What are the hallmarks of a business-friendly environment? Competitive wages, opportunities to build wealth, support for entrepreneurial endeavors, freedom to create and innovate, dignity of work, and economic independence and sustainability – to name a few.
There’s a law on the books in Virginia that legislators and advocates on both sides of the aisle argue stands in direct contrast to many of these principles. It goes back to 1938.
According to Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers with a 14(c) certificate from the Wage & Hour Division of the Department of Labor are legally permitted to pay wages below the minimum wage to employees with physical, developmental, cognitive, mental or age-related disabilities.
Here’s how it works: Under the employment of a company with a 14(c) certificate, people with disabilities are subject to routine, timed productivity tests that benchmark their performance against employees without disabilities. Based on how an individual performs on any given day, their pay will be adjusted – sometimes cut to less than half the state minimum wage – until the next test when they have a chance to prove their “worth” to their employer.
There are people who say this is the only way to employ someone with a significant disability. That if employers lose the flexibility to match their employees’ wages to their...
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