Joe Smith
2006-01-24 16:22:45 UTC
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/106333/1845273/post.ashx
Circuit Overseer Pensions and the Implications I just learned that the
Watchtower Society has instituted a pension plan of sorts for Circuit
Overseers. This is a big change.
Previous to this new plan, the various kinds of "traveling overseers"
were pretty much on their own when they retired from the traveling work.
In a few cases, such men were invited to live out their lives in Bethel,
but in most cases they simply went back to being normal rank and file
members who had to fend for themselves financially.
I can only speculate that the reason for this change was that the
Society has been having difficulty getting elders to become Circuit
Overseers. Only such a problem would prompt WTS leaders to actually put
up money for a "pension plan", in view of more than a hundred years of
this being a completely voluntary work.
This brings another thought to mind: Since elders really constitute a
clergy class -- even though unpaid -- if COs are now covered by a
pension plan, then they're being paid. Thus, the Society has instituted
a limited but paid clergy class -- again something foreign to its
history.
Of course, anyone who knows how things really operate in JW-land knows
that Circuit and District Overseers have been paid pretty good money for
years via "the green handshake". Many of these men in the U.S. average
about $500 a week, free and clear, with no taxes paid due to the "vow of
poverty" that all such Watchtower officials now take.
It's really a scam on the Internal Revenue Service.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
And remember that these guys have virtually all of their weekly
expenses paid on top of the green handshake, so almost everything they
get this way can be banked or used for discretionary spending. Geez, I
wish I had $25,000 a year free and clear!
-------------
I knew a CO who'd worked in that position quite a few years. His wife
got sick. for awhile he would do his work as a CO during the day and go
to his wife at night in the hospital. After a few months of that, he was
let go from the circuit work. He got no help. No more coverage for his
wife's hospital bills. And after she died, he ended up supporting
himself working in a barber shop. I've never heard of him being allowed
back into the circuit work. Somehow I doubt that happened while he was
still trying to pay off his wife's hospital and funeral bills.
I've never forgotten that. It struck me as rather callous on the part of
the organization. And that was almost thirty years ago!
--------------------
This is a big change... My Uncle was Zone servant in Alaska in the early
60s. He and my aunt lived above the kh/branch office there. He died of a
massive stroke. My aunt had 2 weeks to vacate the apartment,=A0for his
replacement, =A0and=A0was on her own to find a way back home
(Massachusetts)=A0 No benifits...nothing. Stranded. Good she had family
to help, because the society did nothing
------------
I thought when the Witnesses started to build parsonages attached to
Kingdom Halls they had gone mainstream.
---------
I thought when the Witnesses started to build parsonages attached to
Kingdom Halls they had gone mainstream.=A0
Good point,most Kingdom Halls in Massachusetts have an attached
apartment generating=A0rental income,some have TWO apartments.
I can remember my hard core JW elder pioneer=A0dad say (early-mid
1960's) how that when the 'radical elements of the united nations come
to destroy babylon the great they will=A0be able to find the priest to
slaughter and the nuns to rape because they live in their churches'.
Take courage, No ( wts/gb jw ) evil can forever withstand the collective
will of those it wrongs.
"A man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to
believe."
-- Euripides
a happy Apostate
Circuit Overseer Pensions and the Implications I just learned that the
Watchtower Society has instituted a pension plan of sorts for Circuit
Overseers. This is a big change.
Previous to this new plan, the various kinds of "traveling overseers"
were pretty much on their own when they retired from the traveling work.
In a few cases, such men were invited to live out their lives in Bethel,
but in most cases they simply went back to being normal rank and file
members who had to fend for themselves financially.
I can only speculate that the reason for this change was that the
Society has been having difficulty getting elders to become Circuit
Overseers. Only such a problem would prompt WTS leaders to actually put
up money for a "pension plan", in view of more than a hundred years of
this being a completely voluntary work.
This brings another thought to mind: Since elders really constitute a
clergy class -- even though unpaid -- if COs are now covered by a
pension plan, then they're being paid. Thus, the Society has instituted
a limited but paid clergy class -- again something foreign to its
history.
Of course, anyone who knows how things really operate in JW-land knows
that Circuit and District Overseers have been paid pretty good money for
years via "the green handshake". Many of these men in the U.S. average
about $500 a week, free and clear, with no taxes paid due to the "vow of
poverty" that all such Watchtower officials now take.
It's really a scam on the Internal Revenue Service.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
And remember that these guys have virtually all of their weekly
expenses paid on top of the green handshake, so almost everything they
get this way can be banked or used for discretionary spending. Geez, I
wish I had $25,000 a year free and clear!
-------------
I knew a CO who'd worked in that position quite a few years. His wife
got sick. for awhile he would do his work as a CO during the day and go
to his wife at night in the hospital. After a few months of that, he was
let go from the circuit work. He got no help. No more coverage for his
wife's hospital bills. And after she died, he ended up supporting
himself working in a barber shop. I've never heard of him being allowed
back into the circuit work. Somehow I doubt that happened while he was
still trying to pay off his wife's hospital and funeral bills.
I've never forgotten that. It struck me as rather callous on the part of
the organization. And that was almost thirty years ago!
--------------------
This is a big change... My Uncle was Zone servant in Alaska in the early
60s. He and my aunt lived above the kh/branch office there. He died of a
massive stroke. My aunt had 2 weeks to vacate the apartment,=A0for his
replacement, =A0and=A0was on her own to find a way back home
(Massachusetts)=A0 No benifits...nothing. Stranded. Good she had family
to help, because the society did nothing
------------
I thought when the Witnesses started to build parsonages attached to
Kingdom Halls they had gone mainstream.
---------
I thought when the Witnesses started to build parsonages attached to
Kingdom Halls they had gone mainstream.=A0
Good point,most Kingdom Halls in Massachusetts have an attached
apartment generating=A0rental income,some have TWO apartments.
I can remember my hard core JW elder pioneer=A0dad say (early-mid
1960's) how that when the 'radical elements of the united nations come
to destroy babylon the great they will=A0be able to find the priest to
slaughter and the nuns to rape because they live in their churches'.
Take courage, No ( wts/gb jw ) evil can forever withstand the collective
will of those it wrongs.
"A man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to
believe."
-- Euripides
a happy Apostate