[Ct-nfb] FW: [NFBAffiliatePresidents] [nfbwatlk] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

Tue Aug 14 14:01:17 UTC 2012

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbaffiliatepresidents-bounces at nfbnet.org
[mailto:nfbaffiliatepresidents-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lewis, Anil
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 1:37 PM
To: Carl Jarvis; Frye, Daniel; NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List
Cc: Feder, Emily
Subject: Re: [NFBAffiliatePresidents] [nfbwatlk] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

Please post the following thread to appropriate listservs.

We can set an expectation of full participation, or we can continue to feed
the fallacy of incapacity.

It is the ignorance of the capacity of people with disabilities to be
productive employees that perpetuates the existence of Section 14(c) of the
Fair Labor Standards Act, a law that denies the guarantee of a federal
minimum wage to workers with disabilities.  Moreover, it is frustrating to
find that a few individuals with disabilities are reluctant to support our
efforts to repeal this unfair, discriminatory, immoral provision.  Some have
become so institutionalized that they don't recognize their own capacity.
It was not too long ago that most of us were subjected to society's low
expectations, with limited opportunities to secure competitive employment in
a career that meets our unique skills, interests, and abilities.  Others
have become such elitists that they now exhibit the same ignorance that
denied them the opportunity to be fully participating citizens.  It is a sad
irony that these individuals, who were formerly denied training and
employment opportunities because others felt they had no capacity, now
superimpose the same lack of capacity on others, denying them the necessary
training and support to obtain competitive employment.

People with disabilities have the right and ability to work in the same jobs
earning the same wages as nondisabled workers.  There are many examples of
individuals with significant disabilities who, when provided with the proper
training and support, have acquired a competitive job skill to earn at least
minimum wage.  We should support this outcome for all workers with
disabilities.  Very few, if any, disabled or nondisabled individuals acquire
a competitive job skill through performing menial tasks in sheltered,
segregated, subminimum-wage work environments.  We must set higher
expectations and provide real training and support for all people to be
fully participating members of society.

Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is not the
compassionate offering of an opportunity for workers with disabilities to
experience the tangible and intangible benefits of work.  Section 14(c) is a
poor public policy that actually harms people with disabilities, prohibiting
most from obtaining competitive, integrated employment by denying
educational and training opportunities.

  *   Approximately 33 percent of students in Kindergarten through grade 12
have sheltered subminimum-wage workshops as their vocational goal.  We have
given up on them before they have been provided a proper education, and they
will never reach their full potential-a generation lost.

  *   Approximately 95 percent of people employed in a subminimum-wage work
environment will never transition out of that environment.  They will never
receive the necessary training and support to be productive employees.  They
will remain beneficiaries of public programs, never to become fully
participating citizens.

  *   Approximately 50 percent of workers with disabilities who are employed
under a special wage certificate earn less than half the federal minimum
wage.  They are paid, supposedly based on their productivity, to work in
menial jobs determined by their employer, not jobs that meet their
strengths, interests, unique talents, or abilities.

  *   Approximately 25 percent of workers with disabilities employed under a
special wage certificate earn less than $1 per hour.  We have documentation
of a worker with a disability being paid 3 cents per hour.  This is an
assertion, day after day, that they are not as good as everyone else.

  *   Research shows that many of the skills acquired in a sheltered,
subminimum-wage work environment must be unlearned in order for a worker
with a disability to obtain competitive integrated employment.  Subminimum
wage skills only perpetuate subminimum wage employment.  Real training must
be provided in order to obtain real work.

We applaud entities that help jobseekers with disabilities to develop new
skills, gain work experience, and find jobs through employment planning,
skills training, job search and development, placement, and ongoing
employment support.  However, for far too long we have accepted the
subminimum wage employer's assertions of lack of capacity without asking the
necessary questions.

  *   How many people does your organization transition into competitive
integrated employment?  Can you provide me with the data?

  *   Why are there other organizations putting people with significant
disabilities to work at the minimum wage that sheltered workshops have
refused?

  *   Is a person with a disability really choosing to work in a
subminimum-wage work environment when they have not received the proper
training and support to consider competitive employment, or when they have
only been presented with a choice between subminimum-wage employment and no
employment at all?

