MARCH, 1979
VOICE OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
THE BRAILLE MONITOR
PUBLISHED MONTHLY IN INKPRINT, BRAILLE, AND ON TALKING-BOOK DISCS BY THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
KENNETH JERNIGAN, President
NATIONAL OFFICE
1800 JOHNSON STREET
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND 21230
WASHINGTON OFFICE
1346 CONNECTICUT AVENUE, NW., SUITE 212
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036
(202) 785-2974
LETTERS FOR THE PRESIDENT, ADDRESS CHANGES, SUBSCRIPTION REQUESTS, AND ORDERS FOR NFB LITERATURE SHOULD BE SENT TO THE NATIONAL OFFICE. ARTICLES FOR THE MONITOR AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SHOULD BE SENT TO THE WASHINGTON OFFICE.
DONALD McCONNELL, Editor
MONITOR SUBSCRIPTIONS COST THE FEDERATION ABOUT FIFTEEN DOLLARS PER YEAR. MEMBERS ARE INVITED, AND NON-MEMBERS ARE REQUESTED, TO COVER THE SUBSCRIPTION COST. DUE TO ITS HIGH COST, BRAILLE IS AVAILABLE ONLY TO THE DEAF-BLIND AND THOSE WITH A SIMILARLY COMPELLING NEED FOR THAT MEDIUM. DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTION PAYMENTS SHOULD BE MADE PAYABLE TO NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND AND SENT TO:
RICHARD EDLUND, Treasurer
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
BOX 11185
KANSAS CITY, KANSAS 66111
If you or a friend would like to remember the National Federation of the Blind in your will, you can do so by employing the following language:
"I give, devise, and bequeath unto National Federation of the Blind, a District of Columbia nonprofit corporation, the sum of $_____ (or "_____ percent of my net estate" or "the following stocks and bonds:_____") to be used for its worthy purposes on behalf of blind persons."
If your wishes are more complex, you may have your attorney communicate with the National Office for other suggested forms.
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND—IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES.
THE BRAILLE MONITOR
PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
MARCH 1979THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EXPOSES THE SHELTERED WORKSHOP SYSTEM
SHELTERED SHOPS: PAY OF THE BLIND OFTEN TRAILS MINIMUM WAGE AT CHARITY WORKROOMS
BY JONATHAN KWITNY and JERRY LANDAUER
SHELTERED SHOPS: HOW A BLIND WORKER GETS $1.85 AN HOUR AFTER 20 YEARS ON JOB
BY JONATHAN KWITNY and JERRY LANDAUER
THE NFB PETITIONS THE SECRETARY OF LABOR TO END SUBMINIMUM WAGES FOR BLIND WORKERS
BY JAMES GASHEL
NFB OF NEW YORK STATE KEEPS ON THE PRESSURE TO REFORM SHELTERED WORKSHOPS
CONCERNING BUILDINGS, ASSOCIATES, AND OTHER THINGS
BY KENNETH JERNIGAN
A RECOGNITION RICHLY DESERVED
BY KENNETH JERNIGAN
CHAPTER PROMOTION ON A SHOESTRING
BY SCOTT H. LEWIS
RECIPE OF THE MONTH
BY JOHN ZUSKA
On January 24 and 25, the front page of the Wall Street Journal contained articles that caused rejoicing in the blind community across the country. The articles—a two-part series by investigative reporters Jonathan Kwitny and Jerry Landauer—delve deeply into the exploitation of blind workers by sheltered workshops. The articles are detailed and devastating. They reach the same conclusions the Federation reached years ago—that most shops exist solely for the enrichment of their sighted staff members and that they represent a major public scandal just waiting to be uncovered.
The Journal reporters became interested in the subject after the congressional hearings on H.R. 8104, the Federation's bill to guarantee the minimum wage to blind workers in shops and in private industry. As the reporters looked into the issue more deeply they realized that it was a story needing to be told. In the ensuing months, they talked to Federation officers and members around the country. We directed them to the worst shops. We found blind workers willing to take the risks involved in talking to reporters. We provided background information compiled over years of experience with the shop system. The articles contain few mentions of the NFB, but Federationists will recognize our part in the events reported—for instance, the union-organizing efforts in Chicago and Cincinnati. In fact, the Federation has been virtually alone in the effort to reform the shop system.
