[blindkid] Fwd: Fortune: Disabled workers left in the cold on minimum wage

[Carol Castellano]

Hi Everyone,

The article below from Fortune gives a good history of the subminimum 
wage issue.  Anil Lewis is featured.

Carol

Carol Castellano
Parents of Blind Children-NJ
Director of Programs
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
973-377-0976
carol_castellano at verizon.net
www.blindchildren.org
www.nfb.org/parents-and-teachers

>
>Disabled workers left in the cold on minimum wage
>
>
>
>By <http://management.fortune.cnn.com/author/clairezillman/>Claire 
>Zillman, reporter February 12, 2014: 11:19 AM ET
>
>
>
>
>Disabled workers are not subject to the federal minimum wage on 
>account of a law that was passed 76 years ago.
>
>
>
>FORTUNE -- In the ongoing fight to 
><http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/12/news/economy/obama-executive-order-minimum-wage/index.html>raise 
>the minimum wage in the U.S., advocates of a nationwide hike often 
>refer to a few notable dates to highlight how long it's been since 
>the hourly rate has changed.
>
>2009: When Congress last raised the federal minimum wage to $7.25
>
>1991: The last time Congress raised the federal minimum wage for 
>tipped workers to $2.13.
>
>Well, here's another: 1938, the last time Congress addressed how 
>disabled Americans are paid. At the time, the legislature decided 
>disabled Americans ought to be exempt from receiving the federal minimum wage.
>
>That year, Congress instituted what's known as the 14c exemption to 
>the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows employers to obtain a 
>special wage certificate from the Department of Labor that waives 
>their obligation to pay disabled individuals the federally mandated 
>minimum wage. The 420,000 disabled employees who are now subject to 
>14c instead earn what's called a commensurate wage that employers 
>determine by testing the productivity of a non-disabled person and 
>comparing it to what a disabled person can do. That ratio dictates 
>the disabled employee's pay. (According to the Americans with 
>Disabilities Act, a disability is anything that limits your everyday 
>activities.) So if the test employee can screw on 100 pen caps in an 
>hour, and the disabled work completes 50, the latter employee will 
>receive as little as half the wage of his non-disabled counterpart, 
>with some adjustment made to account for personal time, fatigue, and delay.
>
>Congress passed the original legislation 76 years ago because it 
>"rightfully felt that these individuals had the desire to be part of 
>the fabric of America," says Anil Lewis, director of advocacy and 
>policy for the National Federation of the Blind. But that was a 
>different time; when "discrimination was inevitable because service 
>systems were based on a charity model, rather than empowerment and 
>self-determination and when societal low expectations for people 
>with disabilities colored policy making," the National Council on 
>Disability says.
>
>Today, advocates for the disabled say that the legislative relic is 
>contributing to disabled individuals' modern day plight.
>
>When the 14c exemption was first passed, it required that disabled 
>employees in competitive industries earn 
><http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=key_workplace>at 
>least 75% of the minimum wage. In 1966, that requirement dropped to 
>50%, and in 1986, the floor was removed altogether. Fifteen years 
>later, a report by the Government Accountability Office found that 
>so-called sub-minimum wage workers earned on average $2.15 an hour. 
>In 2011, the 
><http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2014/01302014/#Footnote1>Bureau of 
>Labor Statistics found that people with disabilities are three times 
>more likely to live in poverty, and only 18.7% of people with 
>disabilities participate in the workforce, compared to 68.3% of 
>non-disabled individuals.
>
>Chester Finn, now a client advocate for the New York Office for 
>People With Developmental Disabilities and who's visually impaired, 
>was employed under 14c at a workshop for the disabled in western New 
>York in the 1990s. He told Fortune that he started out making $4 for 
>two full weeks of 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. work days. Six years later, 
>his paycheck had reached $100, but still comes out to less than minimum wage.
>
>He paid for his apartment with social security checks. "The wages 
>never would've gotten me that," he says. "I never could have even 
>bought groceries." He left the workshop after meeting the 