  *   If you don't believe that workers with disabilities can be productive,
why are you in the business of providing employment for workers with
disabilities?

  *   Who makes the decision for your organization that a person cannot be
productive?  How do they make the decision?  What training have they
received in the productive placement of a worker with a disability?

  *   Why have some workshops been able to successfully transition their
business model to one that pays federal minimum wages or more to their
employees with disabilities, without loss of jobs or revenue, and your
organization cannot?

  *   If your organization does not pay less than the minimum wage to
workers with disabilities, why should others be allowed to do so?

We should emphasize competitive, integrated employment as the only outcome
that can be considered real employment.  Anything else is just glorified
daycare that sends false messages of incapacity to individuals who could
become competitively employed.  H.R. 3086 removes the ability for employers
to legally pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities, setting higher
expectations for the employers, as well as, the employees.

Some will still state that there are those individuals who are so severely
disabled that they cannot be competitively employed.  New strategies evolve
every day that prove this statement to be false.  However, if there are
truly individuals too severely disabled to perform competitive work, it is
illogical and demoralizing to make a decision that employment at subminimum
wages (pennies per hour) is the best outcome for these individuals.  There
is a better reality that we can provide for these individuals other than
having them toil away, day after day, for pennies an hour.

Mr. Anil Lewis, M.P.A.
"Eliminating Subminimum Wages for People with Disabilities"
http://www.nfb.org/fairwages
From: Carl Jarvis [mailto:carjar82 at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 11:06 AM
To: Frye, Daniel; NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List
Cc: Lewis, Anil; Feder, Emily
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

Dan,
Well stated.  Of course it speaks to human nature not just to us blind
people.
We are quick to cry out when our own rights are trampled, and we can expand
our outrage to include those of our own immediate circle, but we become
indifferent and insensitive when others are treated in the same manner.
I am reminded of the words of pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a
Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not
a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was
not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If each of us fails to stand up and defend the human dignity of all people,
who will stand up for us when the heavy boot of discrimination is on our own
neck?

Are we really so shallow that we place productivity ahead of human dignity?
Why does a person have to produce so many widgets an hour in order to
deserve a basic living standard?
What is it in our nature that allows us to see the cold, harsh
discrimination placed upon us blind people, and then turn about and do
exactly the same to others who we have lumped into a category called, "The
Less Fortunate".
Do we no longer believe that a government of the people should care for all
of its people?  When did we turn on our own people and hitch our wagon to
the coat tails of the wealthy, pretending that we might one day be like
them?
Are we honestly willing to abandon our brothers and sisters in the hope that
we will receive a pat on the head by the Master?
Pretending that we are better than some of our own members is not going to
change how the public sees us as blind people.  The very brightest and most
accomplished of us are measured by the same Universal Blind Stereotype as is
the most unaccomplished, unskilled member of our blind community.  It makes
no difference to the World if I am the most remarkable blind man or a blind
man burdened by multiple disabilities.  Blind trumps all in the minds of the
general population.
If we cut loose from some of our members, it will not put us in a more
favorable light in the eye of the public, it will simply make us fewer in
number.
And how dare we proclaim our right to defend our equal status in the world,
when we can't defend our own brothers and sisters?  What lesson are we
passing along to future blind people?  Are we saying, "You must be blind by
our standards if you are to have our support"?
If, by demanding a decent standard of living for our members working in work
shops means that some of those programs shut their doors and lay off their
underpaid "workers", is that reason enough to fight to keep the programs
open?  To allow them to continue to oppress our brothers and sisters?  For
what purpose?  At what price?
Would it not be better to fight for funding for the underpaid folks and
provide them an environment where they can participate at whatever level
they are able, and rejoice in their achievements.

