[Nfbsatx] July Update

[Jose Martinez]

Welcome chapter members to your July report.

Please note, do to our national convention and the meeting room still
being remodeled, there will be no July meeting. We are still aiming
for August.

Also, if you have not bought a pop-corn bag, please remember that the
fundraising committee is currently selling bags for 1 dollar each!
Contact Denise at:

210-313-8895

For more information on that.

I am happy to announce that the National Convention was a tremendous
success! The Blind Driver Challenge will be moving on to the second
stage and the membership present at the convention passed a very
important resolution having to do with the Workforce Investment Act
which is up for reauthorization. You can read more information about
this important Pease of information below.

Also, keep checking our website and our national website as things
will be getting updated soon!

Http://www.nfbsatx.org

http://www.nfb.org

Hope you all are staying cool in this hot weather!

A.	Z.




RESOLUTION 2011-17
Regarding the Workforce Investment Act Reauthorization
Proponent:

       WHEREAS, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions has distributed language for the reauthorization of the
Workforce Investment Act including a proposed Section 511 of Title V
(the Rehabilitation Act), which would provide for employment of people
with significant disabilities at wages below the federally mandated
minimum wage; and

       WHEREAS, the proposed language of Section 511 would be a tacit
endorsement of the sub minimum wage provision found in Section 14(c)
of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and its antiquated contention
that people with disabilities cannot be competitively employed; and

       WHEREAS, this language links the Rehabilitation Act, which was
established to assist people with disabilities in obtaining
competitive integrated employment, with Section 14(c) of the FLSA,
which is based on the false premise that people with disabilities can
not be competitively employed and therefore can be paid sub minimum
wages; and

       WHEREAS, the language in Section 511 that defines what steps a
vocational rehabilitation counselor must take before steering a client
into sub minimum-wage employment is intended to prevent youth with
disabilities from being tracked into sub minimum-wage jobs, but is
likely instead to track clients into sub minimum-wage employment; and

       WHEREAS, language in Section 511 asserts that employers holding
a certificate that allows them to pay sub minimum wages can also serve
as training facilities for people with disabilities, a claim that
ignores the fact that job training services provided by an employer
holding a special wage certificate are likely to reinforce the low
expectation that workers with disabilities cannot be competitively
employed, since the incentive is for the employer to continue
exploiting their labor rather than prepare workers for other
employment; and

       WHEREAS, the Section 511 documentation and review process,
which is meant to provide safeguards against inappropriate use of sub
minimum-wage employment, does not take into consideration the fact
that state Vocational Rehabilitation programs do not have the
resources to ensure effective compliance with the various
documentation and review requirements, including the six-month review
period in the proposed language, creating an opportunity to expand the
exploitation caused by Section 14(c) of the FLSA; and

       WHEREAS, the good intentions motivating the development of
Section 511 are likely to result in enormous negative consequences,
especially the validation of sub minimum-wage employment as a viable
outcome for people with disabilities; and

       WHEREAS, the language does not provide an effective procedure
for workers to challenge improper placement in such employment: Now,
therefore,

       BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 2011, in the city of
Orlando, Florida, that this organization call on members of the Senate
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions to remove Section
511 of the proposed Rehabilitation Act; and

       BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon all members of
Congress, not to address the unjust law of Section 14(c) with
ineffective measures, but to take direct action to abolish the
reprehensible practice of sub minimum-wage employment forever.