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[Brian Williams][br]It's a part of American life, when something is no longer useful to you,

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you give it to Goodwill. You drop it in the Goodwill box,

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perhaps in the supermarket parking lot near you,

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and you've then done something good, with something you no longer consider good.

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You may know that Goodwill donation centers employ disabled workers,

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but you may not realize that some of those workers are legally exempt from minimum wage protection.

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That means that some end up making just pennies per hour.

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It is legal, but tonight, Harry Smith takes on the question of fairness.

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[Harry Smith][br]Goodwill, a place where you feel good about leaving your old clothes,

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a place where you feel good about shopping in a tough economy.

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Goodwill's mission is to give jobs to people who are down on their luck, or have a disability.

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Goodwill does a lot of good, no question about it.

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But in back rooms like this one, in Great Falls, Montana,

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out of sight of donors and shoppers,

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there is something going on that many disabled people do not feel so good about.

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People with disabilties working for less than the federal minimum wage

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of $7.25 an hour. There are even places in America where Goodwill workers earn as little as $0.22 an hour.

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And because of a loophole in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,

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it's all perfectly legal

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[woman's voice:][br]That's ridiculous.

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[Harry Smith:] Harold and Sheila Leigland have been married for more than twenty years.

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Both are blind and both have college degrees.

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Sheila worked at the Goodwill facility in Great Falls, Montana, earning about $3.50 an hour for four years.

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She says she quit last summer when they lowered her wage to $2.75 an hour.

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[Sheila Leigland][br]That $2.75, it would barely cover my cost of getting to work. I wouldn't make any money.

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[Harry Smith][br]They call the facility "the plant," and Harold still works there.

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It operates what's called a "sheltered workshop."

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Here the disabled get virtually guaranteed employment, but they are not guaranteed minimum wage.

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And that doesn't matter to some of the workers. Jeremy Davidson loves it here.

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[Harry Smith][br]You love it here?

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[Jeremy Davidson][br]I love it here, more than the world, more than the world yes. I also love, um, NASCAR, but this and NASCAR are my two favorite things in life.

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[Harry Smith] But for others, it is a dead end, a job of last resort in a world in which there are few options.

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What's your wage right now?

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[Harold Leigland][br]$5.46 an hour.

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[Harry Smith][br]$5.46 an hour?

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[Harold Leigland][br]Yeah, and that could change in a few months.

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[Harry Smith] It could change because sheltered workshop wages are determined by a speed test every six months.

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Goodwill staff use a stop watch to see how many items of clothing

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Harold can hang in a minute.

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[Harold Leigland][br]You're allowed two mistakes, and then anything else after that,

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your quality is considered poor.

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So, your perecentage of wage goes down.

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We talked with three advocates for the disabled,

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all of whom are disabled themselves.

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[Dr. Marc Mauer] I wouldn't pay anyone a sub minimum wage because I'm not willing to tell people day after day,

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week after week, month after month, and year after year that they are not worth it.

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Dr. Marc Mauer, President of the National Federation of the Blind,

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has been leading the fight to ban sheltered workshops altogether.

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[Dr. Marc Mauer] The sheletered workshop system takes people and systematically tells them

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they're not as good as the rest of the workforce.

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[Harry Smith] We found Department of Labor records showing hourly wages for Goodwill workers in Pennslyvania

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as low as $0.22 an hour, $0.38, $0.41, $0.44, the list of wages under $2.00 an hour goes on and on.

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But that's only part of the story.

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While some Goodwill workers are making pennies,

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their bosses are faring a bit better.

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A half-dozen regional Goodwill CEO's make $400,000 a year or more.

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Many others make nearly that much.

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In 2011, the CEO of Goodwill Industries of Southern California took home $1.1 million dollars in salary

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and deferred compensation.

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[Harry Smith] For someone who is an advocate for the disabled, how does that sit with you?

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[Cathy Steffke:][br]Is my head spinning right now? Because that's how it sits with me.

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Cathy Steffke once worked at a Goodwill.

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She's a disability rights activist, based in Wisconsin.

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[Cathy Steffke][br]How can anybody possibly go into human services thinking they're going to get rich.

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And do so, o-on, on, on the labor of the most vulnerable citizens that we have.

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How can that be fair or, or ethical?

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[Harry Smith][br]What's more, Goodwill grosses almost $5 billion dollars a year.

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Advocates are outraged that a tax exempt, non profit that gets hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding,

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does not pay some of its workers minimum wage.

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Does it feel like exploitation to you?

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[Ari Ne'eman][br]It is exploitation.

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It is unquestionably, and clearly exploitation.

