Groups Clash over Ariz. Minimum-Wage Disability Exemption

commensurate wage huh? i dunno, looks, sounds and smells an awful lot like exploitation to me, or at least an invitation to exploitation.-nosmokes
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original-new standard news

Groups Clash over Ariz. Minimum-Wage Disability Exemption
by Catherine Komp


Some Arizonians want their state’s hard-won minimum-wage hike to apply only to “able-bodied” employees, leaving a loophole for paying disabled workers less.

Jan. 4 – Under Arizona's new minimum wage law, some of the lowest-paid workers – including those who made just pennies per hour a few days ago – are to get a raise this week. But some groups don't want the wage hike to apply to people with disabilities.

Before voters passed Arizona's new wage law, certain workers with disabilities were exempt from the minimum wage and were paid what are called "commensurate wages" instead. Under the new law, effective January 1, employers must pay even these employees the standard $6.75 hourly minimum wage.

Some advocates for people with disabilities support commensurate wage policies, saying it boosts employment for people who employers might otherwise refuse to hire, and they are asking the state legislature to reinstate the wage exceptions.

But others call the practice discriminatory, exploitative and one more way to segregate people with disabilities.

"'Commensurate wage' is an Orwellian tag for a law that legalizes inequality," said disability-rights activist and author Marta Russell. "It degrades the disabled laborer to equate his her productive capacity as less than a non-disabled laborer and to not give them equal pay. Who is to say that the disabled worker's labor is not equal to or more productive or profitable for their employers than the average couch potato's?"

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act permits employers to pay below-minimum wages to workers whose "productive capacity is impaired by a physical or mental disability, including those relating to age or injury." The Department of Labor's website says alcoholism and drug addiction are also "disabilities which may affect productive capacity."

For states that have minimum-wage laws, many include waivers to ensure that employers can continue to pay sub-minimum wages. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Colorado included such waivers in their new minimum wage increases, also going into effect this week. But Arizona failed to include an exemption in the language of its voter-approved ballot initiative last November.

Some 5,600 employers pay sub-minimum wages to about 424,000 workers across the country, according to a 2001 report from the US Government Accountability Office. More than half make less than $2.50 an hour.

To pay a worker a commensurate wage, the Department of Labor requires an employer to analyze a job's requirements and compare the productivity of a worker with a disability doing that job to a worker without. For example, if the average wage paid for product assembly is $8.00 per hour, and a disabled worker can only perform at half the rate of a worker without a disability, the commensurate wage would be $4 per hour.

Employers must re-evaluate the productivity of commensurate-wage workers every six months and adjust wages accordingly.
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complete article here

or evaluates whether or not the employees are doing fair calculations? Seems ripe for abuse.

I think that the Dept. of Vocational Rehab or its contractors (Goodwill Indus. being one of them) decides what the productivity capacity of disabled workers is. My kid brother, for example, was recently rated at 13% productivity.