[tabi] Fw: [fcb-l] disabled workers payed just pennies a hour

"Easy Talk" <Easytalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 21 Jun 2013 21:03:20 -0400

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From: Easy Talk 
To: fcb-l@xxxxxxx 
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 8:48 PM
Subject: [fcb-l] disabled workers payed just pennies a hour

NBC Rock Center - Some disabled workers paid just pennies an hour - and it's 
legal
At 10:00 PM, Eastern on June 21, 2013
By Anna Schecter, Producer, NBC News
One of the nation's best-known charities is paying disabled workers as little as
22 cents an hour, thanks to a 75-year-old legal loophole that critics say needs 
to
be closed.
Goodwill Industries, a multibillion-dollar company whose executives make 
six-figure
salaries, is among the nonprofit groups permitted to pay thousands of disabled 
workers
far less than minimum wage because of a federal law known as Section 14 (c). 
Labor
Department records show that some Goodwill workers in Pennsylvania earned wages 
as
low as 22, 38 and 41 cents per hour in 2011.
"If they really do pay the CEO of Goodwill three-quarters of a million dollars, 
they
certainly can pay me more than they're paying," said Harold Leigland, who is 
legally
blind and hangs clothes at a Goodwill in Great Falls, Montana for less than 
minimum
wage.
"It's a question of civil rights," added his wife, Sheila, blind from birth, who
quit her job at the same Goodwill store when her already low wage was cut 
further.
"I feel like a second-class citizen. And I hate it." Section 14 (c) of the Fair 
Labor
Standards Act, which was passed in 1938, allows employers to obtain special 
minimum
wage certificates from the Department of Labor. The certificates give employers 
the
right to pay disabled workers according to their abilities, with no bottom limit
to the wage. Most, but not all
special wage certificates are held by nonprofit organizations like Goodwill that
then set up their own so-called "sheltered workshops" for disabled employees, 
where
employees typically perform manual tasks like hanging clothes.
The non-profit certificate holders can also place employees in outside, 
for-profit
workplaces including restaurants, retail stores, hospitals and even Internal 
Revenue
Service centers. Between the sheltered workshops and the outside businesses, 
more
than 216,000 workers are eligible to earn less than minimum wage because of 
Section
14 (c), though many end up earning the full federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Harold Leigland, who is blind, with his guide dog on the bus during his morning 
commute
to the Goodwill facility in Great Falls, Montana, where he works hanging 
clothing.
When a non-profit provides Section 14 (c) workers to an outside business, it 
sets
the salary and pays the wages. For example, the Helen Keller National Center, a 
New
York school for the blind and deaf, has a special wage certificate and has 
placed
students in a Westbury, N.Y., Applebee's franchise. The employees' pay ranged 
from
$3.97 per hour to $5.96 per hour in 2010. The franchise told NBC News it has 
also
hired workers at minimum wage from Helen Keller. A spokesperson for Applebee's 
declined
to comment on Section 14 (c).
Helen Keller also placed several students at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in 
Manhasset,
N.Y., in 2010, where they earned $3.80 and $4.85 an hour. A Barnes & Noble 
spokeswoman
defended the Section 14 (c) program as providing jobs to "people who would 
otherwise
not have [the opportunity to work]."
Most Section 14 (c) workers are employed directly by nonprofits. In 2001, the 
most
recent year for which numbers are available, the GAO estimated that more than 90
percent of Section 14 (c) workers were employed at nonprofit work centers.
Critics of Section 14 (c) have focused much of their ire on the nonprofits, 
where
wages can be just pennies an hour even as some of the groups receive funding 
from
the government. At one workplace in Florida run by a nonprofit, some employees 
earned
one cent per hour in 2011.
"People are profiting from exploiting disabled workers," said Ari Ne'eman, 
president
of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. "It is clearly and unquestionably 
exploitation."
Defenders of Section 14 (c) say that without it, disabled workers would have few
options. A Department of Labor spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News that
Section 14 (c) "provides workers with disabilities the opportunity to be given 
meaningful
work and receive an income."
Terry Farmer, CEO of ACCSES, a trade group that calls itself the "voice of 
disability
service providers," said scrapping the provision could "force [disabled workers]
to stay at home," enter rehabilitation, "or otherwise engage in unproductive and
unsatisfactory activities."
Harold Leigland, however, said he feels that Goodwill can pay him a low wage 
because
the company knows he has few other places to go. "We are trapped," he said. 
"Everybody
who works at Goodwill is trapped."
Leigland, a 66-year-old former massage therapist with a college degree, 
