[nfbmi-talk] Fw: what a scandel

Mon Apr 13 16:52:14 UTC 2015

A portion of Peckham is a sweat shop employer paying pennies an hour to
employees, something NFB is attempting to change with federal legislation.
And we know Peckham will not employ the totally blind in their call center,
as they will not use a fraction of the millions of dollars from the work of
disabled persons in their sweat shop, to pay for talking computers and
duo-audio headsets for use by totally blind persons in the call center,
another multi-million dollar producing operation for Peckham.

I know a husband and wife couple who work at the Peckham U.S. Passport call
center here in Lansing.  The woman is a high partially sighted legally blind
person, who is employed there because she can read print on a computer
screen.  The husband, a sighted person was hired based on an allegedly bad
knee from a high school football injury several years ago. Oh by the way,
the sighted husband holds down a second job as a cashier at a major
retailer, standing for hours throughout his cashiering shift.  Go figure.
It is cases like this that the article below points out, that deprive those
persons with disabilities and we the blind from working at Peckham.  Bring
in the FBI to Peckham!!  Then the FBI can visit the BS4BP for stealing funds
intended by law for training and employment placement for the blind, like
BEP Randolph-Sheppard facilities being operated by sighted persons.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbmi-talk [mailto:nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of David
Robinson via nfbmi-talk
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2015 9:51 AM
To: NFB of Michigan Internet Mailing List
Subject: [nfbmi-talk] Fw: what a scandel

Perhaps the Feds ought to come in a raid Peckham and clean that outfit up. 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: joe harcz Comcast 
To: David Robinson NFB MI 
Cc: terry Eagle 
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2015 9:19 AM
Subject: what a scandel

National Telecommuting Institute Lawsuit alleges AbilityOne fails to ensure
jobs go to people... -- BOSTON, March 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

National Telecommuting Institute Lawsuit alleges AbilityOne fails to ensure
jobs go to people with severe disabilities

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BOSTON, March 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Randall Love had been
healthy until diagnosed with a rare spinal cord tumor in 2008. After a
delicate

surgery he spent months in rehab. He's much weaker now, has lost sensation
over 60% of his body, and walks slowly and with great care. Still, he is a
grateful

man. "I can talk, I can think. And I can still contribute to my family
through my job."

For another week anyway. Then Mr. Love and 15 of his severely disabled
co-workers will be laid off so that their jobs can become part of the
AbilityOne

program, a federal program which was created to set aside jobs for people
with severe disabilities.

The ironic nature of that outcome has become part of a lawsuit that was
filed in the Court of Federal Claims on March 20, 2015  (Case No.:
1:15-cv-00293-TCW)

against the AbilityOne program.  National Telecommuting Institute, (NTI) Mr.
Love's nonprofit employer is accusing the federal program of failing to
ensure

that people with severe disabilities are really hired on its set aside jobs
and of taking steps that benefit favored contractors at the expense of the

people the program is supposed to help.

For the last nine months Mr. Love has been a Tier 1 Help Desk Agent for the
US Department of Agriculture. He works from home from 8:30 am to 3 p.m.,
using

a computer, phone and headset, taking technical support calls from federal
employees all over the country. He was hired by NTI, a nonprofit disability

organization that trains and places people like him-people with physical
disabilities that prevent them from commuting to a central office. As a
subcontractor

to a large company which currently performs the USDA Help Desk contract, NTI
was able to fill 16 of the jobs and had hopes of filling many more.
Randall's

job not only lets him "enjoy the heck" out of life, but it also reduces his
need for SSDI, the Social Security disability payments typically collected

by someone in his situation All that will change on March 27th.

NTI has been given notice that the jobs will then go to Peckham, a
disability organization in Lansing Michigan. Peckham is one of the largest
contractors

under the $2.8 billion dollar program and already has over 1,000 AbilityOne
jobs. They want Mr. Love's job as well.

NTI claims the evidence indicates Peckham  fills many of its jobs with
people who have slight or no disabilities, even though the law requires that
75%

of the AbilityOne jobs be filled by people with severe disabilities. NTI
claims that fudging the numbers is easy because AbilityOne relies on the
honor

system. As long as a doctor's note is in a file indicating the job applicant
has been treated for some type of mental or physical problem, then a
contractor

need only use their judgement that the applicant is so severely disabled
that they are "not competitively employable". That is the standard required
by

law to be eligible for an AbilityOne job.

The effectiveness of the honor system was illustrated in 2011 when the CEO
of NCED, another large SourceAmerica contractor was sentenced to 10 years in

prison and fined $65 million dollars for embezzlement and lying about the
make-up of his AbilityOne workforce. AbilityOne compliance officials had
approved

the CEO's assertion that 78% of their 4,000 sewing operators were severely
disabled. It was only after the FBI raided NCED factories that they
re-visited

the contractor and decided that less than 8% were really disabled.

As laid out in the lawsuit, NTI and Peckham were both finalists for the USDA
technical support jobs.  Both were considered acceptable by the USDA but the

AbilityOne program then selected Peckham.  They did so despite NTI's claim
that Mitch Tomlinson, CEO of Peckham  estimated that "less than 10%" of his

existing workforce had been independently verified as severely disabled by
the Social Security Administration. NTI's says that 88% of their home-based

workforce have been verified as severely disabled by Social Security.
AbilityOne also chose Peckham despite the fact that NTI already had
home-based people

with severe disabilities performing on the contract. These workers would
inevitably be laid off in order to transfer the jobs to Peckham.

"Suing the government was a tough decision," says MJ Willard, Executive
Director of NTI, "but there is something seriously wrong in how the
AbilityOne program

is operating". She points to a September 2014 lawsuit by Bona Fide, another
nonprofit disability organization that filed an anti-trust lawsuit against

the AbilityOne's advisor, SourceAmerica in the United States District Court
for the Southern District of California (Case No.: 14cv0751 GPC (DHB). Bona

Fide alleges that a cartel consisting of the largest contractors influence
the award decisions to the degree that 80% of the $2.8 billion dollars in
federal

contracts have gone to the 20 largest contractors.This is despite their
being over 500 nonprofits eager to employ people with disabilities in their
communities.

Willard still hopes to win the USDA work. It is a rare opportunity, as it
permits the use of home-based agents, exactly the kind NTI works with. When
fully

staffed, the USDA contract could yield 200-300 jobs for the kind of people
AbilityOne is supposed to serve. "For that, we're willing to fight," Willard

says.

Randall Love and his fellow workers hope NTI wins. They'd like their jobs
back.

Contact: MJ Willard, Executive Director, NTI (415) 302-3627

              Alan Hubbard, Chief Operating Officer, NTI (617) 787-4426 Ext.
307

SOURCE National Telecommuting Institute

More by this Source

List of 2 items

. National Telecommuting Institute Files Suit Against the AbilityOne
Commission

. Mar 23, 2015, 11:46 ET

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suit-alleges-abilityone-fails-to-ensure-jobs-go-to-people-with-severe-disabi
lities-300056397.html
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