[Nfbmt] Fwd: [State-affiliate-leadership-list] NBC Rock Center: Some disabled workers paid just pennies an hour - and it's legal
d m gina
dmgina at samobile.net
Fri Jun 21 15:57:21 UTC 2013
I will jump on and see,
Thanks,
Original message:
> 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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