WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 [Brian Williams] It's a part of American life, when something is no longer useful to you, 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:07.000 you give it to Goodwill. You drop it in the Goodwill box, 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:10.000 perhaps in the supermarket parking lot near you, 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:15.000 and you've then done something good, with something you no longer consider good. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.000 You may know that Goodwill donation centers employ disabled workers, 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:27.000 but you may not realize that some of those workers are legally exempt from minimum wage protection. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:30.000 That means that some end up making just pennies per hour. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.000 It is legal, but tonight, Harry Smith takes on the question of fairness. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:40.000 [Harry Smith] Goodwill, a place where you feel good about leaving your old clothes, 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.000 a place where you feel good about shopping in a tough economy. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:49.000 Goodwill's mission is to give jobs to people who are down on their luck, or have a disability. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.000 Goodwill does a lot of good, no question about it. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.000 But in back rooms like this one, in Great Falls, Montana, 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.000 out of sight of donors and shoppers, 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.000 there is something going on that many disabled people do not feel so good about. 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:09.000 People with disabilties working for less than the federal minimum wage 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:18.000 of $7.25 an hour. There are even places in America where Goodwill workers earn as little as $0.22 an hour. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:22.000 And because of a loophole in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:24.000 it's all perfectly legal 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:26.000 [woman's voice:] That's ridiculous. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:29.000 [Harry Smith:] Harold and Sheila Leigland have been married for more than twenty years. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:32.000 Both are blind and both have college degrees. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:39.000 Sheila worked at the Goodwill facility in Great Falls, Montana, earning about $3.50 an hour for four years. 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:44.000 She says she quit last summer when they lowered her wage to $2.75 an hour. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:50.000 [Sheila Leigland] That $2.75, it would barely cover my cost of getting to work. I wouldn't make any money. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:55.000 [Harry Smith] They call the facility "the plant," and Harold still works there. 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:58.000 It operates what's called a "sheltered workshop." 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:04.000 Here the disabled get virtually guaranteed employment, but they are not guaranteed minimum wage. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:08.000 And that doesn't matter to some of the workers. Jeremy Davidson loves it here. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:09.000 [Harry Smith] You love it here? 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:19.000 [Jeremy Davidson] 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. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:26.000 [Harry Smith] But for others, it is a dead end, a job of last resort in a world in which there are few options. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:27.000 What's your wage right now? NOTE Paragraph 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:29.000 [Harold Leigland] $5.46 an hour. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:30.000 [Harry Smith] $5.46 an hour? 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:33.000 [Harold Leigland] Yeah, and that could change in a few months. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:39.000 [Harry Smith] It could change because sheltered workshop wages are determined by a speed test every six months. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.000 Goodwill staff use a stop watch to see how many items of clothing 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:45.000 Harold can hang in a minute. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:49.000 [Harold Leigland] You're allowed two mistakes, and then anything else after that, 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:52.000 your quality is considered poor. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:56.000 So, your perecentage of wage goes down. 00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:59.000 We talked with three advocates for the disabled, 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000 all of whom are disabled themselves. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:07.000 [Dr. Marc Mauer] I wouldn't pay anyone a sub minimum wage because I'm not willing to tell people day after day, 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:12.000 week after week, month after month, and year after year that they are not worth it. 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.000 Dr. Marc Mauer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:19.000 has been leading the fight to ban sheltered workshops altogether. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:25.000 [Dr. Marc Mauer] The sheletered workshop system takes people and systematically tells them 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:28.000 they're not as good as the rest of the workforce. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:33.000 [Harry Smith] We found Department of Labor records showing hourly wages for Goodwill workers in Pennslyvania 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:44.000 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. 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.000 But that's only part of the story. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:49.000 While some Goodwill workers are making pennies, 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.000 their bosses are faring a bit better. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:58.000 A half-dozen regional Goodwill CEO's make $400,000 a year or more. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 Many others make nearly that much. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:09.000 In 2011, the CEO of Goodwill Industries of Southern California took home $1.1 million dollars in salary 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:10.000 and deferred compensation. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:15.000 [Harry Smith] For someone who is an advocate for the disabled, how does that sit with you? 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 [Cathy Steffke:] Is my head spinning right now? Because that's how it sits with me. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 Cathy Steffke once worked at a Goodwill. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.000 She's a disability rights activist, based in Wisconsin. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:30.000 [Cathy Steffke] How can anybody possibly go into human services thinking they're going to get rich. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:38.000 And do so, o-on, on, on the labor of the most vulnerable citizens that we have. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:40.000 How can that be fair or, or ethical? 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:45.000 [Harry Smith] What's more, Goodwill grosses almost $5 billion dollars a year. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:51.000 Advocates are outraged that a tax exempt, non profit that gets hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding, 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:55.000 does not pay some of its workers minimum wage. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:57.000 Does it feel like exploitation to you? 00:04:57.000 --> 00:04:59.000 [Ari Ne'eman] It is exploitation. 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:03.000 It is unquestionably, and clearly exploitation. