This morning, Chicago public school teachers will once again take to the streets to protest an average annual salary of $76,000. In California, public employee unions are upset with relatively minor changes to the public employee pension system signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. But another discussion of labor is far more worthy of our attention and support.
The National Federation of the Blind, along with other groups in various communities, protested the lack of advocacy minimum wages, due to a window in the federal labor law.Last month, by CBS A news affiliate in Denver reported that some Goodwill workers were earning “as little as 20 cents an hour.”
Under section 14 (c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, employers may apply for a special wage certificate that allows people with disabilities to hire subsidized wages. The special certificate gives the companies the legal right to compensate these workers based on their productivity. “Without the law, many disabled people could lose their jobs,” argues Benevolent, a special defense attorney.
Shouldn’t workers’ pay be tied to results?
They are not for you or me. The only group subject to benefit-based pay are people with severe disabilities. The benevolence of the policy is more criticized when you consider that people who are prevented from using legal remedies have less grievances.
“(a)ll of the relevant information in the hands of a safe factory manager, the statutory appeals process can provide little counterweight,” writes Samuel R. Bagenstos, professor law at the University of Michigan School of Law and a former deputy attorney general in civil law. “And the process itself is fatally flawed because it does not provide for attorney fees or opt-out classes—and therefore is rarely invoked.”
In other words, the workers cannot resist against the paternal charity that oppresses them.
Charity also has no credibility claiming they lack the financial resources to pay their employees the minimum wage. In 2010, Benevolent Industries International, Inc., the national parent company for all of the nation’s second-hand clothing partners, paid its president and CEO James Gibbons more than half job training interfere in job training is helping to keep them from getting around the standard minimum wage that other American workers are afforded,” Andy Vossius, president of the Autistic Advocacy Network in Sacramento, explained to me via email.
Charity is not for private gain. If it is, there will be nothing wrong with the CEO earning the top dollar. However, Charity receives millions of dollars annually in government funds and also receives a tax exemption. Both gifts are based on our tax dollars in public service arrangements. In the words of Benevolent, their charitable mission is “to help people reach their full potential through the dignity and power of work.”
That dignity pays at 22 cents an hour.
Report:
- watchdog.org/56129/fl-florida-good-six-figures-for-ceos-less-than-minimum-wage-fo
- nfb.org/fair-mercedem
