[Ncabs] Do You Want Subminimum Wages?

[Salisbury, Justin Mark]

Dear NCABS members and leaders,

     I am forwarding to you an email which I have modified to apply to the people of North Carolina.  It is an email from Anil Lewis at the NFB national office.  We are all attending college with hopes that we can improve our employment possibilities, and we need to contact our senators to protect those possibilities.

Here's his email:

Dear Fellow Federationists:
 
I am writing to inform you that a principle tenet of our organization is being threatened.  We are actively developing legislation that will work toward the repeal of Regulation 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  Meanwhile, the proposed language in Title V of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization, specifically Section 511 of the Rehabilitation Act, threatens to send us backward in our struggle for full participation and competitive employment at competitive wages.  
 
Most of us are aware that in 1938, when every other employee in America was being guaranteed the workforce protection of a federal minimum wage through the passage of the FLSA, Section 14(c) of this act denied the blind and other workers with disabilities this same protection by allowing for the payment of subminimum wages.  Since our founding in 1940, the National Federation of the Blind has fought against the erroneous misconception that blind people cannot be productive employees, and we have made significant strides toward a correct understanding of the true capacity of the blind.  Contrarily, the proposed language found in Section 511 of the Rehabilitation Act is a tacit endorsement of Section 14(c) of the FLSA and its antiquated contention that people with disabilities cannot be competitively employed.  
 
If passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, language in Section 511 of the Rehabilitation Act will create a link between the Rehabilitation Act and Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act that has never before existed.  This will create legislation with a conflict between the philosophy of capacity for competitive employment set by the Rehabilitation Act, and the philosophy of incapacity toward subminimum wages set by Section 14(c) of the FLSA, setting the stage for more workers with disabilities to be inappropriately steered toward sheltered employment and a life of low expectations rewarded with subminimum wages.  
 
Both North Carolina Senators are members of the Senate HELP committee.  We need to call their offices to respectfully express our adamant objection to linking subminimum wage to the Rehabilitation Act, and to insist that Section 511 of the Rehabilitation Act be removed from the bill.  Here are the phone numbers for the North Carolina Senators:

Senator Richard Burr (202) 224-3154
Senator Kay R. Hagan (202) 224-6342

Please share this information with friends and family and encourage them to assist us with this effort.  Please call or e-mail me with any questions, and to keep me posted on your progress.  
 
Sincerely, 
 
Anil Lewis
Director of Strategic Communications
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Telephone:  (410) 659-9314, extension 2374
E-mail: alewis at nfb.org