[Nfbmt] Fwd: [State-affiliate-leadership-list] NBC Rock Center: Some disabled workers paid just pennies an hour – and it's legal

[Dan Burke]

Great story, and commendations to Harold and Sheila for their courage
in standing up for what is right and just and moral! They stand for
every one of us who could be exploited because of our disability, and
they stand up for themselves against the subminimum-wage system that
bullies them and thousands more!

Dan


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Lewis, Anil" <ALewis at nfb.org>
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 12:42:11 +0000
Subject: [State-affiliate-leadership-list] NBC Rock Center: Some
disabled workers paid just pennies an hour – and it's legal
To: "Affiliate Presidents
(state-affiliate-leadership-list at nfbnet.org)"
<state-affiliate-leadership-list at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "NFB Chapter Presidents discussion list
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Some disabled workers paid just pennies an hour – and it's legal
By Anna Schecter, Producer, NBC News
One of the nation's best-known charities is paying disabled workers as
little as 22 cents an hour, thanks to a 75-year-old legal loophole
that critics say needs to be closed.

Goodwill Industries, a multibillion-dollar company whose executives
make six-figure salaries, is among the nonprofit groups permitted to
pay thousands of disabled workers far less than minimum wage because
of a federal law known as Section 14 (c). Labor Department records
show that some Goodwill workers in Pennsylvania earned wages as low as
22, 38 and 41 cents per hour in 2011.

"If they really do pay the CEO of Goodwill three-quarters of a million
dollars, they certainly can pay me more than they're paying," said
Harold Leigland, who is legally blind and hangs clothes at a Goodwill
in Great Falls, Montana for less than minimum wage.


"It's a question of civil rights," added his wife, Sheila, blind from
birth, who quit her job at the same Goodwill store when her already
low wage was cut further. "I feel like a second-class citizen. And I
hate it." Section 14 (c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was
passed in 1938, allows employers to obtain special minimum wage
certificates<http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs39.pdf> from
the Department of Labor. The certificates give employers the right to
pay disabled workers according to their abilities, with no bottom
limit to the wage.



Most, but not all<http://www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/BusinessCertList.htm>,
special wage certificates are held by nonprofit organizations like
Goodwill that then set up their own so-called "sheltered workshops"
for disabled employees, where employees typically perform manual tasks
like hanging clothes.



The non-profit certificate holders can also place employees in
outside, for-profit workplaces including restaurants, retail stores,
hospitals and even Internal Revenue Service centers. Between the
sheltered workshops and the outside businesses, more than 216,000
workers are eligible to earn less than minimum wage because of Section
14 (c), though many end up earning the full federal minimum wage of
$7.25.
[Description: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130619-harold-with-dog-609p.380;380;7;70;0.jpg]

NBC News

Harold Leigland, who is blind, with his guide dog on the bus during
his morning commute to the Goodwill facility in Great Falls, Montana,
where he works hanging clothing.

When a non-profit provides Section 14 (c) workers to an outside
business, it sets the salary and pays the wages. For example, the
Helen Keller National Center, a New York school for the blind and
deaf, has a special wage certificate and has placed students in a
Westbury, N.Y., Applebee's franchise. The employees' pay ranged from
$3.97 per hour to $5.96 per hour in 2010. The franchise told NBC News
it has also hired workers at minimum wage from Helen Keller. A
spokesperson for Applebee's declined to comment on Section 14 (c).



Helen Keller also placed several students at a Barnes & Noble
bookstore in Manhasset, N.Y., in 2010, where they earned $3.80 and
$4.85 an hour. A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman defended the Section 14
(c) program as providing jobs to "people who would otherwise not have
[the opportunity to work]."



Most Section 14 (c) workers are employed directly by nonprofits. In
2001, the most recent year for which numbers are available, the GAO
estimated that more than 90 percent of Section 14 (c) workers were
employed at nonprofit work centers.

Critics of Section 14 (c) have focused much of their ire on the
nonprofits, where wages can be just pennies an hour even as some of
the groups receive funding from the government. At one workplace in
Florida run by a nonprofit, some employees earned one cent per hour in
2011.



"People are profiting from exploiting disabled workers," said Ari
Ne'eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. "It is
clearly and unquestionably exploitation."



Defenders of Section 14 (c) say that without it, disabled workers
would have few options. A Department of Labor spokesperson said in a
statement to NBC News that Section 14 (c) "provides workers with
disabilities the opportunity to be given meaningful work and receive
an income."



Terry Farmer, CEO of ACCSES, a trade group that calls itself the
"voice of disability service providers," said scrapping the provision
could "force [disabled workers] to stay at home," enter
rehabilitation, "or otherwise engage in unproductive and
unsatisfactory activities."



