[Greater-baltimore] FW: [State-affiliate-leadership-list] Top Democrats Differ On Ending Subminimum Wage For Workers With Disabilities

Thu Mar 14 17:04:04 UTC 2013

Did I hear that right???  "Two steps Forward, Five Steps Back..."
Shamefully pathetic! downright Criminal!!!"  Yah--Educating to do???
Seems to me they haven't learned from back as far as the 60's.  Ya
know the saying, "Ya can lead a horse to water.  but ya can't make 'em
drink..."  Hmmmm!!!

On 3/14/13, Melissa Ann Riccobono <melissa at riccobono.us> wrote:
> This is fascinating reading. It just goes to show we have more educating to
> do!
> Melissa
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: State-affiliate-leadership-list
> [mailto:state-affiliate-leadership-list-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
> Lewis, Anil
> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 9:20 AM
> To: Lewis, Anil
> Subject: [State-affiliate-leadership-list] Top Democrats Differ On Ending
> Subminimum Wage For Workers With Disabilities
>
> Top Democrats Differ On Ending Subminimum Wage For Workers With
> Disabilities
>
> http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14697/top_democrats_differ_on_ending_s
> ubminimum_wage_for_workers_disabilities/
>
> By Mike Elk <http://inthesetimes.com/community/profile/86504>
>
> Description:
> http://inthesetimes.com/images/made/images/working/harkin_1_250_166.jpg
>
> Democratic Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin (speaking here in December in defense of
> Medicaid) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif) announced last week a proposal
> to
> increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10. But will people with
> disabilities be left out?   (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
>
> In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Barack Obama
> called for increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour. On
> Tuesday, Congressional Democrats did him one better, unveiling a plan to
> raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as well as raise the subminimum
> wage for tipped workers from $2.13 an hour to 70 percent of the minimum
> wage.
>
> Their proposal, however, would not cover the 420,000 Americans
> <http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2012/August232012/>  with disabilities who
> are currently paid a subminimum wage of as little as a few cents per hour
> in
> some state-sponsored "sheltered workshops," such as Goodwill. These
> programs, licensed under provision 14c of the Fair Labor Standards Act of
> 1938, are intended to be for training, but many workers wind up as
> perpetual
> "trainees," employed in sheltered workshops for years earning subminimium
> wage rates; thus becoming stuck in a cycle of poverty. While advocates have
> repeatedly tried to address this issue divides within both the Democratic
> Party and the disability community have so far prevented these laws from
> being sensibly revised.
>
> Many advocates for the disabled have called for the 14c provision to be
> eliminated, suggesting that having Americans with disabilities work in
> sheltered workplaces often run by nonprofits or the state can cause as many
> problems as it solves.
>
> "There are two big problems," says Barb Trader, executive director of TASH,
> an international advocacy group for persons with disabilities. "One is that
> they are segregated from society forever when they are in a sheltered
> workshop. The rest of us make friends and colleagues through our work. Work
> really defines so much of who we are. The other problem is lifelong poverty
> because there is no way these people are going to be able to achieve any
> type of sufficiency economically."
>
> In addition to the segregation and poverty engendered by sheltered
> workplaces, many advocates say workers with disabilities often face
> exploitation. In 2009, Iowa shut down a "bunkhouse
> <http://www.ndrn.org/images/Documents/Resources/Publications/Reports/Segrega
> ted-and-Exploited.pdf> "--essentially, a shed--where 60 men with
> disabilities employed by the meat processor Henry Turkey Services were
> forced to sleep. The bunkhouse was unheated, poorly insulated and infested
> with cockroaches. The company deducted $10,000 a week from the paychecks of
> the workers housed in the bunkhouse.
>
> Aside from the deplorable housing conditions, the 60 workers with
> disabilities were paid only $0.41 an hour to work alongside abled workers
> who were earning between $9 and $12 an hour. Since workers with
> disabilities
> are often employed in jobs that would normally pay minimum wage, many in
> organized labor have called for the subminimum wages for workers with
> disabilities to be repealed.
>
> "Over 100,000 SEIU members support people with disabilities so they can
> live
> fulfilling lives as part of their communities," says SEIU spokesperson
> Arvil
> Smith. "We believe the well-being of workers and the people our members
> support are inextricably linked. These values inform SEIU members'
> commitment to ending wage discrimination against workers with disabilities.
> Equal pay for equal work is a matter of basic fairness. That means no
> person
> with a disability who wishes to work should be denied the assistance they
> need to secure employment in the general workforce at minimum wage or
> higher."
>
> In addition to labor unions and some disability groups, the independent