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:07.000 Ari Ne'eman is President of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:10.000 [Ari Ne'eman] They're able to collect charitable donations, 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:14.000 they're able to present themselves as doing good work, 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:18.000 and yet they don't have to do right by their workers. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:19.000 [Harry Smith] Ari, let me ask you this: 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:27.000 If I'm an executive from Goodwill, one of my arguments is, "I'm paying wages that are commensurate with the ability 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:29.000 of the people who.... 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:30.000 you smile, 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:34.000 ....with the people I have in my,..in my workshop". 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:42.000 [Ari Ne'eman] I think, that if you had a person with a stopwatch, um, standing outside your office on any given day, 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:49.000 and assess as compared to some hypothetical, um, other broadcaster, 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:55.000 how productive you are,uh, I-I think the result would be somewhat arbitrary. 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:01.000 Jim Gibbons, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries International, dismisses Goodwill's critics. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:08.000 [Jim Gibbons] When the elitists, uh, try to define somebody else's success, that that's not only insulting to me 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:11.000 in terms of the work that I'm trying to accomplish, 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:16.000 but to the individuals who, who have goals that they have established for themselves. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:23.000 [Harry Smith] So, the people who we've talked to, who say that this is a civil rights issue, you, you would say they're elitist? 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:30.000 [Jim Gibbons] I would say that every individual has a right to define success for themselves. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:35.000 [Harry Smith] Gibbons, who himself is blind, made more than a half a million dollars in 2011. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:40.000 He insists, Goodwill's payscale and sheltered workshops is fair. 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:49.000 As I look at some of the hourly wages: $1.00, $1.52, $0.58 an hour, $1.30, 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.000 this just goes on and on and on. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.000 [Jim Gibbons] You know, Harry, no matter what the person's, uh, issues are, 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:01.000 whether it's a disability or anything else, what you see is, uh, everything is 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:07.000 focused on the individual, their goals, their skillsets and their abilities. 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:12.000 [Harry Smith] Your regional CEOs, some of them are making a half million dollars or more, 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:15.000 how do you justify that disparity? 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:20.000 [Jim Gibbons] I think these leaders are having a great impact in terms of new solutions, 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 in terms of innovation, and in terms of job creation. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:29.000 [Harry Smith] I hear what you're saying, but I'm looking at a company that makes so much money. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:33.000 Looks to me like you've got the money to pay these people minimum wage. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:44.000 [JIm Gibbons] The, the, the whole driving force of why Goodwill has such a major impact in the communities that they're a part of 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:50.000 is because Goodwills in our history have always been market driven. It really is just that simple. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:54.000 If you don't let that happen, then you're not around for the next day. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:58.000 [Harry Smith] Gibbons says, with a total workforce of more than a 110,000 people, 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:04.000 Goodwill employs between 7 and 8,000 people with disabilities, whose pay, according to the 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:08.000 Fair Labor Standards act, can be below minimum wage. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:13.000 He says, Goodwill gives people with the most severe disabilities an opportunity to work, 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.000 an opportunity they would not otherwise have. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:21.000 He says for many of the people who make less than minimum wage, the experience of work is 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:24.000 more important than the pay they get. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:30.000 [Jim Gibbons] It's typically not about their livelihood, it's about their fulfillment, it's about being a part of something, 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:33.000 and it's probably a small part of their overall program. 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:37.000 [Harry Smith] But for Harold and Sheila Leigland, Gibbons words sound out of step with their complaints. 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:43.000 They say, they do need the money and they could be productive in their own right with the right job. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:45.000 A job better suited to their abilities. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:51.000 [Sheila Leigland] I thought that it would be a really good thing if I could answer the phone at the plant, 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:55.000 and take messages and deliver messages, but that was poo-pooed. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:02.000 [Dr. Marc Mauer] It's the obligation of management to figure out how to use people's talents, not the obligation of the worker 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:08.000 to fit into some box, that the manager dreams up and says, regardless of your disability, this is your job, 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:11.000 and if you're not any good at it, that's your fault not mine. 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:16.000 [Harry Smith] And is that the way you feel some of these Goodwills operate? 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:18.000 [Dr. Marc Mauer] It is exactly how they operate. 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:24.000 [Sheila Leigland] It's a question of being able to be treated like a first class citizen in this country, 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:31.000 and have the rights of other people to work to obtain the things they need, 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:34.000 and to be the people that they can be. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:36.000 It's a civil rights issue for me. 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:38.000 [Brian Williams] Hmm, Harry Smith here with us. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:43.000 You said you set out just to shed light on this, and some of this just don't seem right. 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:47.000 [Harry Smith] Yeah, this is a conversation that has been going on in this community for some time now, 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:51.000 and we wanted to, maybe, make the conversation a little bit bigger. 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:55.000 And on some levels it's so black and white on all the levels, it certainly is grey, 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:58.000 if you're the family member of a disabled person who finds 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:05.000 some way to get more self-meaning in their life by being able to get a job in a sheltered workshop 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:10.000 that may be really profound and maybe a life changing, and life enhancing..er.. experience. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:14.000 But, for these disabled advocates, they say that model is out of date. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:20.000 That goes back to a different time in our country, and it's time to get into the 21st century. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:22.000 [Brian Williams] Powerful story well told. Thank you pal. 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:25.000 [Harry Smith] Thanks for the opportunity.