currently
earns $5.46 per hour in Great Falls.
His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies,"
the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. 
Staff
members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to 
complete
a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a 
disability
to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, 
which
may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six 
months.
Harold Leigland works at the Goodwill facility in Great Falls, Montana, where he
earns $5.46 an hour.
Leigland's pay has been higher than $5.46, but it has also dropped down to $4.37
per hour, based on the time-study results.
He said he believes Goodwill makes the time studies harder when they want his 
wage
to be lower.
"Sometimes the test is easier than others. It depends on if, as near as I can 
figure,
they want your wage to go up or down. It's that simple," he said.
His wife, Sheila, 58, spent four years hanging clothes at the Great Falls 
Goodwill
for about $3.50 an hour. She said the time study was one of the most degrading 
and
stressful parts about her job. "You never know how it's going to come out. It 
stressed
me out a lot," she said.
She quit last summer when she returned to work after knee surgery and found that
her wage had been lowered to $2.75 per hour, a training rate.
"At $2.75 it would barely cover my cost of getting to work. I wouldn't make any 
money,"
she said.
Harold said he believes Goodwill can afford to pay him minimum wage, based on 
the
salaries paid to Goodwill executives. While according to the company's own 
figures
about 4,000 of the 30,000 disabled workers Goodwill employs at 69 franchises are
currently paid below minimum wage, salaries for the CEOs of those franchises 
that
hold special minimum wage certificates totaled almost $20 million in 2011.
In 2011 the CEO of Goodwill Industries of Southern California took home $1.1 
million
in salary and deferred compensation. His counterpart in Portland, Oregon, made 
more
than $500,000. Salaries for CEOs of the roughly 150 Goodwill franchises across 
America
total more than $30 million.
Goodwill International CEO Jim Gibbons, who was awarded $729,000 in salary and 
deferred
compensation in 2011, defended the executive pay.
"These leaders are having a great impact in terms of new solutions, in terms of 
innovation,
and in terms of job creation," he said.
Gibbons also defended time studies, and the whole Section 14 (c) approach. He 
said
that for many people who make less than minimum wage, the experience of work is 
more
important than the pay.
"It's typically not about their livelihood. It's about their fulfillment. It's 
about
being a part of something. And it's probably a small part of their overall 
program,"
he said.
And Goodwill and the organizations that run the sheltered workshops are not 
alone
in their support for Section 14 (c). In many cases, the families of the workers 
who
have severe disabilities say their loved ones enjoy the work experience, enjoy 
getting
a paycheck, and the amount is of no consequence.
Sheila Leigland, who is blind, with her guide dog. She quit her job at Goodwill 
in
Great Falls, Montana, after her hourly wage was lowered to $2.75.
"I feel really good about it. I don't have to worry so much about him," said 
Fran
Davidson, whose son Jeremy has worked at Goodwill in Great Falls, Montana, for 
more
than a decade. "I know he's not getting picked on, and he's in a safe place. He 
enjoys
what he's doing, and he's happy, and that's what we like for our kids." Jeremy 
started
out working for a sub-minimum wage but did well on his last time study and is 
currently
earning $7.80 an hour, Montana's minimum wage.
But foes of Section 14 (c) have hopes for a new bill that's now before Congress 
that
would repeal Section 14 (c) and make sub-minimum wages illegal across the board.
"Meaningful work deserves fair pay," the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Gregg Harper,
R.-Miss., told NBC News. "This dated provision unjustly prohibits workers with 
disabilities
from reaching their full potential."
The bill is opposed by trade associations for the employers of the disabled, and
past attempts to change the law have failed. But Marc Maurer, president of the 
National
Federation of the Blind and a foe of the sheltered workshop system, is 
cautiously
optimistic that this time the bill will pass, and end what he called a 
"two-tiered
system."
That system, explained Maurer, says "'Americans who have disabilities aren't as 
valuable
as other people,' and that's wrong. These folks have value. We should recognize 
that
value."
Monica Alba contributed to this report.
John G. Paré, Jr.
Executive Director for Advocacy and Policy NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
200 East Wells Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
Telephone: (410) 659-9314, ext. 2218
Fax: (410) 685-5653
Email:
jpare@xxxxxxx

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[tabi] Fw: [fcb-l] disabled workers payed just pennies a hour

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