>commissioner of the OPWDD and pitching his skills as a self-advocate.
>
>In exiting his sub-minimum wage arrangement, Finn is an exception. 
>The 14c program is intended to provide temporary employment for 
>disabled workers and train them to enter a normal work environment, 
>yet the GAO found that less than 5% of the disabled workers in the 
>program ever leave it for a job in the broader community.
>
>In his State of the Union address in January, President Barack Obama 
>proposed raising the minimum wage for federal contracted workers to 
>$10.10 by executive order, but the plan initially exempted federal 
>contractors that use the 14c program from paying their disabled 
>workers the new rate. Advocacy groups immediately called for the 
>president to change course.
>
>The National Council on Disability said in a Feb. 3 
><http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2014/01302014/#Footnote1>letter 
>that if the Obama Administration "wants to stamp out income 
>inequality for all Americans, including Americans with disabilities" 
>it should reconsider its decision to not apply the raised minimum 
>wage to people with disabilities. On Wednesday, when the White House 
>released the final version of its executive order, which is set to 
>be signed Wednesday afternoon, it clearly stated that disabled 
>workers would receive the new minimum wage. "Under current law, 
>workers whose productivity is affected because of their disabilities 
>may be paid less than the wage paid to others doing the same job 
>under certain specialized certificate programs. Under this Executive 
>Order, all individuals working under service or concessions 
>contracts with the federal government will be covered by the same 
>$10.10 per hour minimum wage protections," the order says.
>
>Lewis of the National Federation of the Blind says that this effort 
>by advocates was mainly symbolic since the executive order will 
>apply to a small population of people and because federal contracted 
>workers often make more than minimum wage to begin with. "It's not 
>an argument for or against the minimum wage," he says, "People with 
>disabilities should not be exempted from it regardless of what it is."
>
>Advocates for the disabled have pushed for reform through the Fair 
>Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act, which was introduced to the 
>House of Representatives in February 2013. The bill, sponsored by 
>Republican Representative Gregg Harper of Mississippi, would bar the 
>Labor Department from granting sub-minimum wage certificates to 
>employers and repeal the existing certificates over the course of 
>three years. The bill has 62 co-sponsors, but not enough support to 
>merit a committee vote.
>
>ACCESS, a coalition of nonprofits that employ the disabled, is 
>against phasing out 14c. In a letter opposing the National Council 
>on Disability's 2012 recommendation to end the program, it said that 
>"hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities will most likely 
>become unemployed or lose the opportunity to become employed in the 
>future." A commensurate wage, the letter said, is in place to 
>"prevent the curtailment of employment" for individuals who are "not 
>capable of meeting productivity standards."
>
>In a 
><https://harper.house.gov/press-release/harper-authors-bill-provide-fair-wages-disabled>statement 
>announcing the legislation, Harper's office said that instead of 
>pushing people with disabilities into sheltered, sub-minimum wage 
>employment as current labor laws do, the new legislation would 
>facilitate access to alternative work or training opportunities that 
>are "more cost-effective and produce more competitive outcomes."
>
>Lewis points to a program called Employment First as one viable 
>option. It helps disabled individuals discover what they're good at 
>and finds customized, inclusive employment opportunities that fit 
>those skills. For instance, if someone with disabilities can sort 
>hangers by color in a sheltered workshop setting, he can sort 
>color-coded mail in an office building. The difference, Lewis says, 
>is that the employee is in an inclusive environment, where his 
>coworkers can see him doing the job.
>
>"When we start shifting the paradigm away from seeing the disabled 
>as needing to be cared for to one in which they can be part of the 
>workforce, then you'll see the creation of other jobs," Lewis says. 
>Programs like Employment First "start with the belief that the 
>person can," Lewis says. The sub-minimum wage system "starts with 
>the person cannot."