[Nfb-or] Fw: [Chapter-presidents] The Labor Protest We All Should Support: Goodwill Pays Some Employees Less Than Minimum Wage

Thu Sep 20 22:33:44 UTC 2012

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Lewis, Anil 
To: Affiliate Presidents (nfbaffiliatepresidents at nfbnet.org) ; NFB Chapter Presidents discussion list(chapter-presidents at nfbnet.org) 
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 7:16 AM
Subject: [Chapter-presidents] The Labor Protest We All Should Support: Goodwill Pays Some Employees Less Than Minimum Wage

The Labor Protest We All Should Support

Goodwill Pays Some Employees Less Than Minimum Wage

John Hrabe, Yahoo! Contributor Network

Sep 18, 2012 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

Post a commentThis morning, Chicago's public school teachers will once again take to the streets to protest an average annual salary of $76,000. In California, public employee unions are upset with relatively minor changes to the state's public employee pension system signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown. But, another labor dispute is far more deserving of our attention and support.

The National Federation of the Blind, along with other advocacy groups of various disability communities, has been protesting Goodwill Industries, the nonprofit corporation best known for its secondhand shops. Their complaint: Goodwill has been paying 7,300 of its employees less than the federal minimum wage, thanks to a loophole in federal labor law. Last month, a CBS News affiliate in Denver reported that some Goodwill employees claim to earn "just 20 cents an hour."

Under Section 14 (c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, employers can apply for a special wage certificate that allows them to hire people with disabilities at a subminimum wage. The special certificate grants companies the legal right to pay these employees a commensurate wage based on productivity. "Without the law, many people with disabilities could lose their jobs," Goodwill argues in defense of the special loophole.

Shouldn't workers' pay be tied to results?

They aren't for you or me. The only group subjected to performance based pay are people with severe disabilities. Goodwill's policy is even more reprehensible, when you consider that people with disabilities have fewer legal remedies for their employment grievances.

"(A)ll of the relevant information is in the hands of the sheltered workshop manager, the statutory appeals process can provide little counterweight," writes Samuel R. Bagenstos, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School and a former deputy attorney general for civil rights. "And the process itself is fatally flawed-because it does not provide for attorney's fees or opt-out classes-and is therefore rarely invoked."

In other words, employees can't fight back against the paternalistic charity that is exploiting them.

Goodwill also has no credibility to claim they lack the budgetary resources to pay their employees minimum wage. In 2010, Goodwill Industries International, Inc., the national parent corporation for all of the nation's secondhand clothing affiliates, paid its president and CEO James Gibbons more than half a million dollars in total compensation. Dozens of state and local chapters have copied the national headquarters' executive compensation extravagance.

In Florida, R. Lee Waits, the president and CEO of Goodwill Industries-Suncoast Inc., received a compensation package worth $440,197 in 2011. And that was a pay cut! In 2010, he took home $637,452 in total compensation, according to the organization's federal tax forms for 2010.

California's Goodwill organizations are no better. They've been bullying small nonprofits throughout the state with local efforts to shut down competitors' donation bins. D.A.R.E America spokesman John Lindsay told me , "Their tactics over the last few years are despicable. They should be ashamed that they feel the need to use their clout to squeeze out their competition in such a manipulative manner."

Which brings us back to the labor protests that we all should be supporting. In late August, less than a dozen people from Capitol People First, South Area People First, and the Supported Life Institute joined the Autistic Self Advocacy Network of Sacramento to protest Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada, which pays some employees less than minimum wage. The protest was one of the more than ninety informational protests organized by the National Federation of the Blind.

"It is appalling that organizations that purport to assist workers with disabilities in job training, would hold them back by circumventing the standard of living that minimum wage provides other American workers," Andy Voss, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network of Sacramento, explained to me via email.

Goodwill isn't a private for-profit company. If it were, there'd be nothing wrong with CEO's earning top-dollar. However, Goodwill accepts millions of dollars every year in government funds and also receives a tax exemption. Both gifts of our tax dollars are based on the organization serving the public. In Goodwill's own words, their charitable mission is "to help people achieve their full potential through the dignity and power of work."

That's dignity paid out at 22 cents per hour.

Published by John Hrabe

http://voices.yahoo.com/the-labor-protest-we-all-support-11763460.html?cat=75

John Hrabe is a writer and communications strategist, who has covered stories in Port-au-Prince, London and Seoul. In between international flights, John finds time to report on California and national polit...  

Mr. Anil Lewis, M.P.A.
Director of Strategic Communications

"Eliminating Subminimum Wages for People with Disabilities" 

http://www.nfb.org/fairwages

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland   21230

(410) 659-9314 ext. 2374 (Voice)

(410) 685-5653 (FAX)
Email: alewis at nfb.org
Web: www.nfb.org

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