Resolution 2011-2 Regarding Fair Wages for Maryland Workers with Disabilities

WHEREAS, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed in 1938 to provide workforce protections to American employees by establishing a federal minimum wage and prohibiting employers from exploiting workers through the payment of wages below this specified minimum; and

         WHEREAS, Section 14(c) of this legislation permits the Secretary of Labor to grant special wage certificates allowing specified employers to pay workers with disabilities at rates lower than the federal minimum wage, eliminating those workforce protections granted to every other American citizen; and

         WHEREAS, paying workers with disabilities subminimum wages stems from the public misperception that people with disabilities cannot be productive employees and in addition, this exploitive standard for employment is patronizingly considered a compassionate opportunity for people with disabilities to receive the "tangible and intangible benefits of work"; and

         WHEREAS, when provided effective rehabilitation services, training, and support, employees with disabilities (even those with the most significant disabilities)  can be as productive as nondisabled workers, obtaining jobs paying the federal minimum wage or higher; and

         WHEREAS, though some employers possessing special wage certificates claim to provide rehabilitation and training to their workers with disabilities to prepare them for competitive employment, the fact that such employers choose to pay their workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage demonstrates that they do not possess the skill to prepare those workers for integrated employment in the mainstream economy; and

         WHEREAS, there are forty-three facilities that possess a Special "Subminimum" Wage certificate throughout Maryland, which not only allows them to exploit the labor of people with disabilities through the payment of wages less than the federal minimum wage, but it also denies these same individuals the opportunity to receive the training and support to become competitively employed; and 

         WHEREAS, the only way to cease this shameful wage discrimination of workers with disabilities is to repeal Section 14(c) of the FLSA and to revoke every special wage certificate granted under that provision: Now, therefore,

         BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland in Convention assembled this thirtieth   day of October 2011, in the city of Ocean City, Maryland, that this organization call upon each of the 43 entities throughout Maryland that currently possesses a Special Wage certificate, from the U.S. Department of Labor, to immediately surrender that Special Wage certificate, and to adopt a business model that values each of their employees with disabilities by paying them the federal minimum wage or higher; and,

         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urges each of them to join with the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland in our efforts to encourage Maryland's federal congressional delegation to cosponsor  the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act of 2011 as a part of our efforts toward the United States Congress for passage of this key legislation which provides an incentive for employers to adopt a business model that pays employees with disabilities the federal minimum wage or higher by phasing out Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act and by revoking the certificates issued under that provision so that workers with disabilities are guaranteed the same workforce protections afforded nondisabled employees; and

         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization condemn and deplore every entity that continues to exploit people with disabilities through the payment of subminimum wages.