Wisconsin State Capital
Room 20
Attn: Terry Moulton, Republican, 68th Assembly District
Dear Mr. Moulton,
I am writing to you concerning SB-80, which as you know prohibits
certain companies doing business in your state from avoiding their moral duty
to their employees and thus codifies an employer/employee relationship. Upon
the passage of this bill into law, these companies will no longer be able to
treat their employees as subcontractors and the current exploitation of them
will, at least from this perspective, be minimized. Although this legislation
does not single out any particular company, I am herewith commenting on my
personal experiences with The Southwestern Company as being one of the
organizations affected. Because it has become glaringly apparent to me as to
who this company really is, I can conclude with a reasonable degree of
certainty that you have been strongly lobbied to block or otherwise “water down”
this legislation.
The Southwestern Company is masterful at marketing. To put
it in political terms, I am not sure whether they attended the Bill Clinton
School of Spin, or whether they assisted in creating it. Let me preface also by
saying that up until about a year ago, I considered myself (as well as the
other voters in my family) a Republican. I now consider myself a conservative
for reasons that, I am sure, you are aware of from a national political
standpoint. I really feel like I have no political party that effectively represents
my voice.
I am the father of Kristen Rae Spicer. She and I testified
before the committee on
In this vein, you need to know that as a result of these
threats (and other assertions made by The Southwestern Company in a separate
letter to me), I have avoided writing a “Parents Testimonial” that I would
allow to be published on Kristen Rae’s website. In any event, we are in contact
with Fox News (and other media outlets), and assuming our dialogue continues
with them as I have reason to believe it will, it is a good bet that a feature
will be produced concerning The Southwestern Company’s tactics and our resultant
plight (and those of others) with this organization and the comprehensive negative
affects on our young people. You are probably aware of Bill O’Reilly’s passion
against the exploitation of young people and his corresponding praise (or
otherwise) of those states that implement legislation accordingly. I have no
doubt that the state of
I encourage you to check out Kristen Rae’s website because
you will see a copy of The Southwestern Company’s threatening letter to her.
You as well will see the consistency of over 20 independent testimonies
published thereon. Her site started with only her own testimony. Since she
launched this site after her verbal testimony before the committee in April,
2007, there have been many others similarly affected “coming out of the
woodwork”. Sadly, when My wife and I searched the internet before the summer of
2005 as one of the investigatory techniques available to us as a function of
making our decision to allow her to go that summer of 2005, we were unable to locate
any significant negative information concerning The Southwestern Company. We
relied upon the untruthful assertions of Southwestern Company representatives
in response to specific questions asked by my wife and me. (For the legal
reasons mentioned previously and at the advice of my attorney, I am not able to
divulge the details of that conversation in writing at this time). Now, in
addition to southwesterncompanytruth.com, there are various other “blogs” or
sites on the internet that you can readily locate that are beginning to provide
a more balanced perspective of how this company operates. For a truly balanced
perspective and with all the “positive spin” sites that have recently been put
up on the internet by The Southwestern Company in response to and in an effort
to overshadow southwesterncompanytruth.com, another 100 or so sites like
Kristen Rae’s need to be put up.
I suspect that The Southwestern Company’s political spin
machine is or has attempted to assert to you as one in control of moving SB-80
forward that you should have reason to discredit my and my daughter’s testimony
before the committee on
Why is The Southwestern Company singling out Kristen Rae’s
web site for their law suit, and not all the other sites that are publishing
negative testimonials? Like I said, its all politics, and they know that if
SB-80 is passed, they cannot operate their business model as currently
structured. In this, they must demonstrate to you that my daughter and I are
liars and thereby kill SB-80. With SB-80 dead, all they have to do is continue to
convince naïve students to work for a net $2.00 per hour (and which they will only
learn of well after the fact) and after they are used up and re-deposited back
into the work force, parents and other companies having the challenge to fix them
from both an emotional and ethical standpoint. This is again testimony as to
who The Southwestern Company is. They would rather look elsewhere and continue
to exploit the young people rather than look at themselves and change with the
times as other successful companies have done, whether it requires revising a
business model or a product in this computer and electronic media world.
Instead of taking responsibility for the horrific circumstances to which they
subject their “subcontractors”, they choose to point the finger elsewhere and
accuse people of malicious lying.
To think and operate like the spin machine The Southwestern
Company is, in apparent negative situations I believe they ask themselves the
rhetorical question “How can we make lemon aide out of lemons”. This question
would have been particularly appropriate when SB-80 was first introduced.
