[nfbmi-talk] sounds like peckham, others

[joe harcz Comcast]

Labor Dept North Providence company that employed disabled misled wage investigators. By Lynn Arditi . The U.S. Labor Department says that Training Thru

Placement, Inc. falsified documents in order to mislead investigators looking into allegations the nonprofit company violated minimum wage laws for disabled

employees working in its piecework program. The department also said that 200 of the North Providence company's employees are owed no less than the minimum

wage of $7.25 per hour plus overtime, commissions, bonuses and incentive pay for work beyond 40 hours per week dating to June 1, 2010. Training Thru Placement

had had permission from the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division to pay less than the federal minimum wage under a provision designed to promote employment

opportunities for people with disabilities. But the Labor Department has retroactively revoked that permission between June 1, 2010, and Jan. 31, 2013,

due to the "severity and willful nature of the violations,' the department said in a statement released Thursday. The Harold A. Birch Vocational program

at Mount Pleasant High School sent most of its graduates for about 25 years to Training Thru Placement Inc. T he federal Department of Justice has ruled

that the Birch School violated the civil rights of its disabled students by segregating them.