Some Disabled Workers Paid Just Pennies an Hour

[Tony_FLADEM]

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.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100834276

[jberryhill]

1. They get paid?

I'm surprised nobody has figured out how to charge them for the "occupational training and rehabilitation" that work provides.

I had no idea corporations were that generous.

If you want to make BIG money - run a non-profit.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. The law still serves a purpose.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023060022#post10

If this store is violating the law and exploiting workers then it should be fined by the labor department.

If the workers aren't being paid commensurate with their abilities then they are violating the law.

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. Dupe.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023060022

[sigmasix]

4. shit I've always frequented good will

We have used goodwill for most of our clothing for the past 15 years and I have been an avid lurker at the cd/record/book bin. My wife used to work as an intake skills assesment specialist for the goodwill from back home. They paid her more than minimum wage at the time, but i dont think the same pay scale applied to clientele.
Some individuals will never be able to perform the duties of a regular fulltime job, but still recieve maximum emotional and social benefit from working a full time job. I have worked with goodwill as part of successful socialization and normalization for profoundly disabled individuals. Some of the goodwill clientelle do jobs like filling parts bags for unassembled consumer products, all the way to make-work programs consisting of putting a nut and bolt together- something nondisabled individuals could do thousands of times a day- but requires feirce concentration and training to complete even once for some goodwill clientelle. Sometimes the social and developmental rewards of employment are the main point of the programs offered at some goodwills. These programs only generate certain amounts of funding depending on production acheivments; after which a sharing approach would seem more fair, instead of windfalls ending in the pockets of top administrators.
The goodwill's advertized calling is to assist hardcore unemployables in developing tools to become more valuable as employees. Goodwills are regional or community LLCs and have no relationship with each other except the name. I always make it a point to observe the employees and try to gauge the chances of the organization's dedication to the original calling.

I'm not in support of taking financial advantage of developmentally challenged individuals, but I am familiar enough with the workings of employement as a route to normalization that I understand this nuanced approach. Lots of opportunities for abuse by unscrupulous criminal wealthy "job creators"- and they dont care who they steal from- if goodwill's CEO is making a small fortune as compensation this indicates that the workers for his local goodwills are missing out on real pay.