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

Fri Jun 21 15:50:55 UTC 2013

What is the name of the program we are to listen to?
Is this at nine our time?
I know abc is 20 20.
Just thought I would ask.
Thanks,

Original message:
> I am looking forward to the program tonight. I am also very proud of Harold
> and Sheila for representing and standing up for what is right. It cannot
> easy for them and we as an affiliate and must stand and support them as they
> are at the center of this fight for independence and what is right.

> Travis

> Travis S. Moses, President
> National Federation of the Blind of Montana
> chiefblindtech at gmail.com
> Phone: 406-369-5605
> www.nfbmt.org

> Vehicle Donations Take the Blind Further
> Donate your car to the National Federation of the Blind today!
> For more information, please visit: www.carshelpingtheblind.org or call
> 1-855-659-9314

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nfbmt [mailto:nfbmt-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Dan Burke
> Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 7:19 AM
> To: NFB of Montana Discussion List
> Subject: [Nfbmt] Fwd: [State-affiliate-leadership-list] NBC Rock Center:
> Some disabled workers paid just pennies an hour - and it's legal

> 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 (chapter-presidents at nfbnet.org)"
> <chapter-presidents at nfbnet.org>

> 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-d
> og-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-3
> 50p.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

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