Carl Jarvis

----- Original Message -----
From: Frye, Daniel<mailto:Daniel.Frye at ed.gov>
To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List<mailto:nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: alewis at nfb.org<mailto:alewis at nfb.org> ; Feder,
Emily<mailto:Emily.Feder at ed.gov>
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 5:37 AM
Subject: RE: [nfbwatlk] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

Paul and Others In Sympathy With His Perspective:

I could use this note to articulate all of the rationale, statistics, and
philosophy to generate arguments for why paying sub-minimum wages to
disabled people, while not having the same standard and policy for
abled-body folks, is wrong. But I won't do this. Instead, I'll simply
observe that I always find myself saddened and perplexed by blind people who
can accept as a matter of policy that a general practice that treats our
community differently from the majority is acceptable. If the inequity of
treating disabled people differently from non-disabled people doesn't
intuitively resonate with one, I hardly know what arguments I can advance
that will get such people to see reason and fairness. And then I just wilt
in resignation when these same "accomplished" blind folks, who justify
discriminatory treatment by lamenting the hardship to business caused by
those who are not productive, run on with a sense of self-righteous
arrogance about their competence and capacity. How about transferring some
of that skill that you've developed, no doubt all on your own, to
demonstrating  some compassion towards those who may not be as successful as
you. In all likelihood, you'll still get to feel superior to these poor,
unfortunate creatures. They'll likely never earn $50,000 per year, so your
worth will still stand unquestioned. We're advocating for a basic minimum
that everybody shares in common; this is not a campaign for something as
reasonable as an actual living wage or decent standard of living. Smile!
Numbers and nuanced arguments notwithstanding, this is simply a matter of
basic fairness and decency. So long as a minimum wage exists in law, let it
apply to us all. So long as every non-disabled person is not subject to a
productivity standard, let this practice apply universally. And, finally, if
these folks who are exempt from receiving the minimum wage would not
otherwise qualify as being employees, let's be honest, allow them to do the
same thing, and call their program what it is--education, recreation, or
some other euphemism to make people feel good about themselves.

Dan Frye

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org>
[mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org]<mailto:[mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.
org]> On Behalf Of Mike Freeman
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2012 5:50 PM
To: 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

Paul:

(1) NO two workers have the same productivity. Yet (at least in industry)
workers doing a given job are supposed to be paid the same wage whether they
are powerhouses of productivity or are just barely scraping by. Differences
in worker output are usually made up in consequences such as whether workers
get bonuses, how quickly and whether they advance or not, etc. Why should
disabled workers of whatever talent be treated differently?

(2) Most of the entities who are against paying minimum wages for disabled
workers get massive subsidies from either various governmental agencies or
from private donations. Presumably, all those who "employ" these workers do
so in order to make them feel productive or useful. NO one gainsays such
motives although I am often moved to wonder whether those who prattle on
about the dignity of work (even at subminimum wages) would themselves deign
to accept that reasoning as an excuse to be paid less than the Federal
minimum wage. All that might even be OK except that these governmental and
private agencies who "employ" these workers go on to sell the products of
their labor, thus benefiting twice from that labor without compensatory
benefits to the workers. And few of these agencies really train disabled
workers to go out into private industry. Think about it: if you're a
business, you *keep* your most productive workers. If you train people, you
*place* your most productive workers. You can't have it both ways. Agencies
can't have it both ways -- profiting from workers while paying them a
pittance. That's little more than slavery IMO.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org>
[mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org]<mailto:[mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.
org]> On Behalf Of PUBLIC RADIO 113
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2012 12:16 PM
To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [nfbwatlk] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

Would you hire a driver who only drove 20 miles/hour on the freeway?  If any
of you reading this ever ran a business of your own you would realize that
you cannot afford to hire workers who are less productive.  When I began my
medical transcription career in Chicago I earned far less than minimum wage
because I was paid on the basis of the work I could turn out in an 8-hour
day.  It took a while for me to get my typing speed up to 120 words/minute,
but I did.  After 30 years of being an MT I retired in June.
 I made $50,000 last year WITH BENEFITS.  People who are so disabled that
they cannot compete can always use SSDI, low-cost housing, food stamps,
etc.,  to supplement their income.  It should not be up to the employer to
provide a subsidy for disabled workers.   Let's pay congress what they're
worth.

--
Paul Van Dyck

www.publicradio113.weebly.com<http://www.publicradio113.weebly.com>

OR

www.kboo.fm/soundsofawareness<http://www.kboo.fm/soundsofawareness>
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