[Nfbofnc] Fw: [Nfb-legislative-directors] Urgent Legislative Alert for the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act, HR 831

[sharon_newton]

Sorry folks.  My computer is acting a little funny.  I wanted to make sure your all 
received this.
Thank you again for all your hard work, energy, and effort.
Sharon Newton
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Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2014 12:17 PM
Subject: Fw: [Nfb-legislative-directors] Urgent Legislative Alert for the Fair Wages for 
Workers with Disabilities Act, HR 831


Hello everyone!

Please see Rose's update on Fair Wages (H.R. 831) below.  In North Carolina, Reps. Price,
Coble and Elmers have co-sponsored H.R. 831.  Please e-mail or call in a thank-you to
these members. At present H.R. 831 has 89 co-sponsors.  We started 2014 with only 52
co-sponsors, so we are making progress.   We need to focus on our other House members:
Rose Sloan (National) has recently called on the aide in Rep. McHenry's office and the
aide in Rep. Jones' office.    Please follow up her contacts with your own.  Recently,
Gregg Harper, H.R. 831's sponsor) published an article in The Hill  (link:
http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/208132-subminimum-wage-must-end.   Rose has sent this
article to Reps. Pittenger, Hudson, and Foxx so feel free to refer to it when you contact
these offices.    We can certainly send this link to our other reps also.   Rose's email
is long but is well worth reading, laying out many points of the Fair Wages debate.

Personal contact is just as important as our e-mails and phone calls.  If you do not know
your rep's closest local office to you, please call the Washington office who will give
you this information.  Then, you can call the local office and get an appointment with the
rep or at least the aide who handles, for example, labor issues, which is what Fair Wages
fall under.  These appointments are generally easy to get.  If the office is not in your
home town, you can probably agree on a mutually satisfactory venue such as a restaurant.
These aides cover around 20 counties each so they are use to driving all over the place.
Please let me know with whom you get and appointment and how it goes or please email or
call if you need help with making appointments.  This human contact is crucial and can
often make the final difference in whether a legislator will agree to co-sponsor.   Real
people "up close and personal" put a real face on the issue and are much harder to ignore
than an email or call.

We can win this battle with perseverance and intelligent discussion!  We are making
progress.  Let us add even more NC reps to the co-sponsor list!

Thank you!
Sharon Newton
Legislative Committee

Rose's email is below!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sloan, Rose via Nfb-legislative-directors" <nfb-legislative-directors at nfbnet.org>
To: <Nfb-legislative-directors at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 10:37 AM
Subject: [Nfb-legislative-directors] Urgent Legislative Alert for the Fair Wages for
Workers with Disabilities Act, HR 831


Attention Legislative Directors,

We need your immediate attention to the following advocacy effort. Today and throughout
the week, SourceAmerica-formerly National Industries for the Severely Handicapped
(NISH)-will be on Capitol Hill advocating against H.R. 831: the Fair Wages for Workers
with Disabilities Act. SourceAmerica is encouraging Members of Congress to "Oppose H.R.
831, the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act of 2013, and any legislation that
eliminates the principles of self-determination, the rights of individuals, or that would
curtail employment opportunities for people with significant disabilities."

While this bill is fresh on the minds of legislative aides, please call and email Members
of Congress to present the other side-the right side-of the argument. We know that people
with disabilities should have the right to a minimum wage just as every other American is
entitled to. Americans with disabilities should have the right to choose jobs that
interest them and match their existing and developing skills rather than simply being
"placed" into a segregated subminimum wage job. Please call or email your Members of
Congress today and express your support for H.R. 831. The phone number to the Capitol
Switch Board is (202) 224-3121.

Yesterday afternoon, the flyer below was delivered to every Member of Congress's office.
Feel free to mention that this flyer was dropped off, and feel free to use this flyer to
develop talking points while on the phone. In addition, the flyer will be emailed out to
legislative aides today along with an article from the Baltimore Sun (also below).

Thank you all for your hard work.

