I am an ex-employee of Bills, and his company is hardly what it claims to be. First of all, he hires more than just single mothers. He also speaks out both sides of his face when telling something, and can never seem to keep his story straight. A friend of mine and I worked there, and when I started with him, his "program" seemed wonderful.
He claimed what a big hit in profits he took, because he was out to help single mothers. He had promised of making over $20/hour, good benifits, etc. Well this was all crap. We didn't have set pay. We got paid by the house, in which he would take half. We were also paying for our own gas, all our supplies, and work clothes. Seeing as how Bill has no overhead other than a business line, you can see where this is going.
He runs his business out of his basement, so he doesn't lease an office. He claims that he doesn't make much, yet his home is obscenley huge, and his wife doesn't work and drives a mercedes. He couldn't possibly provide us with insurance, as he tells us when we start, we'll be filling out 1099's, to which we never received, we're being paid under the table, cannot file our own taxes because we do not receive W2's, and he doesn't claim us, so he's not paying taxes on us to even provide us with insurance. Let alone social security, etc.
When I started with Bill, he made me sign up through the Dept. Of Labor through a program called "Georgia Works", in which the state pays us $100 per week to train at no cost to him. Ie, he gets each girl for 6 weeks and 100% of the profit that we brought in. The program says that we can work no more than 24 hours a week, and that after 6 weeks, he either has to hire us on, or terminate us. When I worked the 6 weeks, I was working over the 24 hours a week, and usually on Friday when I'd call in for a house, he'd tell me that I went over my allotted hours, and to take the day off. Ok, that was fine. But when I completed my 6 weeks, and he was suppose to start paying me, I went in at the end of my first week through him to get my paycheck, and he said that I didn't work 35 consecutive days, therefore, I had to make those days up... FOR FREE!!!
I called my caseworker at the DOL, and explained to her the situation. She explained it didn't matter how many "days' I worked, just as long as I completed the 6 weeks and he kept me on. She called to confirm that he was hiring me, and when she called me back, she said he told her that he planned on hiring me on right after my contract with them ended. Well he lied. And after I had worked a whole week thinking I was getting my check that Friday, and walked in only to be told I had to work 10 days for him for free, I told him I couldn't do that. I was only making $100 for the past 6 weeks, and that my daycare alone was 90. Not to mention my gas, and supplies. I was actually putting an investment into this job for a month and a half.
When I protested, he told me he didn't want to lose me, and to not tell the other girls, but he would drop it down to 2 days, but not to tell the other Georgia Works girls. Seeing as the economy was bad, and I hadn't worked in the past 6 years because I was a stay at home mom until my divorce, I didn't have a whole lot of options so I took it. After I got on through him, work dipped dramatically. I was only getting about 2-4 houses a week, and my checks averaged $150 or less!
After talking to my friend for weeks, and comparing houses as to why we weren't working, we were realizing he was telling us both two completely different stories. We kept this up for months. We finally figured out what he was doing was he kept hiring these girls through Georgia Works, and was recycling them so to speak. He was making 100% profit on them, and if there was any work left over, he was giving it to us. I finally got sick of it and quit. I started college back, but my friend is still there until she can find something else, and she's been looking to no avail.
It's been almost 5 months since I quit, and he's STILL doing this! The only reason that I think he kept me on was because I was really good, and he would send me out for "damage control" to clean up after the girls that weren't doing their job. Yeah, and btw, be careful if you hire his company, because he does NOT do background checks on anyone, and he hires people fresh out of prison, and meth addicts, homeless people, etc. Anyway, that's my story. I'm sick of seeing what he's doing to these girls, and I wrote this today because he was on the Fox News last night and they had a story of his "wage revolution"! Sickening. Oh well Bill, you claim this is a ministry, but not all of your girls are complete idiots. We're on to you, and God will deal with you. Don't claim you're doing something wonderful when you're not. It's that simple!
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