> federal agency the National Council on Disability (NCD) has called for
> phasing out the 14c exemption of the minimum wage law.
>
> "In 2010, statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that
> nearly
> 28 percent of Americans with disabilities aged 18 to 64 live in poverty,"
> read a statement by the NCD <http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/021413>  released
> after President Obama's State of the Union address. "Today, hundreds of
> thousands of Americans with disabilities earn less than minimum wage under
> a
> little-known relic of employment policy that assumed people with
> disabilities were not capable of meaningful, competitive employment."
>
> Despite this opposition, closing the loophole for workers with disabilities
> does not appear to be on the table in talks about raising the minimum wage.
> The tension was on display Tuesday when Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman
> of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) committee, and
> Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), senior Democratic member of the House
> Committee on Education and the Workforce, introduced their bill to increase
> the minimum wage. Asked whether the exemption for people with disabilities
> should be repealed, Rep. Miller said, "We should expect that to be part of
> this debate. It always is." He added that he agreed with the NCD's stance.
>
> Sen. Harkin, however, does not agree. "Philosophically, Sen. Harkin would
> prefer that no person be paid less than minimum wage under any
> circumstances, but he has heard from a number of advocates for people with
> disabilities that eliminating the subminimum wage option without having a
> real plan to create sustainable employment alternatives would be
> detrimental
> to Americans with disabilities currently working in 14(c) settings," wrote
> Allison Preiss, spokesperson for Sen. Harkin, in an email to Working In
> These Times following the Tuesday announcement. "Sen. Harkin is trying to
> change the subminimum wage program so that young people are not tracked
> into
> subminimum wage jobs without having a chance to experience competitive,
> integrated employment; and he's working to promote upward mobility for
> people in those programs."
>
> One of the disability advocates opposed to the change is Bobby Silverstein,
> Harkin's former top disability staffer. Silverstein now works as a lobbyist
> for ACCSES, a coalition of nonprofit groups that employ disabled workers.
>
> "Would you hire somebody who is working at 30 percent and not meeting
> productivity goals?" Silverstein asks rhetorically. "What if somebody is
> not
> capable with or without an accommodation of working at a regular job?
> Should we force them into a rehabilitation program with no work or sit at
> home and watch TV? If you eliminated 14c, you would lose the opportunity
> for
> these people to be trained to be employed."
>
> But other advocates say that there is little evidence that 14c-sheltered
> workplaces actually help workers with disabilities obtain jobs with
> standard
> wages. A 2001 study by the federal General Accountability Office (GAO)
> found
> that only 5 percent of workers
> <http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2012/August232012/>  employed in
> 14c-sheltered workplace programs left to take regular "integrated
> employment" jobs. They often point to Vermont, which eliminated
> 14c-sheltered workplace programs in 2003 and focused instead on providing
> wrap-around transition and job coaching services to disabled people and
> their employers so they could maintain regular jobs. Today, 40 percent of
> Vermonters <http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2012/August232012/sites/>  with
> disabilities are employed in "integrated employment" jobs, compared to only
> 20 percent of workers with disabilities nationwide.
>
> Disability advocates say that the real reason why groups like ACCSES
> support
> maintaining the 14c exemption is that they benefit financially from it. For
> instance, the CEO of Goodwill, one of the biggest employers of people with
> disabilities, makes more than $500,000 each year
> <http://www.goodwill.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Goodwill-Industries-Inte
> rnational-2010-990.pdf%20http:/www.disabilityscoop.com/2012/06/12/goodwill-p
> aying-less/15827/>  while some blind Goodwill workers are paid only $1.44
> an
> hour
> <http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2012/06/12/goodwill-paying-less/15827/>
> .
>
> "I think it has a lot to do with money," says Trader. "For ACCSES, it is
> about their business strategy. There is not an argument in the research or
> among the self-advocacy community for continuing the 14c program. People
> with disabilities are saying close those things down and divert the money
> into more productive ways of supporting people in getting real jobs."
>
>
>
>
>
> Mr. Anil Lewis, M.P.A.
>
> Director of Advocacy and Policy
>
>
>
> "Eliminating Subminimum Wages for People with Disabilities"
>
> http://www.nfb.org/fairwages
>
> NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
>
> 200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
>
> Baltimore, Maryland   21230
>
> (410) 659-9314 ext. 2374 (Voice)
>
> (410) 685-5653 (FAX)
>
> Email: alewis at nfb.org
>
> Web: www.nfb.org
>
> twitter: @anillife
>
>
>
>