Yours in the fight for Fair Wages,

Rose

########

Flyer:
The Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act (H.R. 831)

* Responsibly phases out Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which
currently allows employers to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities.
* Gives 14(c) certificate-holding nonprofit entities three years to transform to a proven
business model that provides training and support that assists people with all
disabilities to obtain competitive, integrated employment.


The New Reality:
* Strategies exist to assist those with even the most significant disabilities to obtain
competitive integrated employment.

* Former 14(c) certificate-holding entities have successfully converted to a business
model that compensates every employee at the federal minimum wage or higher. This includes
most National Industries for the Blind (NIB) non-profits and most Goodwill Industries.

* Public funds should be used to assist people with disabilities to become more
financially self-sufficient, not to train them to be public beneficiaries.

* The over 70% unemployment rate of workers with disabilities can only be corrected with
the implementation of new innovative strategies.

Section 14(c) Subminimum wage payments:
* Sustain an outdated, ineffective service model of low expectations.
* Leave over 400,000 people with disabilities living in poverty.
* Assist less than 5% of workers to obtain competitive integrated employment.
* Trap 95% of workers with disabilities in segregated work environments.
* Perpetuate dependency on public assistance.
* Can lead to abuse and exploitation (Henry's Turkey Service).
* Unnecessarily discriminate against workers with disabilities.

For more information: www.nfb.org/fair-wages. Rose Sloan, Government Affairs Specialist,
National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314, ext. 2441, rsloan at nfb.org


####


Article:
www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/sun-investigates/bs-md-subminimum-wage-20140614,0,4991105.story

'Subminimum wage' for disabled workers called exploitative

Some paid pennies per hour for limited work

By Alison Knezevich, The Baltimore Sun

10:45 PM EDT, June 14, 2014


At a noisy warehouse off Veterans Highway in Millersville, a young woman concentrates as
she pokes black shoelaces into cardboard packaging. In another room, workers slowly count
tiny bottles of hair products, placing them in plastic bags that will end up as samples in
salons.

To some, these workers with developmental disabilities are getting valuable
on-the-job-training and the self-respect that comes with employment. Others say they're
being exploited - because wages in the facility, run by a nonprofit, are as low as 25
cents an hour.

A nearly 80-year-old exemption in the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act allows employers
across the country to pay so-called "subminimum" wages to hundreds of thousands of people
with disabilities. In Maryland, some disabled workers have been paid as little as a penny
an hour in recent years, according to documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun through
public-information laws.

One person was paid 68 cents an hour to assemble trophies, records from the U.S.
Department of Labor show. Another received an hourly rate of $3.20 to do laundry for a
uniform company. And one made $2.44 an hour to sweep, mop and straighten shelves at a
thrift store.

A debate about the wages paid to these disabled workers has divided nonprofits in Maryland
and nationally. Opponents say the system is holding back participants, feeding a cycle of
low expectations and dependency. Under the exemption, there is no limit on how long
workers can hold the low-paying jobs.

"You set people's expectations very low, you say this is all you could ever hope for - and
then that's what you're stuck with," said Chris Danielsen of the Baltimore-based National
Federation of the Blind, which has been trying for years to eliminate the subminimum wage.

"What's really between people with disabilities and their dreams, and having a normal
productive life, is the low expectations," he said.

Some nonprofits that serve people with disabilities defend the program - known as 14(c)
for the exemption in federal labor law - as a tool to help workers find employment. The
jobs provide a paycheck while the workers gain training. Without it, they might not get
any work at all, supporters say.

"This gives them the ability to work and still earn money and gain self-esteem with
medical and behavioral supports still in place," said Vicki Callahan, executive director
of the nonprofit Opportunity Builders Inc., which employs the people working in the
Millersville warehouse. "A lot of people who walk through this building would say, 'I
never thought they could do work.' The fact is, they can - with support."

All sides agree that the unemployment rate among people with disabilities is troubling.
Just over 19 percent of disabled people work - compared with 68 percent of all Americans
16 and older, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Those who favor the 14(c) program say that without it, the numbers would be even bleaker.

