[Jayhawk-chapter] Teleconference Call Follows Up 2012 Washington Seminar

[Rob Tabor]

Good evening fellow Federationists and All listers,

 

Earlier this evening John Paré, Director of Strategic Initiatives, and Anil
Lewis, Director of Strategic Communications, convened a teleconference call
in follow up to the 2012 Washinggton Seminar and I had the proud pleasure of
representing Kansas on this important follow-up call. Here is a topical
summary of what transpired tonight.

 

•HOUSE BIL 3086. There are currently 44 co-sponsors in the House of
Representatives on HB3086, titled the Fair Wages For Workers With
Disabilities Act. This is double the number of co-sponsors we had at the
start of the Washington Seminar, but there is a fly in the ointment. There
were 46 co-sponsors until Representative Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania and
Barney Frank of Massachusetts withdrew their support of the bill,
capitulating to pressure from the powerful and highly compensated sheltered
workshop lobbyists. Unfortunately, neither Thompson nor Frank gave any
explanations for withdrawal of their co-sponsorship commitments.

 

The sheltered workshop lobby has circulated a flyer to House members with
the headliner “Wwhere will Samy Go?” Imlied in this proplaganda piece is the
argument that if the sheltered employment centers are forced to comply with
Federal minimum wage requirements they will be forced to close their doors,
leaving hundreds of thousands of pitiful disabled people with nothing to do
but sit around, collect their government benefit checks while twittling
their thumbgs day after sorry day. Paré informed the conferees he has issued
a responsive letter protesting the exploitation of disabled Americans and
pretending to know what is in our best interest, and to speak for those who
have a right to speak for themselves.

Both Anil Lewis and John Paré requests us us to take the time to contact our
co-sponsoring House members and thank them for their support of fair wages
for the blind and all disabled wokkers, especially those co-sponsors in our
state or Congressional districts. A List of co-sponsors is comeing to a
listserv near you. At this time there are no sponsors in the Senate, but
governmental affairs office staff are busily engaged in follow-up
conversations with several influential senators. Staff have been meeting
with the Autistic Self Advocacy Project who is also working on responses to
the lobbying campaign and pressure tactics orchestrated by the sheltered
employment lobbyists, and the number of participating disability rights
organizations is increasing in this all important endeavor.

 

Anil Lewis is calling on us to bring him more stories by or about those who
have worked in sheltered shops under the burden of subminimum wages. Lewis
cited the recent example of a former sheltered workshop employee who worked
a subminimum wage job and is now gainfully employed by the U.S. Social
Security Administration.

 

• ADBOA: As of yet no bill has been introduced in either side of Congress,
but there is an apparent showing of strong interest from Republicans on the
proposed Americans With Disabilities Business Opportunity Act (ADBOA).
Senator Olympia Snow of main and Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts drew
high scores in constituent sessions during Washington Seminar.  Senator Snow
is a member of the Senate Small Business Committee. National office staff
reports that a number of House Democraats are also showing remarkable
interest in ADBOA, the primary purpose of which is to expand government
contracting and subcontracting opportunities by adding disability to the
list of presumed socially disadvantaged groups who wil be given
opportunities to bid on contracts for the purchase of goods and services
from the Federal government. 

 

• LaTourette Amendment. Representative ASteven C. LaTourette of Ohio
introduced an amendment to the House version of the Federal interstate
highway funding measure which if adopted would open up roadside food and
beverage vending sites to commercial food service firms, which would
abversely affect Randolph-Shepard vendors whose roadside vending
salesopportunities were expanded thanks to the Kennelli Amendment to RSVA.
LaTourette and several of his colleagues are wooed by and  highly enamoured
of the prospect of commercializing highway food and beverage sales because
the government granted easements and licensing fees would generate a new
source of revenue for highway construction and maingtenance. A somewhat
different proposal was offered to allow states to commercialize non highway
vendors, but our Governnmental Affairs staff view this as a very dangerous
slippery slope that would eventually lead to full commercialization of
interstate highway food vending services. Fortunately, the Senate version of
the highway funding bill differs widely from the House bill and does not
include language to commercialize roadside food and beverage vending.

 

Our National office staff urges us to Call our House members to ask them or
her to oppose the LaTourette amendment. Secondly, we are urged to contact
Congressman LaTourette and ask him to withdraw his amendment to the House
highway funding bill. 

 

• NLS DIGITAL BOOKS PROJECT. Last but not least, the National Library
Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) is planning marked
scale-backs of the number of titles to converted from analog to digital
DAISY format from 58000 titles to about 16000, in anticipation of major
reductions in its budget line item from Congress. The direct consequence of
such a large scaleback is that undigitized titles will not be available in
digital format. Of course cassette tapes and other analogue formats of these
talking books are still available, but they are obviously not available to
NLS subscribers who no longer have functioning four track cassette players
or slow speed Library of Congress turn tables on which to play flexible 16
and 2 thirds RPM disks.

 

As you can see, a lot of information was packed into this teleconference
call which lasted approximately 45 minutes. Before I turn you loose to live
life as we know it, allow me to summarize the call to arms by our
indefatigable and dynamic national center staff in an easily referenced
to-do list.

1.       Call, write, fax, or email any House member who joined the growing
list of co-sponsors of House Bill 3086.

2.       IF you know of or can find anyone with a compelling story of
sheltered workshop employment at less than full Federal minimum wage, please
contact Anil Lewis at National Center.

3.       Contact the House member in your Kansas Congressional district and
ask himor her to advocate and vote against the LaTourette Amendment to the
House version of the highway funding measure.

4.       Contact Representative Stephen C. LaTourette and ask him to
withdraw his amendment so it doesn’t come up for a vote on the House floor
in the first place.

This wa

s indeed a pleasure to be a part of this very powerful and informative post
seminar conference call. Coming to Washington with me next year?

Best to all,

Rob Tabor & Guide Cane Raúl Junior

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