Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Though this topic would sit nicely in the Marc Headley v. Scientology situation room....

From the Gilman Hot Springs road closure threads, the Valley chronicle reported yesterday that cult lawyer, Sam Alhadeff at a San Jacinto city council meeting, defined the Sea Org members at Gold Base as employees.

The Valley Chronicle > News

snippet from the news article.....

Who told him to say "employees" or did he just deduce that from what he witnesses whenever he goes to visit Daveyboy at the base for his next batch of orders?

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

fucking WIN. someone alert him or his lawyer.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Well sure seems like he said employees, but he only stated that they have the capacity for 500 EMPLOYEES. That doesn't mean that there are 500 human trafficking victims out there.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

"....expand the site’s capacity from the current 500 employees"

That's "employees" as opposed to "volunteers" for some sort of "high religious order".

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Ya know, I think you are right.

My bad, carry on.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

NICE FIND !!!

bwahahaha

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Is there access to transcripts of this meeting for an exact quote?

If so, it could then be sent to out - locally, nationally, globally - to anyone we think might needs this statement that scientologist sea org members are employees, stated on the record by a lawyer representing the 'church' of scientology.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

That's a point. Need to review the video of the meeting and isolate that bit.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Golden Era PRODUCTIONS is meant to be a fake secular "company" as in just a normal business with employees.. nothing more to see here. That's the face they present to locals.

Who cares what you call them. They are employees they sign a billion year contract and are given pay and housing.

You really are going to get your panties in a bunch over some non-scilon calling "religious WORKERS" as employees. Is worker and employee that different to you?

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Nice fine Sponge.

I've forwarded it to Marc's, Claire's and Laura's attorney Barry Van Sickle.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

^^^
Fail post

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

LOL

I suggest you lurk your way through the filings in these cases where this whole issue is covered in some detail.

Also, "Golden Era Studios" was set up as part of the "mother church", the church of scientology international, not as a somehow separate "secular company".

Organized scientology's position is that all their employees were either volunteers or are covered by some non existant broad "religious exemption" making labor laws non applicable to them. Staff can be beaten, made to do any types of jobs, work all hours and days in a row, paid nothing or next to nothing and otherwise abused in any ways David Miscavige sees fit because they are a "religion". Using this argument, they could bring in young foreign girls for the slave sex trade and not be subject to any laws as long as they sign up saying their purposes were religious and that they were some sort of religious workers.

Anyway, the pleadings so far public (and more that will be public) explain all this far better than I can. I suggest you read them if you have not already.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

LOL...it's not what we think. It's how the courts will view it. Especially since a good part of the Headleys' cases hinges on their status; employees or volunteers? Volunteers don't get pay. Volunteers aren't forced into housing they cannot leave.

Oh, wait...neither are employees. Sounds more like slavery and human trafficking to me.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

It was the author of the article who used the word employee, hence no quotes.

Learn2logic

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

LOL good point!

And to think that "human trafficking" is a very serious crime involving potentially serious prison time. So, even though these are civil cases, imagine what authorities who prosecute such crimes might do when and if human trafficking is shown in these cases.

It surely must suck right now to be the managing agent of organized scientology, huh David? So much to think about, so much to hide, so many people to pay off, so many to threaten, so many to incarcerate, so many to beat, so many lies to try to cover up.

It's enough to drive a person to drink!

Oh wait....

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Oopps lol Oh well even if true, they have used the term many other times and are on the wrong side of this argument.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

I've listened to the recording of his statement to the council - he didn't say anything about the number of people there in the statement.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

When the author of the newspaper article starts off with "In fact, he said....." one tends to think that they wouldn't attribute something he didn't say, especially if it is an attorney.
But of course slip-ups do happen so, as I said earlier, it would be sensible to check out the video recording of the meeting to be sure. I'll try to do that if I can get a moment, unless some else gets to it first....
[ame=http://vimeo.com/6445623]Scientology Generates Political Opposition - San Jacinto CA on Vimeo[/ame]
[edit: following poster read my mind, lol, yes, could something said between Alhadeff and the reporter]

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Crazy wild speculation: He was interviewed by the reporter?

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Update: I believe that organized scientology's most current position has been to shift focus from "volunteer" to "minister exemption". They want the entirety of the sea org to be considered exempt from relevant labor laws as a "religious order" somehow falling under an exemption for "ministers" as if they all are somehow "ministers" carrying out the duties of ministers.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Sounds like they are trying to use the farcical "Religious Order" clause of the staff contract:

Scientology Class V Org Application, Declaration and Contract, 2009 - Wikileaks

A related note, in the UK, scientologists are very specifically not recognized as members of a religious order, or ministers of religion, or missionaries:

http://forums.whyweprotest.net/291-...zed-religious-workers-uk-border-agency-52752/

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Circular doubletalk from the scientology tax compliance manual:

Scientology tax compliance I

Scientology site:

About the Church of Scientology® Resolution of religious intolerance

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

So back to the OP...

THIS WAS IN FACT THE REPORTER'S WORDING ??! Cult lawyer never said employee? and this is a navel gazing thread??

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

Scientology Policy on who they consider to qualify as a minister

http://www.wikileaks.de/leak/scientology-post-irs-agreement.pdf

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

I assume that the reporter who is stating that Alhadeff "in fact" said "employees" is working from the same notes/recording where they got the preceeding explicit "500" figure from. I mean, the reporter wouldn't pull the number 500 out of their ass too would they? I doesn't sound like a deduction.
There are reasons why you might attribute words to someone with out using a direct quote, chosing instead to neatly summarize it; such as when the subject is being interrupted, going off on tangents etc, and the resulting direct quote may be too disjointed to reproduce as is. Reporters/editors do this all the time. So long as you've got your source to back it up if asked, then its OK isn't it, for a newspaper?

But, yes, for sure, if you are using it to prove a point in a court case then obviously you need to be absolutely positive the reporter hasn't made a mistake misreading their own shorthand or mishearing a word on an audio recording that was too garbled and the editor hasn't caught it (they certainly have no reason to lie about it). You would want to do this anyway, even if the statement was in quotes.
The reporter on the article is Charles Hand chand@thevalleychronicle.com

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

You think the reporter heard something like "500 people working there and they are looking to expand" from cult lawyer and wrote it up assuming Golden Era is a company and has employees??

OR, do you think that now you have caught cult lawyer in word slip up that will now bring down the cult because some cult lawyer used the word "employee" and now the whole ball of wax is come undone.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

FWIW, the scilons speaking with Sydsvenskan about the Malmö Ideal Org in Sweden quite openly (and unambiguously) spoke about their staff as "employees" - "with a contract" and nothing else.

That said, I don't think it matters so much for the court cases either way what they say or don't say. I think it's going to be determined on the simple facts of the staff-CoS relationship.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

That's a possibility. Hence, check with reporter.

No.

I don't know whether or not this would be useful to add to a list of other times when the cult, or someone working on behalf of the cult in a legal capacity, has used the term "employee" to refer to the Sea Orgers working at Gold Base.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

OP: Why didn't you title thread "Church Lawyer confirms..." Oooooh, that's right, now I remember.

Re: Cult Lawyer confirms employee status of 500 Sea org members

That is the old "Guardian Office" strategy from days of Flag land Base too.
I was part of that as an outer org (Paris) student at Flag in 1976. The G.O had all us foreign students study to be "ministers" and get special immigration status. It was a total sham and we knew it. It was a bogus ploy to circumvent laws and was a G.O. (now OSA) trick.