[nabs-l] The Subminimum Wage Issue

Thu Apr 3 04:54:42 UTC 2014

Hi,

First, I apologize, I was off email for  a while eating dinner and
composing a reply because this issue is one that I am very passionate
about. Some of the points were more eloquently relayed by others by
the time I got back on to post this, but for the sake that I just
composed it, here is my reply below.

The first I heard about the fair wages initiative was at the 2011
national convention. It was my first convention, and I too was
astonished that we cared about solving a problem experienced by those
with disabilities that did not have hope of gaining anything better
based on their lack of potential. I heard about the initiative again
from our national rep at the NFB of Minnesota state convention and at
the North Carolina state convention; I was attending BLIND, Inc. thus
attended both. Anil Lewis happened to be in Minneapolis for some
reason and ran a seminar for the students at BLIND, Inc., and
surprise! It was on that subminimum wage issue. I was annoyed at this
point. I felt like people were yelling at me to just believe that it
was wrong and I didn't listen because my only experiences with people
tagged as having multiple disabilities were events where they were
tokens for fundraising purposes or visiting a class or something. I
was a NABS rep at the NFB of Michigan convention later that fall, and
Anil Lewis was the national rep. I finally had had enough, so I
cornered him and asked him why the NFB expected its members to follow
suit with something for moral reasons when they had presented no
facts. Since then, I have seen numerous emails and stories littered
with facts and figures that represent the fallacy that special wage
certificates are in place for the good of those with disabilities.
This was a direct example of how I expressed a concern with a national
leader, and he listened and, understood the value of what I, and
perhaps others, suggested, and implemented it.  I will share some of
this information now. I just said all of this to say that I too, at
first, was very skeptical of the relevance of this issue in the
National Federation of the, let's hear it, Blind, not Blind with other
disabilities, and whether it was actually unfair, discriminatory, and
immoral.

Many entities justify their special wage certificate because they
claim they are a training center for individuals with disabilities. If
that is so, then you would expect trained individuals to depart such a
center or at least move up in the ranks. At our NFB training centers,
our students don't stay forever. Although we don't train students for
one specific job, we have success rates of over 90% of graduates
finding jobs or going to school within a year of graduating a center.
I will echo others in noting that several students at our training
centers have disabilities in addition to blindness. In contrast, only
5% of workers at these so-called training centers with their special
wage certificates ever seek other employment.

Another argument is that passing legislation will mean that all people
with disabilities working under the Section 14C provision will lose
their jobs. I agree with Arielle in that if any employer does this, it
is because they are prejudiced against workers with disabilities. It
is proven that these companies operate just fine with exorbitant
executive salaries. A great example of this phenomenon occurred at the
state convention of the NFB of Washington in 2012. BISM in Maryland,
The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, and the Seattle Lighthouse for
the Blind voluntarily forfeited their special wage certificates and
committed to pay all workers at least the minimum wage. We thanked the
CEO of the Seattle Lighthouse at our convention. He gave a report as
he does each year and mentioned that the company was operating a $54
million budget. He later mentioned that the transition would be
difficult because it was costing the Lighthouse $60 thousand a year to
raise everyone's wage to at least the minimum. A little math easily
shows that this is just over 1 tenth of a percent of their $54 million
operating budget. If a company is having difficulty making a less than
a 1 tenth of a percentage point increase in their cost, then they had
bigger problems. I would contend that the real transition was in
attitudes rather than finances. Paying people ethically does not cost
these companies; it is not mom and pop shops employing people with
disabilities at subminimum wage; it is often conglomerate workshops
that take advantage of the provision to get nice perks like
preferential contracts. Preferential contracts mean they have to do
less work to receive more business, and people with disabilities are
an easy ticket to such a provision.

For those that think this plight affects only those with multiple
disabilities, you should be informed that our own president, Sean
Whalen, worked for subminimum wages at a sheltered workshop. He is now
pursuing a masters in public policy from Harvard, but at the time, it
was believed in his community that such a job was his only hope. He
talked about this in his 2012 presidential report at the annual
business meeting of NABS at the national convention. Similarly, there
was a news special done months ago about a couple in Montana working
for subminimum wages. If they have additional disabilities, they chose
to disclose only blindness in the news story.

However, I think this is irrelevant. We just had a discussion thread
about including people who have disabilities in addition to blindness
better in the NFB. This is a direct way we are doing this. We believe
that people with all types of disabilities can achieve adequate
productivity in society with the proper training and opportunity. We
list it in our motto. The article about Walgreens mentions using
simple organization strategies like colors, food items, or animals.
The Walgreens article also mentioned several times that hiring people
with disabilities was an experiment and if the workers did not meet
their standards, they would let them go. My favorite part resonates
with me as an accessibility researcher, the methods used to assist
those with disabilities actually helped everyone.

