[nfbmi-talk] like goodwill peckham

[Terry Eagle]

It is about time the slave labor masters pay and there still some sense of
justice for the disabled slaves.  I just wish the monetary award was
multiple times the actual award.  If this enslavement had been of a
different class of Americans, I amm certain the award would have been much
more, not to mention likely criminal charges, and much outcry by the public
and media.  Such enslavement of the mentally, developmentally, and
physically disabled individuals still taking place in the 21th Century is
not only repugnant, it is also sanctioned by the federal and state
governments through the submimimum wage law for the disabled.  What truly
would be the reaction if it were another minority class other than the
disabled?  I thought 1964 was the beginning of the end of discrimination of
minorities?.  Nearly a half-century later little has changed for the
disabled.  It makes want to puke!    

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of joe harcz Comcast
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 9:54 AM
To: nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfbmi-talk] like goodwill peckham

Firm ordered to pay disabled employees

 

Judge: Texas company that funneled people to Iowa plant to work for 41 cents
per hour must pay $1.37 million in back wages.

 

Posted: Thursday, September 20, 2012 12:00 am

 

Firm ordered to pay disabled employees

Associated Press |

0 comments

 

IOWA CITY -- A Texas company that profited for decades by supplying mentally
disabled workers to an Iowa turkey plant at wages of 41 cents per hour must

pay the men $1.37 million in back wages, a federal judge ruled.

 

The judgment against Henry's Turkey Service in Goldthwaite is the third of
more than $1 million against the company after state authorities in 2009
shut

down a dilapidated bunkhouse in rural Iowa where the men had lived since the
1970s.

 

The 32 employees had been paid $65 per month to work the processing line at
a huge turkey plant in West Liberty after Henry's improperly deducted fees
for

room and board, care, transportation and other expenses out of their pay and
Social Security checks, U.S. District Judge Charles Wolle ruled. The pay
scales

never changed during the 30-year period they worked, regardless of whether
they worked more than 40 hours per week, he found.

 

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, which alleged that Hill Country Farms violated the Americans
with Disabilities

Act by paying the workers discriminatory wages. Wolle ordered a trial in
March on the rest of the claims in the EEOC's lawsuit, which alleges that
the

men faced a hostile work environment, harassment, verbal and physical abuse
and other "adverse terms and conditions of employment" because of their
disabilities.

 

Hill Country Farms, which did business as Henry's Turkey Service, offered
little resistance to EEOC's wage claims. The company had been on contract to
supply

workers to the plant starting in the 1970s when it was owned by Louis Rich
Foods. By 2008, the company's contract with owner West Liberty Foods was
worth

more than $500,000 for work performed by the men in the evisceration
department.

 

Wolle said the company "engaged in unlawful and discriminatory pay
practices" that deprived workers of wages they earned. He said the $1.37
million represents

how much more the intellectually disabled workers should have been paid
between February 2007 and February 2009 for their work, based on wage rates
paid

to similarly situated workers. Despite their disabilities, the workers
"performed as productively and effectively as non-disabled workers doing the
same

jobs," he ruled, and testimony showed they even helped train their
replacements when Henry's Turkey was winding down operations.

 

The U.S. Dept. of Labor earlier won a $1.76 million judgment against Henry's
on behalf of the workers for violating wage and overtime laws, and Iowa
Workforce

development issued a $1.2 million fine. The company had agreed to change its
wage practices in 2003 following a federal investigation, but it never did

so, Wolle ruled.

 

The Iowa Attorney General's Office last year declined to bring criminal
charges against the company.

 

A company lawyer didn't immediately return a phone message Wednesday seeking
comment.

 

C 2012 The Associated Press. 
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