[nfbwatlk] FW: [Nfbnet-members-list] SUB MINIMUM WAGE

Tue Aug 14 22:56:04 UTC 2012

>From Anil Lewis:

We can set an expectation of full participation, or we can continue to feed
the fallacy of incapacity. 

It is the ignorance of the capacity of people with disabilities to be
productive employees that perpetuates the existence of Section 14(c) of the
Fair Labor Standards Act, a law that denies the guarantee of a federal
minimum wage to workers with disabilities.  Moreover, it is frustrating to
find that a few individuals with disabilities are reluctant to support our
efforts to repeal this unfair, discriminatory, immoral provision.  Some have
become so institutionalized that they don't recognize their own capacity.
It was not too long ago that most of us were subjected to society's low
expectations, with limited opportunities to secure competitive employment in
a career that meets our unique skills, interests, and abilities.  Others
have become such elitists that they now exhibit the same ignorance that
denied them the opportunity to be fully participating citizens.  It is a sad
irony that these individuals, who were formerly denied training and
employment opportunities because others felt they had no capacity, now
superimpose the same lack of capacity on others, denying them the necessary
training and support to obtain competitive employment.  

People with disabilities have the right and ability to work in the same jobs
earning the same wages as nondisabled workers.  There are many examples of
individuals with significant disabilities who, when provided with the proper
training and support, have acquired a competitive job skill to earn at least
minimum wage.  We should support this outcome for all workers with
disabilities.  Very few, if any, disabled or nondisabled individuals acquire
a competitive job skill through performing menial tasks in sheltered,
segregated, subminimum-wage work environments.  We must set higher
expectations and provide real training and support for all people to be
fully participating members of society.  

Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is not the
compassionate offering of an opportunity for workers with disabilities to
experience the tangible and intangible benefits of work.  Section 14(c) is a
poor public policy that actually harms people with disabilities, prohibiting
most from obtaining competitive, integrated employment by denying
educational and training opportunities.  

*	Approximately 33 percent of students in Kindergarten through grade
12 have sheltered subminimum-wage workshops as their vocational goal.  We
have given up on them before they have been provided a proper education, and
they will never reach their full potential-a generation lost.  

*	Approximately 95 percent of people employed in a subminimum-wage
work environment will never transition out of that environment.  They will
never receive the necessary training and support to be productive employees.
They will remain beneficiaries of public programs, never to become fully
participating citizens.  

*	Approximately 50 percent of workers with disabilities who are
employed under a special wage certificate earn less than half the federal
minimum wage.  They are paid, supposedly based on their productivity, to
work in menial jobs determined by their employer, not jobs that meet their
strengths, interests, unique talents, or abilities.  

*	Approximately 25 percent of workers with disabilities employed under
a special wage certificate earn less than $1 per hour.  We have
documentation of a worker with a disability being paid 3 cents per hour.
This is an assertion, day after day, that they are not as good as everyone
else.  

*	Research shows that many of the skills acquired in a sheltered,
subminimum-wage work environment must be unlearned in order for a worker
with a disability to obtain competitive integrated employment.  Subminimum
wage skills only perpetuate subminimum wage employment.  Real training must
be provided in order to obtain real work.  

We applaud entities that help jobseekers with disabilities to develop new
skills, gain work experience, and find jobs through employment planning,
skills training, job search and development, placement, and ongoing
employment support.  However, for far too long we have accepted the
subminimum wage employer's assertions of lack of capacity without asking the
necessary questions.  

*	How many people does your organization transition into competitive
integrated employment?  Can you provide me with the data?  

*	Why are there other organizations putting people with significant
disabilities to work at the minimum wage that sheltered workshops have
refused?  

*	Is a person with a disability really choosing to work in a
subminimum-wage work environment when they have not received the proper
training and support to consider competitive employment, or when they have
only been presented with a choice between subminimum-wage employment and no
employment at all?  

*	If you don't believe that workers with disabilities can be
productive, why are you in the business of providing employment for workers
with disabilities?  

*	Who makes the decision for your organization that a person cannot be
productive?  How do they make the decision?  What training have they
received in the productive placement of a worker with a disability?  

*	Why have some workshops been able to successfully transition their
business model to one that pays federal minimum wages or more to their
employees with disabilities, without loss of jobs or revenue, and your
organization cannot?  

*	If your organization does not pay less than the minimum wage to
workers with disabilities, why should others be allowed to do so?  

We should emphasize competitive, integrated employment as the only outcome
that can be considered real employment.  Anything else is just glorified
daycare that sends false messages of incapacity to individuals who could
become competitively employed.  H.R. 3086 removes the ability for employers
to legally pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities, setting higher
expectations for the employers, as well as, the employees.  

Some will still state that there are those individuals who are so severely
disabled that they cannot be competitively employed.  New strategies evolve
every day that prove this statement to be false.  However, if there are
truly individuals too severely disabled to perform competitive work, it is
illogical and demoralizing to make a decision that employment at subminimum
wages (pennies per hour) is the best outcome for these individuals.  There
is a better reality that we can provide for these individuals other than
having them toil away, day after day, for pennies an hour.  

Mr. Anil Lewis, M.P.A.
"Eliminating Subminimum Wages for People with Disabilities" 
http://www.nfb.org/fairwages 

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