[nabs-l] The Subminimum Wage Issue

Thu Apr 3 05:02:04 UTC 2014

Hi, with the talk of the majority of these entities being nonprofits,
I just wanted to clarify that the Seattle Lighthouse is both. Their
business is run as a business, and they have a nonprofit foundation
that raises money for programs such as the supported employment
program that provides training for those that need it. I wonder how
many of these entities operate under duel roles and why some choose to
do so, whether it is truely a benefit or another way for exploitation
of the benefits of a nonprofit and the benefits of a business. I also
realize that many large companies have nonprofit components or
spinoffs and that this is not unique to charitable organizations.

Cindy

On 4/2/14, Cindy Bennett <clb5590 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>

-- 
Cindy Bennett
Secretary: National Association of Blind Students

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