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

Fri Jun 21 15:55:59 UTC 2013

Dar

It is on NBC tonight and the program is called Rock Center. For us in
Missoula it is on at 9:00 pm. It may be on at a different time in Billings.

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 d m gina
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 9:51 AM
To: nfbmt at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [Nfbmt] Fwd: [State-affiliate-leadership-list] NBC Rock Center:
Some disabled workers paid just pennies an hour - and it's legal

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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--
--Dar
skype: dmgina23
  FB: dmgina
www.twitter.com/dmgina
every saint has a past
every sinner has a future

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