. The top story on their success story site is Google IT certification. That’s a 50 dollar a month Coursera course, which will take a dedicated person a single month. You can go to community college for 25 dollars a month and walk into actual IT certification tests. Hell you can take an online bootcamp course for programming and cyber security for 10 percent of the normal cost and pay them only if you get a job in the field.

      If giving people a fucking coursera course is the limit of their job training then it’s functionally non-existent.

    • @[email protected]
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      147 months ago

      If they want people to keep shopping there and providing the income necessary to maintain that charitable work, they should probably try to maintain the perception that they price things cheaply enough to make it worth digging through racks of second hand goods.

    • @[email protected]
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      127 months ago

      They hire disabled people because they can legally pay them less then minimum wage. They aren’t the good guys.

  • @[email protected]
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    317 months ago

    My mom still goes there but only picks things up when it’s the right “color” if the day, for the 50% off. The fact that she won’t get things that aren’t in sale at a thrift store should be enough evidence to know it’s not really thrifty.

  • socsa
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    427 months ago

    Goodwill has started doing regional pricing. They will actually sort high value items out of donations and send them to higher income areas to target middle class “thrifters” who are not as price sensitive. These stores are basically like TJ Maxx in terms of pricing.

    • @[email protected]
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      37 months ago

      Fuck the working class if you live in a high cost of living area I guess? But that also explains why my local Goodwill turns away so many donations. They’re getting fed by other places.

    • @[email protected]
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      47 months ago

      Also noticed that affluent areas often have donation centers that don’t have attached stores - because they want that fucking treasure for online listings probably.