So, I used to work in the disability services sector and the 14b argument is more complicated than most people want to admit.
I’ll use one guy I knew as an example. He loves work. He loves getting his paycheck. His idea of work? Assemble one widget in the morning and then talk to his friends for the rest of the day. He doesn’t give a shit that his paycheck is $2. This man would not be able to hold down a regular job without some paid full time to support him 1:1. So, if we eliminate all 14b facilities (and Goodwill is not alone in running these, in fact none are run by Goodwill in my area), what do we do with those individuals all day? They would end up sitting in their home all day unless we accompanied a 14b ban with a significant increase in funding for disability services. I do not believe that will happen. Politicians will ban 14b facilities and say “look, no more subminimum wages!” and leave it at that.
And I’ve had the conversation with many people. “Wouldn’t you rather have a regular job?” Very few say yes. They like the slow pace of the work and the ability to socialize. Those that do work at a high pace generally make minimum wage (the pay is set to be equal to minimum wage when they do work at a typical rate. They are paid by widget completed at a piece rate. The employer runs “time studies” with their staff to see what a reasonable amount of work is. If that’s 10 widgets per hour, you get paid 1/10th of minimum wage per widget). So, if the people with disabilities are telling me they like it, who am I to say they need to all find regular jobs?
Obviously there’s also an ethical question about the value of labor and what it means to “work”.
Edit: I hadn’t actually read that specific article. The allegation of not cleaning someone after an incontinence issue is entirely separate from the subminimum wage discussion because that’s something abuse happens to people with disabilities, unfortunately, regardless of setting. Does the worker making the video realize that her individuals have the choice to go to work each day? Also, she infantalizes them by calling adults “boys and girls,” a classic no no in disability services and a personal pet peeve. If she cares about them, she should have a conversation with them about their preferences, not post a video online for views.
But that’s the thing, it’s not less. If a typical worker assembles 10 widgets an hour and the worker with a disability completes 3, they get paid 30%. Like I said, there’s an ethical question there about the value of labor and what work means, even what it means to be “typical,” since those workers have varying productivity. The original justification for 14b of the FLSA was the productivity thing. It just allows people who couldn’t typically hold jobs to get some sort of work. Many of the people in 14b settings could not hold a regular job. If 14b is banned, most employees will switch to other non-work activities, should the funding even exist for those.
An incredible privilege? That was true when I worked fast food jobs. Sometimes it was dead.
And I said nothing about a raise, I said a minimum wage, and I sure don’t think that there should be a “you aren’t working hard enough” requirement to get the completely non-survivable wage of $7.25 an hour.
And you’re not going to be able to convince me that Goodwill can’t just afford to pay them that rate anyway. They just don’t because they don’t have to.
But they ARE paying the that wage. They’re just paying them incrementally, based on performance, rather than time.
Again, yes, you are incredibly privileged that you have been allowed to sit around doing nothing & getting paid for it. Quit pretending you aren’t.
Dead time is still time on the job. Time when you ARE expected to work. The fact that you didn’t get fired is your privilege.
Good Will is not some saintly organization, no one here is arguing that. But commerce is commerce & if those jobs fill the need for someone who can’t take on additional work, then they serve a reasonably valuable purpose in society.
Literally the point of minimum wage is that it’s minimum. It should be the bare minimum we would give anyone for taking time away from their lives for the benefit of a company, regardless of the amount of work done.
Frankly, if we’re going to start adjusting pay based on the quantity and difficulty of work done like that, we are going to need to start paying frontline retail workers a lot more, and CEOs and the like a lot less.
That’s also not true at all. There are plenty of employment options that don’t revolve around hourly compensation at all, they are ENTIRELY performance based.
This happens to be one of those jobs.
If you & I are bothered offered a job to make X amount of widgets in Y amount of time, don’t want to be paid for the hour or per widget?
You have control over your pay if you’re paid per widget. You have no control when paid per hour.
Should we both be paid $15 for that hour if I only make 3 widgets & you make 20?
Minimum wage only extends to hourly based employment. It does not extend to contract or performance based employment.
So, I used to work in the disability services sector and the 14b argument is more complicated than most people want to admit.
