The ethical issue Team D researched was that, is it right for employers to pay disabled employees below minimum wage and that it should be a minimum rate according to the price of living for the area in which they reside and or work. Recent reports have shown that disabled veterans and younger adults are working below minimum wage in government non-profit businesses. Some of them are even working for less than a dollar per hour. Goodwill, Sertoma Centre and sheltered workshops just to name a few. These businesses are regulated by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, a law originally intended to encourage the hiring of veterans with disabilities. It allows companies — including some federal contractors — to pay, based on how productive a person with disabilities is compared to a nondisabled worker doing the same task (2014 NPR…). We as a team believe that this situation is unethical towards the disabled employees. They should be able to make just as much as a nondisabled employee and grow within the company in regards to their performance and physicality.
Tavares-What seems to be the basis of the issue?
The basis of the issue is that companies are taking advantage of disabled workers being that their veterans or just regular civilians trying to make an extra income to survive. We feel as though new laws need to be put in place to compensate the disabled workers from working for pennies on the dollar. These workers are being exploited via the federal law called