[Ohio-talk] Fwd: [Jobs] FW: [rehab] Article: A loophole in federal law allows companies to paydisabled workers $1 an hour, Vox.com, May 3, 2018

Fri Jun 8 22:50:33 UTC 2018

Wow! CF

On 6/8/18, Suzanne Turner via Ohio-Talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: Dick Davis via Jobs <jobs at nfbnet.org>
>> Date: June 8, 2018 at 3:09:05 PM EDT
>> To: "jobs at nfbnet.org" <jobs at nfbnet.org>, "allstaff at blindinc.org"
>> <allstaff at blindinc.org>
>> Cc: Dick Davis <ddavis at blindinc.org>
>> Subject: [Jobs] FW: [rehab] Article: A loophole in federal law allows
>> companies to paydisabled workers $1 an hour, Vox.com, May 3, 2018
>> Reply-To: Jobs for the Blind <jobs at nfbnet.org>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>>
>> From: Nightingale, Noel via rehab
>> Sent: Friday, June 8, 2018 12:51 PM
>> To: rehab at nfbnet.org; blindlaw at nfbnet.org
>> Cc: Nightingale, Noel
>> Subject: [rehab] Article: A loophole in federal law allows companies to
>> paydisabled workers $1 an hour, Vox.com, May 3, 2018
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.vox.com/2018/5/3/17307098/workers-disabilities-minimum-wage-waiver-rock-river-valley-self-help
>>
>>
>>
>> A loophole in federal law allows companies to pay disabled workers $1 an
>> hour: One nonprofit workshop paid them in gift cards.
>>
>> Vox.com
>>
>> May 3, 2018
>>
>> By Alexia Fernández Campbell
>>
>>
>>
>> Rock River Valley Self Help Enterprises, an Illinois nonprofit, billed
>> itself as a vocational training program for people with disabilities. But
>> it essentially operated as a subcontractor for local factories, providing
>> menial tasks to workers with developmental disabilities, such as scraping
>> debris from metal casts.
>>
>>
>>
>> Last week, the Department of Labor took action against the company "after
>> finding nearly 250 workers with disabilities were being exploited." One of
>> the ways they were being exploited? Self Help paid some workers with gift
>> cards instead of money.
>>
>>
>>
>> The DOL's announcement underscores the grim employment landscape for many
>> disabled workers. Several nonprofits, including one in Seattle, have
>> recently been cited for underpaying workers with disabilities. But while
>> Self Help's infractions are outrageous, it's also worth noting that
>> federal law allows companies to provide less compensation to some workers
>> with disabilities.
>>
>>
>>
>> In addition to sometimes paying workers in gift cards, Self Help also paid
>> them less than the minimum wage. Paying workers with disabilities in gift
>> cards is unlawful; paying them a subminimum wage is legal. That's because
>> current law allows employers to pay as little as $1 per hour, or less, to
>> workers with disabilities if they can't perform a job as well as a person
>> who is not disabled (the current federal minimum wage is $7.25). It's an
>> exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act that has been in place for 80
>> years.
>>
>>
>>
>> Self Help had the exemption - but the DOL revoked that waiver after its
>> investigation. In addition to finding that the nonprofit was paying
>> workers with gift cards, the agency also noted that Self Help could not
>> show proof that the disabled workers were not as productive as workers
>> without disabilities, a requirement to get a waiver. And the DOL found
>> that the company had tried to "mislead and obstruct ... by concealing
>> relevant information" from the agency's investigation. The agency ordered
>> Self Help to pay two years of back wages to more than 250 workers. The
>> department did not say how much they were earning.
>>
>>
>>
>> The incident underscores how the waiver program for workers with
>> disabilities can be horribly misused. Giving employers permission to pay
>> workers less seems to justify treating them differently in other ways. The
>> workers at Self Help and their guardians knew they were allowed to receive
>> less than the minimum wage, but they may not have realized that getting
>> paid in gift cards is against the law.
>>
>>
>>
>> There are about 153,030 workers with disabilities in the US who can be
>> paid less than minimum wage under federal law, according to data from the
>> Department of Labor. Some workers earn as little as 4 cents an hour.
>>
>>
>>
>> In February, Alaska became the third state to ban the practice, and last
>> week, a group of Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren
>> (D-MA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), expressed concern about the
>> potential abuses.
>>
>>
>>
>> "These waivers are inherently discriminatory and should be phased out in a
>> responsible way," they wrote in a letter Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta.
>> "While the Department continues to issue these waivers, however, we are
>> concerned by past abuses of the program and hope to better understand the
>> extent to which the Department is able to prevent employers' mistreatment
>> of and discrimination against workers with disabilities."
>>
>>
>>
>> The 14(c) waiver created under the Fair Labor Standards Act was meant to
>> help people with severe disabilities find meaningful work, but it has left
>> many trapped in factory-type jobs with unlivable wages.
>>
>>
>>
>> The US government has had low expectations for disabled Americans
>>
>>
>>
>> In February, Alaska became the first red state to bar employers from
>> paying workers with disabilities less than the state's $9.75 minimum wage.
>> New Hampshire was the first state to do so in 2015, followed by Maryland
>> in 2016. Paying sub-minimum wages to Americans with disabilities has been
>> legal under federal law since 1938.
>>
>>
>>
>> These recent changes highlight America's shifting views about the best way
>> to help people with disabilities live their lives. Advocates for the
>> disabled are pushing for services that focus on independence and
>> integration over the isolation of mental institutions or segregated
>> workshops. About 13 percent of Americans have mental or physical
>> disabilities, and they are far less likely to work than the average
>> American. Even so, 36 percent of Americans with disabilities had jobs in
>> 2016 (among those who are working age and not living in institutions),
>> according to a recent report from the Institute on Disability at the
>> University of New Hampshire.
>>
>>
>>
>> "There's been a real sea change," Robert Dinerstein, a law professor at
