I'm pretty annoyed by the mix of actual issues and misleading statistics in this article, so here are some thoughts on all of the items.

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

There are a few issues with this section.

"The company" in question is a specific Goodwill - Goodwill Omaha. Extrapolating from one operation to the entire network of Goodwills is a bit extreme.

The bigger issue comes from definitions - profit, charitable work, administration.

Charitable work: if the only thing Goodwill did was run a chain of stores that facilitated reuse, I would argue that this is a net good to the world. However none of the money that is spent on running these stores counts as charitable work, because it's not written into Goodwill's mission.

Administrative costs: on this topic, let me quote the linked article. "While Goodwill Omaha runs job training and assistance programs that serve thousands annually, nearly all of those activities have been funded by government grants and contract". These government grants and contracts don't fall out of thin air, they require a staff to apply for, measure, track, report back on, etc. Another way of saying Goodwill spends $2.5MM on administrative costs is to say Goodwill spends $2.5MM to raise $?MM from the government to spend on programs.

CEO compensation: The stated example of ~$1MM for the CEO of Goodwill Omaha is on the high end, but still within the norm for the CEO of an organization that runs 17 retail stores and a large jobs training program with an annual revenue of >$30MM.

Not to say that there aren't red flags: "The organization [Goodwill Omaha] includes a number of highly placed staff members who are related to the CEO or board members or their own supervisors."

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

Having lived in poverty in a developing nation, this wasn't a bad thing. There was no local cheap local clothes industry - it had already been decimated by cheap Chinese imports.

You might say: but bitcurious, wouldn't high quality clothes at that same price undermine the Chinese importers? Yes, but what's the difference between an importer of cheap clothes vs an importer of donated clothes? They need the same amount of labor.

You might say: but bitcurious, wouldn't access to high quality goods at a cheap price undermine the potential for locally made high quality goods at a higher price? Perhaps, but speaking from experience, there was a lot of stigma associated with shopping at a second hand clothing store, so anyone who could afford to buy high quality goods was already doing so, if only to avoid that stigma.

The undermining local industry argument is incredible relevant for industries that exist - farming, energy, etc. For clothes? I'm don't buy it.

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

Probably fucked up, definitely so if true. I'd love to see a citation.

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

Pretty fucked up, but seems to be an accounting issue. "According to Labor Department documents dug up by NBC, Goodwill has paid workers in Pennsylvania as little as 22 cents, 38 cents and 41 cents an hour." Per Forbes/Goodwill: "(Goodwill says those ultra-low-wage figures are distorted because sometimes workers run into emotional or physical issues, don’t finish their shifts, and then wait for a parent or caregiver to arrive; in those cases Goodwill must still count the total amount of time the worker stays on the job, which translates to an abnormally low hourly wage.)"

So they got paid for the time they worked, but the hourly wage was calculated based on the time spent on premises.

Looks like it's not typical: "The average hourly wage for the roughly 7,000 Goodwill employees who are paid under the FLSA provision is $7.47, says Goodwill. And that’s just 5%-7% of the organization’s workforce. An additional 25,000 disabled workers make an average annualized salary of $29,000, it says."
per Forbes[0]

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/07/30/does-good...

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

Huge issue, should really be the entire article.

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

Fucked up, but it's the same issue as #5.Goodwill blames the employee in question for the death. Cal-OSHA disagreed and fined the ~$100k.

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

This is specific to people with disabilities. The alternative is that they simply don't get hired. This is a larger problem than goodwill - it's the lack of a good social safety net.

>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.

More on Goodwill Omaha, and then a bit about national compensation. I spoke about Goodwill Omaha above, so here's the national part: $53.7MM total executive compensation vs. a national revenue of >$3Bn. Not crazy.

>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.

Being a charitable organization is a tax status.