Michigan Disability Resistance

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Goodwill has long been my favorite store. As someone who detests the practices of most businesses that exploit cheap labor in foreign countries, not to mention the cost of buying goods retail, I love shopping at Goodwill. At the same time, I always wondered- is something a little sketchy here?

Everybody loves Goodwill. I’m not denying that. Your favorite collectible art piece or pair of pants you could never afford at retail price are fond, happy discoveries borne within that treasure trove palace behind those beautiful blue doors. The glories of thrift store shopping aside, is Goodwill really a charity?

Legally, yes, it is a tax-exempt nonprofit that does perform work for the public good.

But morally? It’s got some pretty dark secrets.

I am not denying that Goodwill does some really wonderful stuff. But what if we didn’t know the whole story?

In the United States and Canada, the thrift store giant runs over 164 regional Goodwill organizations and 3,200 individual stores. Goodwill brands itself as a nonprofit that provides jobs to disabled workers. But that’s not quite the whole story. Suspicious business practices and lack of corporate oversight will make you question if Goodwill is actually such a good guy after all.

Here are my 10 most outstanding contentions.

1. Less than one eighth of the company’s profit goes towards its charity work.

2. Your donated items get shipped out to neo-imperialist buyers that threaten developing industry in third world countries.

3. Goodwill has actively fought against legislative proposals to raise the minimum wage.

4. Goodwill seized on an archaic 1938 law to justify paying workers as little as 22 cents an hour.

5. Many people with disabilities have actually died from injuries borne of Goodwill’s unsafe workplace safety practices.

6. Employees that criticize Goodwill’s practices end up getting fired, threatened, and publicly defamed by the company.

7. Employees are subject to strict, unrealistic performance quotas, and their wages are docked if they’re not fast enough.

8. Hiring disabled and formerly incarcerated people is not a ‘venerable’ act of charity, it’s corporate responsibility.

9. Goodwill’s legal status as a charity wins grants and tax subsidies, manifesting in hugely lucrative quantities of profit for executives that are not evenly distributed among the people they are intended to benefit.

10. Perhaps most of all, it is troubling to promote your business as a charitable institution, project a false image of your workplace practices, and abuse the public’s trust.