This is not to say that we wrote the articles. Reporters Kwitny and Landauer did their own research, which was meticulous and extensive. We saw no advance copies of the articles. As National Industries for the Blind and its satellite shops began to understand what was afoot, they mounted a campaign to stop the articles. We were told the Journal was subjected to enormous pressure not to print these articles. The reporters became the target of mailings designed to persuade them of the evil intentions of the NFB. This did not have the desire effect. It seems to have convinced the reporters more than ever that here was a story that needed to be brought to the public.
More than one person has commented that these articles are the death knell for the custodial shop system. Other newspapers are likely to begin their own investigations, and there are rumblings about congressional action to stop the reported abuses. The abuses and mismanagement, in some cases, go beyond anything that has been printed before. They destroy the time-worn excuse put forward by National Industries for the Blind that we simply do not understand the economic realities of a workshop. In truth, there can be no excuse for the practices reported in these articles.
These articles also accomplish another purpose. They make clear the connection between the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) and the scandal surrounding Industries for the Blind of New York State (IBNYS) reported in the November-December 1978 Monitor. At the NAC meeting in Chicago last fall, NAC's assistant director, Carl Augusto, denied that NAC has any responsibility for IBNYS because it is not an accredited agency. The Journal explains, however, that the board of IBNYS consists of representatives of the agencies whose products are marketed by it. In other words, those ten agencies control IBNYS; they are responsible for IBNYS; and, in fact, those agencies are IBNYS.
And what are the ten agencies? Seven of them are accredited by NAC—the Albany Association for the Blind, the Industrial Home for the Blind in Brooklyn, the Blind Association of Western New York in Buffalo, the Jewish Guild for the Blind, the New York Association for the Blind, the Blind Work Association in Binghamton, and the Central Association for the Blind in Utica. Several of these agencies are flagships in the NAC fleet. Wesley Sprague, the director of the New York Association for the Blind, is chairman of NAC's commission on standards. Joseph Larkin, the director of the Industrial Home, is a NAC board member; and Peter Salmon, the Industrial Home's former director, was once president of NAC. For NAC to deny responsibility for these scandal-ridden agencies is an absurdity.
Another fact emerges from these articles which supports our contention that NAC is simply a front for the workshop system-granting shops a public seal of approval in return for financial and political support. The following workshops come in for criticism in these articles; the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, the Cincinnati Association for the Blind, Royal Maid, the Industrial Home for the Blind, the Albany Association for the Blind, and the Jewish Guild for the Blind. Every one of them is accredited by NAC. NAC holds them up as examples of quality services. National Industries for the Blind, of course, is an official supporter of NAC. Quality services and high standards, indeed! These misused phrases must be beginning to stick in NAC's craw as the evidence pours in about the real conditions in NAC-accredited agencies.
And what of the American Foundation for the Blind in all of this? It was largely responsible for the creation of National Industries for the Blind many years ago and has continually maintained close ties with that organization. Of course, it was both father and mother to the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC)—appointing the original Commission on Standards and Accreditation (COMSTAC), providing staff to COMSTAC and its successor NAC, and financing (in other words, purchasing and owning) the whole show. In fact, these Wall Street Journal articles are a frontal attack upon the entire American Foundation for the Blind empire. Year after year the Foundation has sent its legions forth to oppress the blind, and generally the National Federation of the Blind has been the only group to stand forth and meet them. The American Foundation empire is a shamefully interlocking system of self-serving agencies and so-called "professionals," patting each other on the back and singing each other's praises to the public, seeking to acquire and maintain respectability by repetition and mutual reinforcement. The Foundation creates the National Industries for the Blind (NIB); NIB sponsors and supports the workshops (for a good fee, of course); the workshops provide members for the Foundation's board; the Foundation creates and finances NAC; the Foundation helps finance the American Council of the Blind (ACB); NAC, the Foundation, the workshops, and ACB create the Affiliated Leadership League of and for the Blind of America (ALL); and the boards of directors interlock and overlap and coalesce. The Foundation has money, prestige, and big names on its board; but a new spirit is stirring in the land.
The blind have organized. We are speaking for ourselves, and the influence of our numbers and the justice of our cause are being felt. There are those who still say, "Why the National Federation of the Blind?" Let them read the following Wall Street Journal articles for answer. There are those who say we are militant and radical. Will they now say the same of the Wall Street Journal? Its criticisms are just as telling as ours have ever been; its charges just as biting.
January 24-25, 1979, may well mark a turning point in the story of the blind and the struggle of the blind to gain equal treatment and first-class citizenship. The destruction which the Wall Street Journal articles has wrought among the squadrons of the American Foundation - NAC - ACB - NIB forces may well be irreparable. As the public understands, nothing can reverse the trend. Nothing can save these bastions of custodialism. If the National Federation of the Blind had done nothing else during the past year except help bring about this expose, it would have justified its existence. The articles speak for themselves. They also underline the Federation's battle-cry; We know who we are, and we will never go back.by JONATHAN KWITNY and JERRY LANDAUER
Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
[Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal. Copyright, Dow Jones Company, Inc., 1979. All rights reserved. This article appeared on January 24, 1979.]
