Goodwill pays some disabled workers far
less than the minimum wage, while some executives earn hundreds of thousands of
dollars. It's all perfectly legal, according to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Rock Center's Harry Smith goes behind the scenes at Goodwill to
investigate.
A national charity whose executives earn six-figure salaries used a
legal loophole to pay disabled workers as little as three and four cents an
hour, according to documents obtained exclusively by NBC News.
An NBC News investigation recently
revealed that Goodwill Industries, which is among the non-profit groups
permitted to pay disabled workers far less than minimum wage because of a
federal law known as Section 14 (c), had paid workers as little as 22 cents an
hour.
Now newly obtained federal documents show that at least 13 Goodwill
franchises in 10 states paid 140 workers even less.
According to Department of Labor filings acquired via the Freedom of
Information Act, two Goodwill franchises in Fort Worth, Texas paid 51 employees
less than 10 cents an hour in 2011, with 14 earning just four cents an hour for
tasks described as “assembly.”
Franchises in Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio,
Florida, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Virginia also paid employees 21 cents or less
between 2008 and 2011, according to the documents. One franchise in Fairfield,
Ohio paid a worker just three cents an hour for hanging clothes in
2008.
“The results of your FOIA request reinforce that people with
disabilities are devalued in this situation and the operators of these programs
are not keeping pace with the times,” said Clyde Terry of the National Council
on Disability, an independent federal agency that advises the White House and
Congress on disability policy.
“This may have been appropriate in the 1930s,” said Terry, “but in this
day and age with the advances of technology, health care and education, is this
the best we can do?”
A spokesperson for Goodwill International Industries countered that it
was "misleading" to "cherrypick" low wages, calling them "extraordinary
situations."
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 non-profit
organizations like Goodwill that then set up their own so-called "sheltered
workshops" for disabled employees, where participants typically perform manual
tasks like hanging clothes.
The non-profits use “time studies” to calculate the salaries of Section
14 (c) workers. With a stopwatch, staff members time 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 non-profit then
applies a formula to calculate a rate of pay, which may be equal to or less than
minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months, and wages can rise or
fall.
NBC News
Harold Leigland with his guide dog on the bus during his morning
commute to the Goodwill facility in Great Falls, Montana, where he works hanging
clothing and earns $5.46 an hour.
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 or more.
Goodwill’s figures show that the non-profit currently has 69 local
franchises employing 7,300 workers eligible to be paid less than minimum wage.
NBC News obtained a range of filings from 2008 to 2012 for 89 different
franchises.
According to Goodwill’s figures, nationally the average hourly wage for
those Section 14 (c) employees is $7.47 an hour.
"The low wages you have referenced are extraordinary situations," said
Goodwill Industries International spokesperson Lauren Lawson. “For example,
sometimes an employee will work for a few minutes but then stop producing for
the rest of the shift because of an emotional or behavioral issue. Unlike a
typical employer, Goodwill does not dismiss an employee in such
situations.”
Dan Buron, executive director of Goodwill Industries of Southeastern
Michigan, which paid a worker six cents an hour in 2010, said the organization’s
work program is meant to “provid[e] the most significantly disabled individuals
in our community with work that will either lead to competitive employment; or
for those where this may not be possible, to enjoy the many personal, social and
economic benefits of working.”
Buron also said that in January 2013, Goodwill Industries of
Southeastern Michigan “established a floor wage of $1.85 for all participants”
in its program.
A spokesperson for Goodwill of Northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan,
which paid one worker in Marinette, Wisc. 16 cents an hour and another 19 cents
in 2010, said the organization currently has one program participant “with
significant and multiple disabilities” who makes 19 cents per hour.
“The person attends very few hours and cannot work without close,
one-on-one supervision from staff to complete any task,” said the spokesperson,
who noted that some participants earn more than the minimum wage, including one
who is paid $9.38 per hour.
The CEO of the Hagerstown, Maryland Goodwill, which paid a “hand
packager” 15 cents in 2011, said the wage was appropriate. “For the person in
question, the pay rate was accurate for his/her productivity on the work we were
doing then and for the amount of it that we had,” said Craig MacLean in an
emailed statement. “The same rationale applies to the person on the same
document … who was being compensated for his/her production at $8.24 because of
vastly greater skill and dexterity.”
The National Council on Disability’s Terry said he was unsurprised by
the wages revealed in the documents, and called for an end to the “sheltered
workshops” that pay subminimum wages.
“We want to support people with disabilities to find integrated
employment so they can fully participate in community life, contribute to their
company’s bottom line, and have a full life,” said Terry, who chairs the
council’s Subminimum Wage and Supported Employment committee. “It’s time these
sheltered workshops be phased out.”
In an earlier interview with NBC News, Goodwill International CEO Jim
Gibbons defended time studies and the 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 the overall program,” he said.
In the same interview, Gibbons also defended the compensation earned by
some Goodwill executives. His salary and deferred compensation totaled $729,000
in 2011, while the CEO of Goodwill Industries of Southern California earned $1.1
million and the top executive in Portland, Oregon earned more than
$500,000.
“These leaders are having a great impact in terms of new solutions, in
terms of innovation, and in terms of job creation,“ said Gibbons.
Link
to this article:
No comments:
Post a Comment