[nfbmi-talk] why don't they cut executive compensation ?

[joe harcz Comcast]

Non-profit making tough decision to cut some jo - Flash Player Installation

 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Alphapointe is a not-for-profit in Kansas City that services the blind. One of their programs is the work adjustment center that provides

jobs for people with multiple disabilities.

 

They say that, because of political pressure, these people are now losing their jobs.

 

There is a provision called 14c in the Fair Labor and Wage Act that allows companies to pay disabled workers less than minimum wage. Some pretty powerful

lobby groups, like the National Federation of the Blind, want to abolish 14c, and Alphapointe is succumbing to that pressure.

 

Eighty-five percent of the work that is done at Alphapointe involves government contracts. They employ 135 people with visual disabilities and pay at least

minimum wage plus full benefits, but it is the 44 severely disabled who work in the work adjustment center that are losing their jobs.

 

It is a pay-per-piece position and 29 of them do not produce enough to make minimum wage. Alphapointe can not afford to lose any of their government contracts,

but they say they are afraid they might if they don’t pay all of their workers minimum wage.

 

So they are cutting the program. They rely on those federal contracts for their main service of providing rehabilitation programs to 1,000 blind people

each year. But that is little consolation for the folks who will be unemployed on May 30.

 

Alphapointe is working hard to find placement for the workers. Fifteen of them will be reassigned within Alphapointe’s plastics division, 29 of them will

look for placement elsewhere.

 

 

Source:

 

 

http://fox4kc.com/2014/01/23/non-profit-making-tough-decision-to-cut-some-jobs-for-disabled-workers/