[nabs-l] Letter to the Editor

[Lewis, Anil]

All:

The following is a copy of a letter to the editor submitted by one of our members in response to a Goodwill article.  As you can tell by the tone of the letter, Goodwill continues to try to understate or dismiss the use of the Special Wage Certificates they use to pay their workers with disabilities subminimum wages.  Feel free to use the language in this response to draft comments to your local papers.

July 12, 2012

Dear Editor:

                Your article "Goodwill Good for Economy" failed to mention that the Rappahannock Goodwill Industries and other Goodwill affiliates in the United States are allowed to pay their workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage.  This practice is legal because these nonprofits receive special wage certificates from the U.S. Department of Labor under an obscure, seventy-five-year-old provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  But the fact that something is legal doesn't make it right, and the practice of paying less than minimum wage to workers just because they have a disability is unfair, discriminatory, and immoral.  I would urge readers to find a more worthy recipient of their donations than Goodwill until all of its affiliates stop this practice, and to call their congressional representatives and ask them to support the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act (H.R. 3086).  That's certainly what I plan to do.

Sincerely,

Michael Kasey