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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#467886" vlink="#96607D" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Here is what I sent. You will find no magic here, only the hope it will encourage some of us to write to the four folks who may exercise the power to do away with sub-minimum wages in our nation. Happy Thanksgiving.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Dear Ms. Lincoln:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>My first real job outside the family came when I worked for the Kansas City Association for the blind on what they called a piece rate basis. After tearing up my Braille-reading hands putting washers on bolts, assembling China markers, and eventually working on the pin machine, I was bringing home sixty-four dollars a week. In my time in the sheltered shop, I watched college graduates who had finished as valedictorians of their high school classes go into this same shop, and they were making the same thing I was. So too was the first-class licensed radio engineer, one of the brightest men I’ve ever known. They were allowed to be paid below the minimum wage because they were blind. I have since had a career as a computer programmer for thirty years and as an editor of a magazine for just over fourteen. In none of those jobs has anyone attempted to pay me less than the minimum wage, and we should do away with this practice for blind people by seeing that the Transformation to Competitive and Integrated Employment is incorporated as part of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Please do what you can to make this happen! Thank you.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Gary Wunder<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:gwunder@earthlink.net">gwunder@earthlink.net</a> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>