"Many employers are not willing to give these folks a chance," said Martin Lampner, CEO of
Chimes, a Baltimore-based nonprofit that offers services for people with developmental
disabilities.

Debate about the subminimum wage drew attention in 2012, when the National Federation of
the Blind urged a boycott of Goodwill Industries because of its CEO's half-million-dollar
salary, but efforts to abolish the 14(c) program began decades ago.

Rep. Gregg Harper, a Mississippi Republican, has been an ally of the Federation of the
Blind in the campaign. He has sponsored the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act,
which would phase out the 14(c) program over three years.

To Harper, the low wages are a form of discrimination, one that is stopping people from
reaching their full potential.

"We believe that what we're seeing is just extremely unfair," said Harper, whose son,
Livingston, has the intellectual disability Fragile X syndrome.

The issue again gained a national spotlight in February, when President Barack Obama
signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay all workers - including the
disabled - $10.10 per hour.

In Maryland, advocates had hoped that this year's political focus on raising the state's
minimum wage would bring attention to disabled people earning subminimum pay, but no one
introduced legislation to address the issue.

"If you're speaking about wages and improving living conditions, then you have to have
that discussion with the entire workforce," said Dan Schmitt, a board member of the Arc of
Maryland, which has joined the campaign to end the subminimum wage.

Pay based on productivity

Through the U.S. Department of Labor, employers can apply for a Special Minimum Wage
Certificate, which gives them permission to pay less than the federal minimum wage -
currently $7.25 an hour - to workers who have disabilities. Maryland has about 45 such
employers, according to the department.

Most are nonprofits that serve people with disabilities. Some employ a handful of workers,
while others employ hundreds, paying wages that can vary widely. The nonprofits often
contract with businesses that need the services disabled workers can provide. These job
sites, where people with disabilities work apart from others, are sometimes called
sheltered workshops.

Employers calculate the pay of a 14(c) employee based on how much the worker can produce
compared to a person who doesn't have disabilities. For instance, if an able-bodied person
can clean a bathroom in 20 minutes and it takes a disabled worker 40 minutes to do it, the
worker would be paid half the prevailing wage in the area for a janitor.

The pay can be different for workers doing the same job, depending on their ability. In
the kitchen of a cafe in Northwest Baltimore run by Chimes, for instance, Cindy Iames, 58,
earns $4.44 an hour helping to prepare food. John Britt, 28, who also works in the
kitchen, makes $7.55 an hour - more than the minimum wage.

At the Opportunity Builders warehouse, payment is based on a wage of $10 per hour,
Callahan said. A worker who can do half as much as an able-bodied person would make $5 per
hour. But some workers earn more than $9 an hour, she said.

The nonprofit fills 15 to 20 contracts a month, with an emphasis on packaging, assembly
and distribution.

Callahan and others say people with complex disabilities often need support that they
can't get from other employers. On a recent morning at Opportunity Builders, one worker
needed a staff member to help him count bottles of hair products and another laid his head
down as his peers filled the packages.

Severna Park resident David Lawrence, 44, earned an average of 99 cents an hour last year
at Opportunity Builders. The intellectually disabled man has been with the organization
for about 20 years. Earning a paycheck is an important part of his life, said his father,
a member of the nonprofit's board.

"He doesn't realize what he can or can't buy with it," Chet Lawrence said. "But the fact
that he gets it is a very uplifting experience."

The most important thing, he said, "is for David to be doing something that he likes, that
is productive. ... If we insist upon him getting the minimum wage, I believe all the work
would basically dry up."

Supporters of the special wage certificates point out that most agencies that use them
provide a spectrum of job-training services and that working under the 14(c) program can
help some people develop enough skill to get jobs in the community at a conventional rate
of pay.

"We intend to move them into the community because that's ultimately our objective," said
Dan Kurtenbach, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Monocacy Valley, which holds a
14(c) certificate.

Opponents point to a 2001 investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the
investigative arm of Congress, which found that only 5 percent of those in sheltered
workplaces end up finding jobs in the community. And they say that the premise of the
subminimum wage - basing a wage for the disabled on a lesser productivity - is inherently
discriminatory.