Another thing I wondered is whether these people even understood
minimum wage and knew the difference. There is an inherent problem
with this. We have legislation protecting anyone who cannot manage
their own lives against abuse, and if a caregiver can be convicted for
squandering their client's money, how can a business be given the
opportunity to directly take advantage of someone who doesn't know the
system? What is more is that this idea is unrealistic. Many earners of
subminimum wage know it and are brainwashed to believe they are not
worth it. I heard these exact words said by a woman who attended a NFB
of Oregon state convention. She interrupted Parnell Diggs's update
about the fair wages initiative to say that she had other disabilities
and mental health instability that prevent her from being productive
enough to be "worth" the minimum wage. It sure seems like her employer
does not fit the propaganda about the happy places that just love
giving people with disabilities opportunity. They have clearly
exaggerated what society already tells her as someone with a
disability that she really isn't worth it and that she should be
thankful for the charitable saviors who give her some way to spend her
sad life. I don't see anyone going through tests to gage whether they
are worth anything in society. Everyone except people with
disabilities is entitled to the minimum wage if they get a job. So
this is about equality. And if there is someone who, after put through
appropriate training, and after given appropriate opportunity, who
does not perform to company standards or who chooses to not work,
then, disability or not, I do not believe should be working at that
job. I think that this will constitute a small minority however.

The bottom line is that is it ok to give someone something to do just
to give them something to do when others doing that same something are
given a proper wage? I have to wonder how unproductive these employees
actually are. I wonder if the issue lies more with inside-the-box
training that is ineffective.

And it is true that some employers pay their workers without
disabilities based on productivity; it's called commission. Right to
work states also require service industry workers like restaurant
servers to count tips into their wage. But this has nothing to do with
section 14C. Section 14C discriminates against a select group of
individuals simply because they have a disability. Not less productive
individuals, disabled individuals; productivity tests are implemented
as a mechanism to determine wage; the certificates are not made for
"less productive people."

It wasn't long ago that we treated other groups like this. I have
watched several videos about how to train a woman to work. They became
popular during World War II. When many women went to work. The videos
were littered with misconceptions with remnants that still plague our
society like being softer on a woman, not expecting as much out of
her, and not expecting her to understand higher level thinking. This
sounds inane now, but we are still behind as a society when it comes
to the perceptions of what people with disabilities can contribute to
the workplace and society.

I think that some think it is a utopia to think that legislation will
solve the problem, and in some ways, it is. And that is why the NFB
also does other things like exemplify proper training for blind people
and work with other companies and organizations who exemplify similar
ideals to prove that the legislation should create rather than stifle
opportunities. Sure, some companies are going to choose to continue
their prejudice of people with disabilities, but I would like to learn
more about how realistic this is. It sounds to me like preferential
contracts are pretty desirable, and any reputable companies that laid
off a ton of workers with disabilities would get deplorable publicity.

And if you think the NFB is crazy, then know that President Obama
included workers with disabilities in his recent executive order
raising the minimum wage for all workers on federal contracts.
Similarly, over 50 organizations made up of and for people with
disabilities have joined the NFB in the effort to obliterate section
14C.

So I would just challenge anyone who justifies the subminimum
wage-granting certificates if their rationale has to do with an actual
inability of certain people to contribute or a result of society and
our own closed experiences.

On 4/2/14, justin williams <justin.williams2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Everyone has the right to make minimum wage; while I understand your
> viewpoint of the employers possibly laying off those workers, noone, and I
> mean noone  should be forced to work for subminimum wage.  It simply is not
> fare, and it will be corrected.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Michael
> Forzano
> Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 10:01 PM
> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nabs-l] The Subminimum Wage Issue
>
> Hi All,
>
> I've been hearing a lot about the subminimum wage issue that the NFB is
> involved in, and the NFB's position honestly doesn't make sense to me.
>
> My understanding is that the people being paid subminimum wages have
> disabilities in addition to blindness that prevent them from doing the job
> as productively as someone being paid minimum wage, such as cerebral palsy.
> If subminimum wages are eliminated, it seems pretty clear to me that the
> employers would lay off the people in question.
> After all, if you suddenly have to pay an employee hundreds of times more
> than you were paying them for the same amount of work/productivity, I don't
> think you'd have much choice.
>
> People being paid suvminimum wage are likely in that situation because they
> have no other choice, that is, their disabilities prevent them from working
> even a minimum wage job. If the NFB succeeds, these people will likely have
> no job at all and be forced to spend their lives sitting at home on SSI.
> How
> is that helping them? at least right now, they have a job, something to
> keep
> them busy.
>
> I'm curious to see how the NFB is arguing against this because it seems
> pretty clear to me from a business perspective. As much as the employers
> may
> want to continue to employ these people it just won't make sense.
>
> Mike
>
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-- 
Cindy Bennett
Secretary: National Association of Blind Students

B.A. Psychology, UNC Wilmington
clb5590 at gmail.com