We received the update below from Derek Snook and the folks at In Every Story Labor Services and are inspired to share it with you in its entirety.
IES is taking an innovative approach with their staffing agency that aims to create a win-win situation for both employers and their temporary employees.
Dear Friends, Family, and IES supporters,
For some time now I’ve felt that while we’re doing more than we could have imagined at IES, we have to do more. While other day labor agencies pay workers minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour, IES has always paid workers a minimum of $8.00 an hour through the Hope Fund. And yet, the lowest projection for a living wage in Charleston County is $9.74 an hour.
Accordingly, we’ve set the goal to operate the Hope Fund in such a way that workers who come to work, do a good job, and remain drug free can make $9.74 an hour after working six months at IES. We currently place 50-55 workers a day, but our forecasts show that we’ll have to place 80-85 workers daily to make this possible.
As part of this process, I’ve made a 6 month commitment to live at the Star Gospel Mission, beginning in July. I’m also committing for October, November, and December to live on the same wage that our workers make. I want to see if it’s even possible to do that, and if so to better understand how (I’ll collect the rest of my salary later).
Beginning October 1st, you’ll be able to see all the transactions made through a bank account I’ve opened for this experiment. Log onto www.mint.com with the username “test@ieslaborservices.com” and password “pass4test.”
I’ve put this off for months because of a deep fear that we could fail to raise our workers’ pay to a livable wage. But I fear even more what will become of our city if low income workers can’t see a path to self-sufficiency. I don’t want to see that happen, knowing that together we could have done something but didn’t. The vision for IES has always been to advance the lives of low income workers in every city across the country. I believe that a major step in developing a model worth replicating is paying a wage that is sustainable both for our workers and IES as a social enterprise.
What you can do to help is spread the word and influence customers to use our workers.
At IES, we believe in the power of stories. We also believe that we can best live the story written for us by helping others to do the same. Thank you for working with us to make our city a better place. Thank you for your support, and let’s see what God does!
Best,
Derek and the IES Team
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