Gerald Poter gathers rags
for a living, going door to door to ask for old clothes, then reselling what he
can. But Poter, 27, is neither a hobo nor homeless; in fact, he`s got the best and
the only job he`s had in years. A worker at an experimental company in this
recession-hit area near the north-western coast of France, Poter is one of 180
employees back in the work force because of the approach taken by a company
called Le Relais that seeks to make money to create jobs.
After seven years, Le
Relais now takes in about $5 million a year with its labor-intensive
enterprises-collecting, resorting and selling used clothing in France, Africa
and Asia, recycling paper and manufacturing paint. Profit is ploughed back into
the company and shared with employees. A project that grew out of a charitable
commune run by Catholic priests, Le Relais (The Relay) has helped dozens of
virtually unemployable people - former convicts and people out of a job from
one to five years - discover usefulness to society and a long-lost sense of
self-worth. And if Le Relais is far from solving France`s economic problem of
10% unemployment, which runs as high as 18% here, where the coal mines shut
down years ago, it has already inspired the creation of similar companies near
Toulouse, in Burgundy and in the city of Mulhouse, near the Swiss border.
``Society is flawed; the
fact that there are people who are completely excluded from society is
unacceptable,” says Pierre Duponchel, Le Relais` managing director, standing in
a warehouse full of sorted, used clothes. …More
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