Harold Leigland, however, said he feels that Goodwill can pay him a
low wage because the company knows he has few other places to go. "We
are trapped," he said. "Everybody who works at Goodwill is trapped."



Leigland, a 66-year-old former massage therapist with a college
degree, currently earns $5.46 per hour in Great Falls.

His wages have risen and fallen based on "time
studies,"<http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/14c/18c4.htm> the method
nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers.
Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a
disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how
long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task.
The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be
equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six
months.
[Description: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130619-harold-hmed-350p.380;380;7;70;0.jpg]

NBC News

Harold Leigland works at the Goodwill facility in Great Falls,
Montana, where he earns $5.46 an hour.

Leigland's pay has been higher than $5.46, but it has also dropped
down to $4.37 per hour, based on the time-study results.
He said he believes Goodwill makes the time studies harder when they
want his wage to be lower.

"Sometimes the test is easier than others. It depends on if, as near
as I can figure, they want your wage to go up or down. It's that
simple," he said.



His wife, Sheila, 58, spent four years hanging clothes at the Great
Falls Goodwill for about $3.50 an hour. She said the time study was
one of the most degrading and stressful parts about her job. "You
never know how it's going to come out. It stressed me out a lot," she
said.



She quit last summer when she returned to work after knee surgery and
found that her wage had been lowered to $2.75 per hour, a training
rate.



"At $2.75 it would barely cover my cost of getting to work. I wouldn't
make any money," she said.



Harold said he believes Goodwill can afford to pay him minimum wage,
based on the salaries paid to Goodwill executives. While according to
the company's own figures about 4,000 of the 30,000 disabled workers
Goodwill employs at 69 franchises are currently paid below minimum
wage, salaries for the CEOs of those franchises that hold special
minimum wage certificates totaled almost $20 million in 2011.



In 2011 the CEO of Goodwill Industries of Southern California took
home $1.1 million in salary and deferred compensation. His counterpart
in Portland, Oregon, made more than $500,000. Salaries for CEOs of the
roughly 150 Goodwill franchises across America total more than $30
million.



Goodwill International CEO Jim Gibbons, who was awarded $729,000 in
salary and deferred compensation in 2011, defended the executive pay.



"These leaders are having a great impact in terms of new solutions, in
terms of innovation, and in terms of job creation," he said.

Gibbons also defended time studies, and the whole Section 14 (c)
approach. He said that for many people who make less than minimum
wage, the experience of work is more important than the pay.



"It's typically not about their livelihood. It's about their
fulfillment. It's about being a part of something. And it's probably a
small part of their overall program," he said.



And Goodwill and the organizations that run the sheltered workshops
are not alone in their support for Section 14 (c). In many cases, the
families of the workers who have severe disabilities say their loved
ones enjoy the work experience, enjoy getting a paycheck, and the
amount is of no consequence.
[Description: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130620-Sheila-Dog-7p.380;380;7;70;0.jpg]

NBC News

Sheila Leigland, who is blind, with her guide dog. She quit her job at
Goodwill in Great Falls, Montana, after her hourly wage was lowered to
$2.75.

"I feel really good about it. I don't have to worry so much about
him," said Fran Davidson, whose son Jeremy has worked at Goodwill in
Great Falls, Montana, for more than a decade. "I know he's not getting
picked on, and he's in a safe place. He enjoys what he's doing, and
he's happy, and that's what we like for our kids." Jeremy started out
working for a sub-minimum wage but did well on his last time study and
is currently earning $7.80 an hour, Montana's minimum wage.



But foes of Section 14 (c) have hopes for a new bill that's now before
Congress that would repeal Section 14 (c) and make sub-minimum wages
illegal across the board.



"Meaningful work deserves fair pay," the sponsor of the bill, Rep.
Gregg Harper, R.-Miss., told NBC News. "This dated provision unjustly
prohibits workers with disabilities from reaching their full
potential."



The bill is opposed by trade associations for the employers of the
disabled, and past attempts to change the law have failed. But Marc
Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind and a foe of
the sheltered workshop system, is cautiously optimistic that this time
the bill will pass, and end what he called a "two-tiered system."



That system, explained Maurer, says "'Americans who have disabilities
aren't as valuable as other people,' and that's wrong. These folks
have value. We should recognize that value."

Monica Alba contributed to this report.

Video: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/rock-center/52257275/




Mr. Anil Lewis, M.P.A.

“Eliminating Subminimum Wages for People with Disabilities”
http://www.nfb.org/fairwages
Work: 410-659-9314 ext. 2374
Twitter: @anillife




-- 
Dan Burke
My Cell:  406.546.8546
Twitter:  @DallDonal