Non Profits Exploiting The Disabled For Profit

Jesus Christ just did another facepalm. We the people expect that corporations will do unscrupulous things to the peasants. This is a given but some corporations are good corporate citizens. This is because of the threat of Qui Tam. Non profits on the other hand fly under the RADAR. They are of little interest to national news and they are often mobbed up with local affiliate in a quid pro quo arrangement. 

Like everything else medical related, disabled people are exploited for maximum profit and while some non profits are sincere in helping the disabled others are not. Transparency is often lacking and employee exploitation tends to be the rule rather than the exception. One glaring example of that is RCIL Resource Center For Independent Living in Utica NY. 

Dozens of red flags when up when one of our investigative reporters started asking questions and digging deeper into the goings on at RCIL. How deep the corruption goes is not known at this time but when there is complete lack of transparency it usually indicates an abyss of wrong doing. The unwillingness of staff to even give a member of the public the names of the members of the board of directors triggered an impromptu transparency audit from our citizen/journalist investigator. RCIL failed and failed miserably. 

At this point, there is no call to action by our readers or network partners as Fat Bastardo of Bigger Fatter Politics has suggested but there are PINAC auditors in the area that will audit RCIL unannounced. The following few paragraphs explains the sinister nature of parasite entities such are RCIL. 

THE NON-PROFIT sector in the U.S. is a complete scam. Hospitals and other agencies get special breaks on property and income taxes. They plough their earnings into expansion and massive salaries for top executives, just like for-profit companies do.

The competitive dynamic that forces each corporation to accumulate as much capital as possible applies to non-profits just as much as for-profits. Employees for non-profits do the work that produces the funds that pay the CEOs--and are often paid even less than employees at for-profit corporations. So exploitation of workers is often even greater at "non-profit" companies than at for profit companies.

KUOW, a public radio station, did a story on non-profit hospitals in Seattle on July 9: Nurses at "non-profit" Swedish hospital start at around $25 per hour ($50,000 per year) and housekeepers get only $12 an hour, while Swedish CEO Rod Hochman made $ 1.5 million in the first nine months of 2007 alone! Hochman also got $120,000 for relocation expenses, as well as $13,000 for other expenses.

But it's not just Hochman--seven officials at Swedish made at least $1 million per year . Altogether, at least 15 Seattle-area non-profit hospital executives earned $1 million or more a year. These salaries come out of what is, in essence, profit made by the "non-profit" corporation. These high salaries continue as Swedish laid off 200 workers this year. Just like at for-profit companies, the people who do the real work get laid off and the ones who are left get overworked, while the CEOs accumulate more and more.

Workers at "non-profits" and public agencies deserve as much support and solidarity as any other workers. Workers as a whole produce the wealth--whether they work in for-profits, non-profits or government agencies. The wealth they produce keeps the whole economy going--to the benefit of the super-rich, whether they be CEOs or shareholders.

Management at non-profits try to sell workers on the idea that they are producing for the public good--so they should be willing to accept less money. Workers should reject this lying rationale that only serves the interests of management. They are actually working to line the pockets of the managers.

When workers rise up and take ownership and control of the economy they will have to transform the "non-profits" just as much as the "for-profits." They will have to squeeze the profit out of both and create an economy based on human need--instead of one based on profit or "non-profit" accumulation.

RCIL located in the economically depressed Mohawk Valley in Central New York State does it even dirtier than Swedish Hospital in Seattle WA. Along with paying its workers poverty wages, 90% of its workers are part time which means that most of these workers do not have health insurance. For an organization that claims to be a social service organization RCIL only seems to serve itself and it's vendors. 

Fat Bastard's investigation on Parkridge Health in Hendersonville NC and Adventist Health resulted in huge fines but sadly none of the dozen or so criminals were even
but this is New York State that has an aggressive state AG and even more aggressive federal attorneys. Stay tuned to see if another corrupt exploiter of human suffering gets brought to justice.