I’ll use one guy I knew as an example. He loves work. He loves getting his paycheck. His idea of work? Assemble one widget in the morning and then talk to his friends for the rest of the day. He doesn’t give a shit that his paycheck is $2. This man would not be able to hold down a regular job without some paid full time to support him 1:1. So, if we eliminate all 14b facilities (and Goodwill is not alone in running these, in fact none are run by Goodwill in my area), what do we do with those individuals all day? They would end up sitting in their home all day unless we accompanied a 14b ban with a significant increase in funding for disability services. I do not believe that will happen. Politicians will ban 14b facilities and say “look, no more subminimum wages!” and leave it at that.
And I’ve had the conversation with many people. “Wouldn’t you rather have a regular job?” Very few say yes. They like the slow pace of the work and the ability to socialize. Those that do work at a high pace generally make minimum wage (the pay is set to be equal to minimum wage when they do work at a typical rate. They are paid by widget completed at a piece rate. The employer runs “time studies” with their staff to see what a reasonable amount of work is. If that’s 10 widgets per hour, you get paid 1/10th of minimum wage per widget). So, if the people with disabilities are telling me they like it, who am I to say they need to all find regular jobs?
Obviously there’s also an ethical question about the value of labor and what it means to “work”.
Edit: I hadn’t actually read that specific article. The allegation of not cleaning someone after an incontinence issue is entirely separate from the subminimum wage discussion because that’s something abuse happens to people with disabilities, unfortunately, regardless of setting. Does the worker making the video realize that her individuals have the choice to go to work each day? Also, she infantalizes them by calling adults “boys and girls,” a classic no no in disability services and a personal pet peeve. If she cares about them, she should have a conversation with them about their preferences, not post a video online for views.
I’m not sure why any of that justifies paying them less than an abled person would for doing the same job.
But that’s the thing, it’s not less. If a typical worker assembles 10 widgets an hour and the worker with a disability completes 3, they get paid 30%. Like I said, there’s an ethical question there about the value of labor and what work means, even what it means to be “typical,” since those workers have varying productivity. The original justification for 14b of the FLSA was the productivity thing. It just allows people who couldn’t typically hold jobs to get some sort of work. Many of the people in 14b settings could not hold a regular job. If 14b is banned, most employees will switch to other non-work activities, should the funding even exist for those.
That’s not how minimum wage is supposed to work. It’s a minimum for a reason. It doesn’t matter how much work you actually do.
That’s not true at all. Minimum Wage is the minimum standard pay for DOING a job.
You don’t get minimum wage for not working.
I have yet to work a job where I didn’t have tons of down time. I still got paid more than minimum wage for all of them.
Well congratulations, that sounds like an incredible privilege.
I’ve also had jobs with downtime. Unfortunately, my employers did not see fit to give me a raise for not doing anything during that time.
Maybe you’re just better at doing jack shit than the rest of us.
An incredible privilege? That was true when I worked fast food jobs. Sometimes it was dead.
And I said nothing about a raise, I said a minimum wage, and I sure don’t think that there should be a “you aren’t working hard enough” requirement to get the completely non-survivable wage of $7.25 an hour.
And you’re not going to be able to convince me that Goodwill can’t just afford to pay them that rate anyway. They just don’t because they don’t have to.
But they ARE paying the that wage. They’re just paying them incrementally, based on performance, rather than time.
Again, yes, you are incredibly privileged that you have been allowed to sit around doing nothing & getting paid for it. Quit pretending you aren’t.
Dead time is still time on the job. Time when you ARE expected to work. The fact that you didn’t get fired is your privilege.
Good Will is not some saintly organization, no one here is arguing that. But commerce is commerce & if those jobs fill the need for someone who can’t take on additional work, then they serve a reasonably valuable purpose in society.
Literally the point of minimum wage is that it’s minimum. It should be the bare minimum we would give anyone for taking time away from their lives for the benefit of a company, regardless of the amount of work done.
Frankly, if we’re going to start adjusting pay based on the quantity and difficulty of work done like that, we are going to need to start paying frontline retail workers a lot more, and CEOs and the like a lot less.
That’s also not true at all. There are plenty of employment options that don’t revolve around hourly compensation at all, they are ENTIRELY performance based.
This happens to be one of those jobs.
If you & I are bothered offered a job to make X amount of widgets in Y amount of time, don’t want to be paid for the hour or per widget?
You have control over your pay if you’re paid per widget. You have no control when paid per hour.
Should we both be paid $15 for that hour if I only make 3 widgets & you make 20?
Minimum wage only extends to hourly based employment. It does not extend to contract or performance based employment.