[Nfbmt] tonight on NBC Rock Center:Some disabled workers paid just pennies an hour - and it's legal

[Rik James]

Thanks, everyone for the heads up about tonight's broadcast of this program.
This show has had some of the better news magazine pieces in recent months.
So I am encouraged that this will do the topic justice.

In today's News pieces listed on the home page of Common Dreams, where I 
frequently will find some news and opinions, that is not elsewhere, I 
happened to also have read this story today. So some buzz is going on. Let's 
man the barricades, as Dr. Jernigan would oft times say.

Rik

URL:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/21-6?print

Published on Friday, June 21, 2013 by Common Dreams

How Being Disabled Means Your Boss can Suppress Your Wages

An outdated law is allowing employers to pay disabled workers far below 
minimum wage

- Sarah Lazare, staff writer



Prominent U.S. charities, businesses, and even high schools, are paying 
disabled workers far below minimum wage—in some cases a fraction of a dollar 
per hour—thanks to a long-standing law that says employers can suppress 
wages because of disability.

In an ironic twist, some of the the employers who take advantage of this 
law—such as Goodwill Industries—have built their reputations on helping the 
'needy.'

The 1938 law allows employers to petition the U.S. Department of Labor to 
pay disabled workers below minimum wage if the employer claims the worker's 
'productive capacity is impaired' by disability.

The petition declares that employers can pay 'special minimum wages' to 
people with disabilities that include 'blindness, mental illness, mental 
retardation, cerebral palsy, alcoholism and drug addiction'.

There is no set minimum for this 'special minimum wage': if the petition is 
granted, employers can pay as little as they want.

A majority of those who petition for low wages are nonprofit organizations. 
However, a public list shows that the number of for-profit businesses that 
pay disabled people below minimum wage is not small and includes big names 
such as Ramada Inn, Holiday Inn, McDonald's, and 7 Eleven. High Schools and 
universities are also numbered among institutions that petition to suppress 
wages for disabled people

The result? Some disabled workers make as little as 22, 38, and 41 cents per 
hour.

NBC reports that disabled Goodwill employees are outraged at what they call 
a civil rights disaster at the hands of an employer that is not short on 
money:


"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."

end of story.

But, here is a link to the NBC News shortcut that was in that story above.

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/21/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal