• Disabled workers paid just pennies an hour – and it's legal
    9 replies, posted
[B]By Anna Schecter, Producer, NBC News[/B] [QUOTE]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.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]NBC News [img]http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130619-harold-with-dog-609p.380;380;7;70;0.jpg[/img] [I]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.[/I][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]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).[/QUOTE] [B]PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AND THE ACCOMPANYING VIDEO, IT CONTAINS A GREAT MORE INFORMATION.[/B] [url]http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal[/url] This is fucking disgusting.
There are a few disabled people that occasionally work with us at a local grocery store, and while they're not paid a ridiculously low amount such as 22 cents an hour, they're still underpaid and I've always thought it was kind of fucked up.
The company I used to work for had to deal with Goodwill, I really really have no respect for them.
I work at an auto parts warehouse, and there's a man there with dwarfism. Pretty hard core guy to work a job that involves moving often heavy objects on and off shelves, which are sometimes fairly high up. (He pushes a cart around that has a step ladder attached) I'm pretty sure he gets paid equal to any other full-time employee there.
This is pretty messed up, just because your disabled does not mean you should have reduced pay to the extent where it degrades and disrespects your basic human rights. I think it's good that people who are blind, deaf, physically disabled etc can have a role in society and make a difference and feel that they are not just sitting around on welfare waiting to die but when you take advantage of them, that's just evil. The CEO's should be taken to court for cruelty towards the disabled.
I work at panera and all the damn cashiers are like 5 foot tall and can't lift the front garbage because they wait until its full so I have to come and pick it up! Small people, women, and disableds must be replaced with strong tall men to make a brighter future for Panera
[QUOTE=spazthemax;41271797]I work at an auto parts warehouse, and there's a man there with dwarfism. Pretty hard core guy to work a job that involves moving often heavy objects on and off shelves, which are sometimes fairly high up. (He pushes a cart around that has a step ladder attached) I'm pretty sure he gets paid equal to any other full-time employee there.[/QUOTE] I knew a guy like that, worked at a Dilliard's Men. This is incredibly fucked. Did they just assume that a disability check would be enough? Every person deserves to be paid equally for equal work, not by their handicaps.
I have a mentally delayed brother. So I'm speaking from experience. If you force employers to pay every disabled person minimum wage you will doom most disabled people from regular work and in effect doom them to a very unfulfilled and boring life. These people work as something to do, not to make a living. They get money from the government to take care of them.
[QUOTE=sgman91;41274733]I have a mentally delayed brother. So I'm speaking from experience. If you force employers to pay every disabled person minimum wage you will doom most disabled people from regular work and in effect doom them to a very unfulfilled and boring life. These people work as something to do, not to make a living. They get money from the government to take care of them.[/QUOTE] I get what you're saying, my brother is the same (cerebral palsy), but at the same time these wages are still pretty ridiculous.
[QUOTE=Del91;41274820]I get what you're saying, my brother is the same (cerebral palsy), but at the same time these wages are still pretty ridiculous.[/QUOTE] So what do you propose? Are you going to force businesses to hire people for more than their work is worth? The liability alone of having disabled people working in a business already makes it difficult to find employment, but if you also forced minimum wage you would completely destroy the possibility for most, if not all, mentally disabled people.
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