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

Fri Jun 21 16:45:03 UTC 2013

yes here at nine as well.
I went to the TV guide.

Original message:
> It's also on at nine tonight in Great Falls.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nfbmt [mailto:nfbmt-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of d m gina
> Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 9:57 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

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

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www.twitter.com/dmgina
every saint has a past
every sinner has a future