[Nfbmt] All Charitable Contributions Sustain Exploitive Services

[James Aldrich]

Hi all,

This is a must read!

Jim

All Charitable Contributions Sustain Exploitive Services
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Charitable Contributions Sustain Exploitive Services


All Charitable Contributions Sustain Exploitive Services

Submitted by alewis on Mon, 12/09/2013 - 15:38

Blog Date:

Monday, December 9, 2013

By Anil Lewis

https://nfb.org/blog/vonb-blog/all-charitable-contributions-sustain-exploitive-services



ACCSES, the American Congress of Community Supports and Employment 
Services, is the name of an nonprofit “charitable” organization that 
claims to represent disability service providers across the country and 
professes to be the voice of disability service providers speaking for 
people with disabilities. If ACCSES is indeed the voice of disability 
service providers, it is unfortunate that they choose to use their 
voice, and your charitable contributions, to support Section 14(c) of 
the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is an unfair, immoral, and 
discriminatory provision that allows employers to pay workers with 
disabilities less than the federal minimum wage.  And although ACCSES 
states that it speaks for people with disabilities, organizations 
comprised of people with disabilities reserve the right to speak for 
ourselves, and we adamantly oppose this discriminatory provision.

Some of the ACCSES member organizations rise to the higher calling of a 
true charitable organization and use your contributions to operate 
successfully without the use of a special “subminimum” wage 
certificate, proving that it can be done.  However, rather than 
supporting the evolution of all of its member organizations toward the 
adoption of this proven business model, ACCSES uses your charitable 
contributions to lobby members of Congress to keep in place this 
seventy-five-year-old provision that allows organizations to legally 
pay workers with disabilities pennies per hour.  ACCSES openly opposes 
our efforts to phase out the use of this discriminatory provision by 
circulating misleading documents and public service announcements that 
attempt to justify its use of this anachronistic practice.

ACCSES and its less enlightened members sustain their exploitive 
business model by perpetuating the misconception that people with 
disabilities cannot be productive employees, and by asserting that 
Section 14(c) of the FLSA allows them to pay subminimum wages in order 
to provide disabled people with an opportunity to receive the “tangible 
and intangible benefits of work.”  This may have been a well-intended 
effort in 1938, but it has been proven ineffective and costly in 
today’s workplace. Today, people with disabilities speak for ourselves 
and we say: eliminate the excuses and allow the experts to assist 
people with significant disabilities to acquire competitive job skills 
and earn at least the federal minimum wage.  And if ACCSES, or its 
member organizations, are unable to provide appropriate training for 
workers with disabilities to become productive employees, they should 
not be allowed to impose their inadequacy and lack of expertise on 
individuals with disabilities.

ACCSES’s service model is founded on the belief that a person with a 
disability cannot work competitively, and it should be no surprise that 
this model results in over 400,000 people with disabilities being 
labeled as incapable of performing competitive work. This lack of 
belief in the employment potential of people with disabilities is 
contrary to the growing Employment First paradigm of assuming that 
everyone, regardless of disability, is employable when provided the 
proper training and support.  As a result of the emerging belief in the 
employment capacity of individuals with significant disabilities, we 
are seeing an increase in the competitive employment of people with 
disabilities who were formerly written off by society.

Through its self-serving actions, ACCSES distorts the whole purpose of 
a charitable organization and takes advantage of the legal designation 
of a nonprofit business.  It is hypocritical that ACCSES and its member 
nonprofit organizations attempt to justify their payment of outrageous 
executive salaries while simultaneously trying to defend their right to 
pay individuals with disabilities subminimum wages.  Regardless of the 
state and federal regulations that govern executive compensation, we 
should expect ACCSES members to have a moral compass that governs the 
proper use of their tax-exempt status. Thankfully, as we continue to 
educate the public about this exploitive provision, we are finding that 
donors are offended that their charitable donations are being used to 
pay six-figure salaries to executives who pay their workers with 
disabilities pennies per hour, especially when proven, 
nondiscriminatory alternative models exist.  Until ACCSES member 
organizations agree to convert to a business model that replaces their 
segregated subminimum-wage workshops with proven competitive integrated 
training and employment service environments, ACCSES may as well be an 
acronym for All Charitable Contributions Sustain Exploitive Services.

The Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act of 2013, HR 831, will 
responsibly phase out and eventually repeal Section 14(c) of the Fair 
Labor Standards Act. As a result, individuals with the most significant 
disabilities will no longer be trapped in segregated subminimum-wage 
workshops.  Entities will have three years to transition to a proven 
competitive integrated training and employment business model that 
assists individuals with significant disabilities to obtain real jobs 
at real wages.  Organizations opposing the adoption of this proven 
model only demonstrate their lack of expertise in the field of 
employment of people with disabilities, their inability to be 
competitive with similarly situated organizations, and their 
unwillingness to meet the true calling of their charitable status.






Mr. Anil Lewis, M.P.A.

Director of Advocacy and Policy



“Eliminating Subminimum Wages for People with Disabilities”

http://www.nfb.org/fairwages

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place

Baltimore, Maryland   21230

(410) 659-9314 ext. 2374 (Voice)

(410) 685-5653 (FAX)

Email: alewis at nfb.org

Web: www.nfb.org

twitter: @anillife



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