>> American University and director of the school's Disability Rights Law
>> Clinic, told Vox. "There used to be such low expectations of what someone
>> with Down's syndrome could achieve."
>>
>>
>>
>> Americans with disabilities were segregated for decades
>>
>>
>>
>> For most of modern American history, politicians and doctors didn't really
>> know what to do about - or for - people born with severe developmental
>> disabilities. The widespread assumption was that they could not learn,
>> work, or care for themselves.
>>
>>
>>
>> The default solution was to isolate Americans with disabilities from the
>> rest of the world, writes Samuel Bagenstos, a disability rights lawyer and
>> law professor at the University of Michigan:
>>
>>
>>
>> Children with significant disabilities received separate schooling, if
>> they received schooling at all. As late as 1970, only a fifth of children
>> with disabilities received public schooling; schools often simply excluded
>> children with developmental disabilities as uneducable. As they grew to
>> adulthood, individuals with developmental disabilities moved to state-run
>> institutions that theoretically provided training and treatment, but in
>> practice warehoused them.
>>
>>
>>
>> Because lawmakers assumed Americans with disabilities would probably never
>> work, Congress allowed businesses to pay them less than the minimum wage
>> under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The law basically said a
>> business could pay workers with disabilities less than able-bodied workers
>> to do menial tasks in a "workshop" environment with other workers with
>> disabilities. The idea was that low-paid work was better than not having
>> the option to work at all.
>>
>>
>>
>> During the civil rights era, advocates began pushing back against this
>> paternalistic, custodial attitude, which led to a series of laws mandating
>> equal access and equal treatment for Americans with disabilities. The
>> landmark Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 made it illegal for the
>> first time for employers to discriminate against workers who had
>> disabilities. While these changes made huge strides in allowing Americans
>> with disabilities to lead normal lives, they didn't address the 1938
>> federal law that allows businesses to pay less than minimum wage in some
>> cases.
>>
>>
>>
>> The process can be easily manipulated
>>
>>
>>
>> For an employer to hire a worker with a disability and pay them less than
>> the minimum wage, they must first get permission from the Department of
>> Labor. But they can only do so if they can show that the disability would
>> prevent them from being hired at the minimum wage. That's a tricky thing
>> to prove, and involves some strange calculations. One way is to test the
>> worker's speed at completing a task compared to an able-bodied person.
>>
>>
>>
>> For example, an employer that wants to hire a disabled person to make
>> widgets must first find out what the local average wage is for a widget
>> maker. Then they must find out how long it takes the average worker to
>> make a widget and compare it to how long it takes the worker with a
>> disability. If the average widget maker in Columbus, Ohio, makes a widget
>> in 10 minutes for $9 an hour, but it takes disabled workers three times as
>> long, then the employer can pay them a third of the rate: $3 an hour.
>>
>>
>>
>> Employers are supposed to submit all the paperwork for these calculations
>> when they apply for a certificate from the Department of Labor, but, as in
>> the case of Self Help, employers don't always tell the truth. And it may
>> only come up if the DOL decides to do an investigation, which is what
>> happened in the case of Self Help.
>>
>>
>>
>> "The employer attempted to mislead and obstruct [the Labor Department's]
>> investigation by concealing relevant information from [the department]
>> during the investigation, hiding work that the employer had not time
>> studied but had the workers perform. On some weekends, Self Help
>> unlawfully paid workers with gift cards instead of wages," according to a
>> Labor Department announcement.
>>
>>
>>
>> The Labor Department said it notified law enforcement officials about the
>> case, but did not say if Self Help was accused of criminal activity.
>>
>>
>>
>> Congress thought that lower wages would encourage hiring
>>
>>
>>
>> When Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, it created the
>> exemption to encourage business to hire disabled workers, in hopes that it
>> would lead to some level of independence and self-sufficiency. But the
>> vast majority of workers in the federal program have jobs in sheltered
>> workshops frequently run by nonprofits and isolated from the rest of
>> society with little opportunity for advancement.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jobs in segregated workplaces are exactly the kind that disability rights
>> activists want to abolish - at least for the next generation of workers
>> with disabilities, who now graduate from regular public schools and want
>> to lead normal lives.
>>
>>
>>
>> The workplace integration movement has pushed for "Employment First"
>> initiatives in recent years, something many conservative and liberal
>> states have adopted. These initiatives direct public service providers to
>> focus on helping citizens with disabilities get regular jobs and live on
>> their own, as opposed to more institutionalized care - getting a minimum
>> wage job bagging groceries is considered far better than sorting
>> recyclable trash in a sheltered environment with other workers with
>> disabilities.
>>
>>
>>
>> While the Employment First movement has picked up in recent years, it does
>> pose new challenges in how providers should tailor job-training services
>> for each person, says Dinerstein of American University. One approach has
>> been to give workers a job coach, who goes to work with them during their
>> first month on the job and helps them learn the ropes.
>>
>>
>>
>> People with disabilities just want a chance to be independent, taxpaying,
>> productive members of society, said Dinerstein. "If we don't do this, we
>> are leaving them behind."
>>
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Wishing You All the Best,

Cheryl E. Fields

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human
life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will
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