[Home-on-the-range] National Federation of the Blind of Kansas to hold informational protest

[Tom Page]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Tom Page
1st Vice President 
National Federation of the Blind of Kansas
316-267-7868
topage at swbell.net

Kansans to Protest Goodwill’s Subminimum Wages

Wichita, KS (August 22, 2012):  The National Federation of the Blind of Kansas will host an informational protest in front of the Goodwill store located at 5525 West Central in Wichita, Kansas. The event will take place on Saturday, August 25th from 11 am to 1 pm.  The goal of the protest is to raise public awareness on the practice of denying disabled workshop employees minimum wage.  The Goodwill Industries location was selected as Goodwill of Kansas is one of 64 entities out of a total of 165 (39 percent) nationwide that do not guarantee disabled employees minimum wage.   

To gain a deeper understanding of the local situation, representatives of the National Federation of the Blind of Kansas met with Goodwill Vice President Gayle Goetz the morning of August 22nd to tour the facility and discuss the subminimum wage issue.  “We will have to agree to disagree,” said Goetz about paying all their disabled workers minimum wage. She continued, “That just wouldn’t be fair.”  According to Goetz, the Goodwill Board of Directors is “not inclined to consider changes at this time.” Goetz was unable to provide any wage data for disabled workers, and was unsure who within the organization would have the information.  Limited wage information, available publically in Goodwill’s 2011 tax filing, show that the top two executives at Goodwill Industries of Kansas were compensated in excess of $260,000 during that tax year. Concerned with Goodwill’s reluctance to disclose the truth, the National Federation of the Blind of
 Kansas is filing a request under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the actual effective hourly wages paid in this workshop. 

The National Federation of the Blind of Kansas has found that Goodwill of Kansas is not alone in pursuing these unfair, discriminatory, and immoral labor practices.  Their investigations have determined that at least three other subminimum wage workshops for the disabled exist in Wichita. This includes Envision Incorporated, where the three top executives were compensated in excess of $1 million, according to the Envision Foundation 2011 Tax Return. At the same time their lowest paid employees, according to our sources, are earning less than $.75 per hour.  

“My initial contact with Mary Shannon, President of the Envision Foundation, was not encouraging,” says Tom Page, First Vice President of the National Federation of the Blind of Kansas. “She denied that 
the subminimum wage workers are considered employees under the law.”

None of the workshops contacted by the National Federation of the Blind of Kansas would disclose any information regarding wages in the subminimum workshops. They are filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the other workshops and will release their findings when complete. 

Representatives of the NFB of KS will tour the Envision facility at 2301 S. Water Thursday at 1:00pm and invite the press to attend.
 
[Photo: Donna Wood (President, NFB of KS) meets with Gayle Goetz Vice President of Goodwill Industries of Kansas.]

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About the National Federation of the Blind
With more than 50,000 members, the National Federation of the Blind is the largest and most influential membership organization of blind people in the United States.  The NFB improves blind people’s lives through advocacy, education, research, technology, and programs encouraging independence and self-confidence.  It is the leading force in the blindness field today and the voice of the nation’s blind.  In January 2004 the NFB opened the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute, the first research and training center in the United States for the blind led by the blind.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Chris Danielsen
Director of Public Relations
National Federation of the Blind
(410) 659-9314, extension 2330
(410) 262-1281 (Cell)
cdanielsen at nfb.org 

Americans with Disabilities to Protest Goodwill’s Subminimum Wages
 
Protesters to Urge Boycott, Demand Fair Wages
 
Baltimore, Maryland (August 20, 2012): The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), one of the oldest and largest organizations of Americans with disabilities, announced today that it, along with other organizations of people with disabilities,  will conduct over eighty coordinated nationwide protests in front of thrift stores operated by Goodwill Industries International, Inc., the nonprofit manufacturer and retailer.  The informational protests will raise awareness of Goodwill’s practice of paying subminimum wages to many of its workers with disabilities.  Freedom of information requests filed by the NFB confirmed that Goodwill Industries employees with disabilities have been paid as low as $0.22 an hour.  The NFB and nearly fifty other organizations of people with disabilities support legislation, the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act (H.R. 3086), which would phase out and then repeal the nearly seventy-five-year-old provision of the Fair
 Labor Standards Act that permits special certificate holders to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities.  The protests will take place on Saturday, August 25, generally from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time at Goodwill thrift store locations throughout the United States.  

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Goodwill Industries is one of the most well-known charitable organizations in the United States, but most members of the general public are unaware that Goodwill exploits people with disabilities.  We are conducting informational protests to make the public aware of this practice that, although sadly still legal, is unfair, discriminatory, and immoral.  Given its lucrative retail operations and the fact that it can lavish half-a-million dollars on the salary of its president and chief executive officer, Goodwill is certainly in a position to stop exploiting its workers with disabilities.  We are calling upon all Americans to refuse to do business with Goodwill Industries, to refuse to make donations to the subminimum-wage exploiter, and to refuse to shop in its retail stores until it exercises true leadership and sound moral judgment by fairly compensating all of its workers
 with disabilities.”

For more information about the protests, contact Anil Lewis, director of Strategic Communications at the National Federation of the Blind, by phone at (410) 659-9314, extension 2374, or by e-mail at alewis at nfb.org.   For more background regarding this critically important issue, please visit www.nfb.org/fair-wages. 

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