However, the masters of spin that they are, The Southwestern Company takes it
one step further and asks itself “how can we manipulate SB-80 so that it
creates even a better situation for us than had the bill never been introduced
to begin with?” The obvious answer is to appear to be helpful and in support of
the spirit of the bill, but by offering an amendment thereto that operates to
exempt The Southwestern Company, and thereby distinguishing itself from other
“traveling sales crews” where there is not a distinction to begin with. Sound
familiar?
Mr. Moulton, everybody makes poor decisions. But when you
are deceived into making a decision to allow your child to be subjected to the
“Southwestern Experience”, this is exploitation of the worst degree. As I
testified before the committee, had my and my wife’s questions been truthfully
answered, Kristen Rae would not have been permitted to go that summer of 2005.
My parental authority was usurped. They are masterful at using the “subcontractor”
relationship. The Southwestern Company can legally turn a blind eye to the fact
that its subcontractor-managers, if they are at all human and due to the fact
that they themselves are also impressionable young persons, will have a natural
propensity to lie or distort the truth in an effort to get the “first-years”
such as my daughter to sign on, it being all about the numbers and due to the
fact that subcontractor-managers can be expected to make more money based on
how many “first-years” they get to sign on under them. In this, The Southwestern
Company executives can comfortably sit in their ivory towers and pontificate
the point that their subcontractor-manager was not “technically” authorized to
“lie”, yet all the while taking financial advantage of the lies. What a
deal!!!!!
Speaking of “blind eyes”, the purported “surprise and shock”
of The Southwestern Company as to Kristen Rae’s and my testimony on April 10,
2007 as published in their May 17, 2007 letter to Kristen Rae is either
feigned, or if sincere is testimony to their blind eye tactics and passion for
excerpting from students’ experiences only the minority of experiences that are
positive and ignoring the vast majority of experiences that are negative. For
the legal reasons stated previously, I cannot divulge the details of my
communication with The Southwestern Company as to the rape of my daughter and
the other illegal activity of which they were previously made aware at about
the time when the associated criminal complaint was filed.
My only regret concerning the April 10, 2007 hearing is that
having been taken by emotion at the time, I failed to prompt Kristen Rae at all
the necessary occasions during her testimony to insure the Senate committee
heard the comprehensive list of offenses and “fallout” concerning that summer
from hell. For me personally, my testimony that The Southwestern Company’s representatives’
lies and distortions to specific questions asked by my wife and me operated to
usurp my parental authority and prohibited me to make an informed decision whether
to allow my daughter to experience the “Southwestern Experience” is a position
about which I am passionate.
Since “our” initial 2005 experience with The Southwestern
Company, the following lists some of the direct damage and fallout:
1. Time,
emotion, and expense to file a criminal complaint for the rape of my daughter
in
2. Time,
emotion, and expense to file a temporary stalking order against the rapist in
3.
Psychiatric counseling of my daughter (18 months)
4. Psychiatric
counseling of my wife and me (12 months)
4.
Prescription of drugs for Kristen Rae calculated by her counselor to enable her
to cope with the traumas of the summer
from both the “normal” book field experience and the rape as well. She continues to take this medication and
could be on it the rest of her life.
5.
Withdrawal by Kristen Rae from The University of Georgia due to her inability
to cope. She currently has a full
time job.
6. Health
problems with my wife.
Mr. Moulton, my daughter is not a slouch. The year prior to
her 2005 Summer from Hell, graduating from Jackson County Comprehensive High
School, she received the Principal and Faculty Award voted on by those by whom
it is named, awarded to a single student that displays the highest combined
attributes of character, concern for others, concern for community, academics,
and extra-curricular activities. So prestigious is this award that the single
student receiving it each year is honored by having their name engraved on
a plaque for permanent display in the school bookcase. When Kristen Rae
was given this award, the principal said "this person always, always,
always makes the right decision". She came back after the summer of 2005 a
mere shell of a person having been totally dismantled. In April, 2007 when she
was requested to testify before the Senate committee was the first time I began
to see the old Kristen Rae come back. She being able to speak her truthful
voice to insure others are truly fully informed before they make the commitment
to subject themselves to the “Southwestern Experience” is as much about her
healing as anything else is as she tries to achieve some sense of rightness in
her world. Then comes The Southwestern Company again for the final kill!!!
This whole situation, sir, is a travesty at a minimum. I
humbly request you exhibit both rationality as well as heart when considering
moving SB-80 forward.
Sincerely,
Guy K. Spicer