[nfbwatlk] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

[Mary Ellen]

Paul,

Either the minimum wage means something or it doesn't.  If your argument is
that nobody should be guaranteed a minimum wage, that's an argument for a
different list.  

Our contention is that, as long as there is a minimum wage, it should apply
to all entities that sell goods and services.

You mentioned that you needed to work to get your speed up to standard as a
medical transcriber.  You argue that employers should not have to pay
inefficient people in a manner that doesn't encourage them to improve.  I
get that point and agree strongly that competence and good work attitudes
should be rewarded.  If a company comes up with a standard of performance,
it should be applied equally to all employees.  So if your employer paid
piece rate to all employees at the same rate and followed all applicable
laws, no problem.  But if blind transcribers were paid a piece rate while
the sighted transcribers were paid an hourly wage, that's quite a different
matter.  I worked in a sheltered shop one summer.  We worked four on a
production line.  One day I happened to be working with another blind person
and two sighted women.  One of the sighted women said to me, "Let's see if
we can put out eight thousand parts today so that you can be paid the
minimum wage.  Of course, we get it anyway, but we'd like you to have it."
Everyone on the production line did exactly the same number of units per
hour, but the sighted people on the line (unless they could be certified as
having another disability) got the minimum wage.  Nobody could work faster
than the slowest person on the line.  That meant that a new worker in
training automatically brought down the wages of everyone on the line.
Consequently, new workers weren't greeted with enthusiasm.  Also, if there
was a production problem of any kind, workers had to wait for it to be
resolved knowing they would be paid only half the minimum wage while they
waited.  All the cost of inefficiencyy, no matter who caused it, was borne
by the workers on the line.

The shop packaged parts for a company owned by the chairman of the board of
directors of the agency.  We used outdated production methods; our work
could have been done more efficiently by a few machines.  However, the
company got a huge tax advantage for having the sheltered workshop do the
work.  The tax benefits for the company, paired with the low wages paid to
the workers, meant that there was a considerable incentive for continuing to
use outdated equipment and to refrain from automating.  As a consequence,
nobody in that workshop learned any transferrable skills.  Also, the company
owned by the chairman of the board categorically refused to hire any blind
individuals in the company factory across the road.  If he had hired blind
workers, much of the rationale of his charitable (and I put that in quotes)
enterprise would have gone by the wayside.

We packed clamps for attaching mufflers and tail pipes to cars.  One person
took a flat box and opened it.  Two people (and they always used the people
with the most sight for those jobs) dropped in muffler clamps which came in
four parts.  The final person on the line closed the filled boxes and packed
them into larger boxes for shipping.  If we were packing truck parts, we
were allowed to do eight thousand units a day.  If we were packing car
parts, we were allowed to do ten thousand.  We were paid $1.60 per thousand
car parts and $1.80 for a thousand truck parts.  At the time, the minimum
wage was $1.60 per hour.  That meant that we were only allowed to earn
slightly more than the minimum wage if we worked flat out.  Really good
workers charged with the responsibility for training new people were
penalized, not rewarded, for doing the training.

If people were simply paid the minimum wage, a few people would have earned
a few dollars less per day and a few would have had their wages raised
somewhat.  All of us worked with the knowledge that we were considered as
being worth less by definition than other workers unless we could prove
otherwise.

I worked there for one summer while I was in college.  I have never worked
so physically hard in my life!  Absolutely no attention was paid to finding
ways for people to do their work with the least possible stress and strain
on their bodies.  Most of the people I worked with were indistinguishable
from the factory workers in my family, except that the ones in the shop were
blind and got paid much less.  Almost all of them would have been perfectly
able to pull their own weight in any factory in town.  They just couldn't
get the people who did the hiring at local factories to believe it.

But the worst part of the experience was the sense of hopelessness among the
workers.  On my last day, one woman said "You go to college and get your
education and get a good job so you don't ever have to come back here."
Another man just laughed and said "She'll be back.  They always come back."

 

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of PUBLIC RADIO 113
Sent: August 12, 2012 12:16 PM
To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfbwatlk] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

Would you hire a driver who only drove 20 miles/hour on the freeway?  If any
of you reading this ever ran a business of your own you would realize that
you cannot afford to hire workers who are less productive.  When I began my
medical transcription career in Chicago I earned far less than minimum wage
because I was paid on the basis of the work I could turn out in an 8-hour
day.  It took a while for me to get my typing speed up to 120 words/minute,
but I did.  After 30 years of being an MT I retired in June.
 I made $50,000 last year WITH BENEFITS.  People who are so disabled that
they cannot compete can always use SSDI, low-cost housing, food stamps,
etc.,  to supplement their income.  It should not be up to the employer to
provide a subsidy for disabled workers.   Let's pay congress what they're
worth.

--
Paul Van Dyck

www.publicradio113.weebly.com

OR

www.kboo.fm/soundsofawareness
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