Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Employment court rules Glorivale women employees
#1
Rather than volunteers, which must be immensely annoying & inconvenient for those in charge. Naturally, they're going to appeal.



https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/4936...volunteers


"Six former Gloriavale women were employees working extremely hard under punishing conditions for years on end at the Christian community, in an experience that has left deep scars, the Employment Court has found.
Serenity Pilgrim, Anna Courage, Rose Standtrue, Crystal Loyal, Pearl Valor and Virginia Courage took Gloriavale's leaders to court arguing they lived in servitude working on the West Coast commune's domestic teams and were not community volunteers.
In a judgement released today, the Employment Court's Chief Judge Christina Inglis found the women were employees while working on the teams, after being primed for the job and taught from birth to submit to male leadership in all aspects of their lives.
"The evidence disclosed that none of the plaintiffs were given a choice about whether they worked on the teams or not. Broadly speaking, that decision had been assigned at birth, having been born female," the judgement said.
The women carried out work from a young age - around six - which incrementally increased as they got older, progressing to fulltime work on the teams as soon as they left school, around the age of 15.
The women were responsible for preparing food, cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry for Gloriavale's 600 members, under what they argued was an all-pervading regime of secular and religious control.
In a typical week in 2018, Judge Inglis noted the female workforce in the kitchen produced more than 11,000 meals, while laundry workers washed at least 17,000 items.
"The evidence clearly established that the work required to produce these outcomes was unrelenting, grinding, hard, and physically and psychologically demanding," she said.
She said the women did the rostered work they were directed to without complaint and there were well understood consequences if they failed to show up


Inglis said the consequences of not doing what was expected and "falling out of unity" were dire and well-known - "exclusion from the community, from all that was familiar, from family and friends, and into a world they know little about, were ill-equipped to navigate and had been taught to fear".
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)
Reply
#2
Slavery under the guise of voluntary service. Shameful.
Reply
#3
(13-07-2023, 03:49 PM)Oh_hunnihunni Wrote: Slavery under the guise of voluntary  service. Shameful.

Indeed - & I'm sure those in charge knew perfectly well that what they were doing with regard to their workers was wrong, but it was OK because they were women & 'subservient' in their warped view.

I hope their appeal fails swiftly & they have the book thrown at them, AND have to pay those women large sums for their work & having to engage lawyers to get justice from them - absolute bastards.
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)
Reply
#4
Wait until the findings from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care is published. Abuse of all kinds has been endemic in this country. The word 'endemic' refers to disease and the many things that have happened to vulnerable people in NZ are disgusting.
Reply
#5
It would be great if this judgement should result in Gloriavale closing, or even just limiting its commercial enterprises, but at the same time there would need to be a massive support net in place to preserve the frail sanity of the remaining inhabitants and help them to enter mainstream society..
Reply
#6
If addiction qualifies as a disease, then perhaps it is time we saw other human frailities as diseases too. It couldn't hurt to see aggression, cruelty, and some forms of ambition as mental illnesses that need treatment, right alongside depression, personality disorders, and all the others in the big book of human nuttiness.
Reply
#7
Don't forget Left-handedness, shortness, tallness, red hair, wrong religion, and other diseases that the Bishop can pray out of benighted souls.

Wink
Entropy is not what
it used to be.
Reply
#8
(13-07-2023, 07:32 PM)Olive Wrote: It would be great if this judgement should result in Gloriavale closing, or even just limiting its commercial enterprises, but at the same time there would need to be a massive support net in place to preserve the frail sanity of the remaining inhabitants and help them to enter mainstream society..

  There's a support group for those leaving Gloriavale (imagine how damned hard it must have been for the first few to leave) but I think its made up of people who've left & doesn't have any professionals - though I hope I'm wrong, & they now at least have counsellors.

I'd also like to see it closed before further damage is done, & they'd need huge support to reintegrate, especially those born there who know nothing else but that way of life.

(14-07-2023, 06:09 AM)Oh_hunnihunni Wrote: If addiction qualifies as a disease, then perhaps it is time we saw other human frailities as diseases too. It couldn't hurt to see aggression, cruelty, and some forms of ambition as mental illnesses that need treatment, right alongside depression, personality disorders, and all the others in the big book of human nuttiness.

Addiction is indeed recognised as a disease; & Portugal made huge strides in lessening their  problem when they decide to treat it as an illness rather than a crime.


And I think its at least possible that cruelty & aggression may also be - we're constantly learning more about various diseases & new treatments for them so surely worth looking at. Depression which is resistant to medication is now being treated by things such as Psychedelic's & also electricity. And writer Joy Cowley regained her vision recently after being involved in an experiment to find if electricity could help with chronic pain treatment.

We might one day be able to sure ourselves of all sorts of things - we could start with greed...
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)