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Ari Ne'eman is President of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

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[Ari Ne'eman][br]They're able to collect charitable donations,

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they're able to present themselves as doing good work,

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and yet they don't have to do right by their workers.

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[Harry Smith][br]Ari, let me ask you this:

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If I'm an executive from Goodwill, one of my arguments is, "I'm paying wages that are commensurate with the ability

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of the people who....

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you smile,

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....with the people I have in my,..in my workshop".

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[Ari Ne'eman][br]I think, that if you had a person with a stopwatch, um, standing outside your office on any given day,

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and assess as compared to some hypothetical, um, other broadcaster,

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how productive you are,uh, I-I think the result would be somewhat arbitrary.

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Jim Gibbons, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries International, dismisses Goodwill's critics.

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[Jim Gibbons][br]When the elitists, uh, try to define somebody else's success, that that's not only insulting to me

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in terms of the work that I'm trying to accomplish,

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but to the individuals who, who have goals that they have established for themselves.

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[Harry Smith][br]So, the people who we've talked to, who say that this is a civil rights issue, you, you would say they're elitist?

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[Jim Gibbons][br]I would say that every individual has a right to define success for themselves.

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[Harry Smith][br]Gibbons, who himself is blind, made more than a half a million dollars in 2011.

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He insists, Goodwill's payscale and sheltered workshops is fair.

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As I look at some of the hourly wages: $1.00, $1.52, $0.58 an hour, $1.30,

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this just goes on and on and on.

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[Jim Gibbons][br]You know, Harry, no matter what the person's, uh, issues are,

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whether it's a disability or anything else, what you see is, uh, everything is

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focused on the individual, their goals, their skillsets and their abilities.

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[Harry Smith][br]Your regional CEOs, some of them are making a half million dollars or more,

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how do you justify that disparity?

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[Jim Gibbons][br]I think these leaders are having a great impact in terms of new solutions,

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in terms of innovation, and in terms of job creation.

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[Harry Smith] I hear what you're saying, but I'm looking at a company that makes so much money.

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Looks to me like you've got the money to pay these people minimum wage.

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[JIm Gibbons][br]The, the, the whole driving force of why Goodwill has such a major impact in the communities that they're a part of

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is because Goodwills in our history have always been market driven. It really is just that simple.

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If you don't let that happen, then you're not around for the next day.

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[Harry Smith][br]Gibbons says, with a total workforce of more than a 110,000 people,

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Goodwill employs between 7 and 8,000 people with disabilities, whose pay, according to the

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Fair Labor Standards act, can be below minimum wage.

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He says, Goodwill gives people with the most severe disabilities an opportunity to work,

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an opportunity they would not otherwise have.

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He says for many of the people who make less than minimum wage, the experience of work is

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more important than the pay they get.

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[Jim Gibbons] It's typically not about their livelihood, it's about their fulfillment, it's about being a part of something,

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and it's probably a small part of their overall program.

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[Harry Smith] But for Harold and Sheila Leigland, Gibbons words sound out of step with their complaints.

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They say, they do need the money and they could be productive in their own right with the right job.

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A job better suited to their abilities.

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[Sheila Leigland][br]I thought that it would be a really good thing if I could answer the phone at the plant,

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and take messages and deliver messages, but that was poo-pooed.

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[Dr. Marc Mauer][br]It's the obligation of management to figure out how to use people's talents, not the obligation of the worker

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to fit into some box, that the manager dreams up and says, regardless of your disability, this is your job,

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and if you're not any good at it, that's your fault not mine.

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[Harry Smith][br]And is that the way you feel some of these Goodwills operate?

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[Dr. Marc Mauer][br]It is exactly how they operate.

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[Sheila Leigland][br]It's a question of being able to be treated like a first class citizen in this country,

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and have the rights of other people to work to obtain the things they need,

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and to be the people that they can be.

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It's a civil rights issue for me.

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[Brian Williams][br]Hmm, Harry Smith here with us.

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You said you set out just to shed light on this, and some of this just don't seem right.

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[Harry Smith][br]Yeah, this is a conversation that has been going on in this community for some time now,

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and we wanted to, maybe, make the conversation a little bit bigger.

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And on some levels it's so black and white on all the levels, it certainly is grey,

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if you're the family member of a disabled person who finds

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some way to get more self-meaning in their life by being able to get a job in a sheltered workshop

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that may be really profound and maybe a life changing, and life enhancing..er.. experience.

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But, for these disabled advocates, they say that model is out of date.

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That goes back to a different time in our country, and it's time to get into the 21st century.

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[Brian Williams][br]Powerful story well told. Thank you pal.

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[Harry Smith][br]Thanks for the opportunity.