"No matter what your level of productivity, the minimum wage is set nationwide for all
workers," said Cari DeSantis, the CEO of Melwood, a nonprofit in Prince George's County
that serves and employs people with disabilities. Among other services, its employees do
janitorial work for government agencies and groundskeeping for businesses and other
organizations.

Melwood for many years used the 14(c) program to pay a subminimum wage to its workers. But
DeSantis said it bothered her. She thought of the workers in Melwood's greenhouses, which
provide plants to clients, including the Kennedy Center.

"The thought of having paid him or her less than minimum wage just strikes me as wrong,"
DeSantis said.

Last summer, DeSantis led a policy change, and all of Melwood's workers now make at least
minimum wage. The shift cost Melwood about $50,000; the organization says it has covered
the added expense through administrative efficiencies.

At The Arc Baltimore, which serves people with developmental disabilities, administrators
have been "on a steady path to eliminate the payment of subminimum wage," Executive
Director Steve Morgan said.

But because the workers might not be as productive as those that private employers can
find elsewhere, the Arc continues to pay some employees a lower wage.

"It can be challenging for us to find private contracts where a company is paying us
enough to pay everyone minimum wage," Morgan said.

Relic of old attitudes?

In the 1970s and 1980s, Baltimore resident Charles Biebl worked in a sheltered workshop.
He screwed parts onto the backs of telephones, and was paid per phone. He remembers a week
in 1975 when he worked overtime and still earned just "$15 and some change."

"The philosophy was, 'They ought to be happy, be thankful for what they have,'" said
Biebl, 61, who is blind and lives in East Baltimore with his 92-year-old mother.

Biebl calls the end of subminimum wage "way overdue."

"We do want to be productive, just like anybody else," he said.

Last year, the federal government began investigating Rhode Island's system of employment
for intellectually and developmentally disabled workers. It concluded that the state
relied too much on programs that kept such workers separated from others. In a settlement
this year, Rhode Island agreed to provide more opportunities for work in mainstream jobs.

Vermont phased out its sheltered workshops over 20 years, with the last one closing in the
early 2000s, said Bryan Dague, a research associate at the University of Vermont's Center
on Disability and Community Inclusion.

Vermont was a pioneer in developing the concept of community-based employment and set up
pilot projects that were replicated across the state.

While some agencies resisted, "the sheltered workshops just eventually closed down," Dague
said.

The state took a gradual approach, limiting and then prohibiting funding for sheltered
workshops and "enclaves," where a group of people with disabilities worked separately from
others at a business, said Jennie Masterson, supported employment services coordinator at
the Vermont Division of Disability and Aging Services.

When the last sheltered workshop closed, about 50 people worked there, she said. Roughly
90 percent found employment in the community.

She did not have an estimate of the overall costs involved in the switchover. But as an
example, she said the state provided $50,000 for the agency running the last sheltered
workshop to hire a full-time job developer to help individuals find employment. Vermont
also increased each individual's Medicaid allotment to cover the cost of employment and
support services.

Dague says the debate over 14(c) is not simply about wages.

"There's very low expectations in sheltered workshops," Dague said. "You can just sort of
sit around not doing anything. ... It's not an environment where they're really going to
learn either the work skills or the social skills that they're going to need to function
in the community."

Over time, a shift in attitudes has led to "greater and greater integration," of people
with disabilities, said Ari Ne'eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

"We've certainly seen that in housing," Ne'eman said. "Now it's time to do the same within
the context of employment."



Rose Sloan
Government Affairs Specialist

National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street
Baltimore, MD 21230
Phone: (410) 659-9314, extension 2441
Email: rsloan at nfb.org

"Eliminating Subminimum Wages for People with Disabilities"
http://www.nfb.org/fair-wages

The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that
defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because
low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the
life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.

To make a donation to the National Federation of the Blind Imagination Fund, please visit
www.nfb.org/ImaginingOurFuture.



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