Blind people for years have entered the job market through so-called sheltered workshops—sheltered by law, that is, from having to pay the blind workers the minimum wage.
But many of the blind workers feel they are working at coolie wages, helping to fatten the profits not only of the charities that run the workshops but also of the big companies like General Electric, Procter & Gamble and American Telephone & Telegraph that contract with the workshops.
Operating under a 1938 law that excludes them from the wage-and-hour regulations are well over 100 workshops around the country that employ at least 6,000 blind workers to produce, assemble or package various products. Many of the workers complain that their piecework rates are so low that even sighted people would have trouble earning the minimum wage (which rose to $2.90 Jan. 1).
Indeed, documents show that many workers earn less than $1 an hour—and some get only carfare—without fringe benefits or job security. Frequent layoffs often hold their annual incomes below $1,500. Administrators of the workshops, by contrast, often receive salaries in the $50,000 range, with substantial benefits.
Exploitation of the blind is denied by the workshop administrators. They say that the blind workers are paid less than workers elsewhere because they produce less and that in any case most blind workers receive other benefits through Social Security payments and tax exemptions.
The big companies that use the workshops' services are pleased with the relationship. The arrangement is profitable for them—and they receive credit for affirmative action in helping the handicapped as part of the bargain.
But some blind workers aren't so happy with their low pay and often substandard working conditions. In some cases, they are trying to unionize their shops.
David Caldwell, 28 years old, was fired last May from the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind after helping an unsuccessful move to affiliate with the Communications Workers of America. James Kestleloot, head of the Lighthouse's workshops, says Mr. Caldwell was fired "for other reasons." So, he says, were about nine other pro-union workers who protested that they were fired to discourage union activity. He notes that the National Labor Relations Board ruled against their complaints for lack of sufficient evidence that the firings were related to union work.
Wages at the Lighthouse averaged $1.67 an hour at the height of the union campaign in 1976 (they have since been raised, but apparently the average remains well under the minimum wage). "People had to stand in puddles to work because the roof leaked," Mr. Caldwell says. "We had to wear coats because it was cold. Half the toilets didn't work. There was no running water for awhile. We had rats, waterbugs."
Mr. Kestleloot says the workshop conditions Mr. Caldwell describes occurred in a rented building. "These problems from time to time would come up, and they've all been fixed," Mr. Kestleloot says.
With little support from their employers and from organized labor so far, the workers stand almost alone in any effort to improve their lot.
There are some allies, however, among privately owned companies that do work similar to what the workshops do, and these companies have frequently complained to the Small Business Administration about unfair competition—but to no avail. Particularly vocal is the Office Products Manufacturers Association, a trade group whose 120 members compete with the workshops in assembling and packaging office supplies.
The association says its member companies pay out about 23% of their sales revenues as salaries to production workers (many of whom are blind). Documents show, by comparison, that competing sheltered workshops pay out about 10% of revenues for production labor.
"It's a rip-off of the blind," says Michael Goodman, lawyer for the office-supply association. "The blind workshops aren't supplying a decent wage, and they aren't training people to work in private industry. Yet when you try to question them, it's like attacking mom and apple pie."
The workshops do have an aura of respect. They operate under the aegis of a committee appointed by the President of the U.S. composed of private citizens and representatives of government agencies that buy the workshops' services. (Federal and state agencies, required by law to give special purchasing considerations to the sheltered workshops' service, account for about half of the workshops' business.)
Executive director of the presidential committee is Charles W. Fletcher, a retired Army general, who contends that most of the workshops are doing a good job. "There may be one or two places where blind workers aren't getting as much as they should," he concedes, but he adds that in any case, his committee doesn't have authority to regulate the workshops.
The workshops themselves generally contend that they can't afford to pay higher wages. Three workshops in Maryland, however, say they are paying at least the minimum wage. The Maryland workshops—among the few that are administered by blind people—are run by persons associated with the National Federation of the Blind, a Baltimore-based organization, which argues that sheltered workshops should be phased out and replaced with training in cane travel. Braille, and other skills for placement of the blind in private industry.
Although such placement is the goal of the law authorizing the workshops, relatively few blind people ever leave the shops for jobs elsewhere. Many of the blind workers say they would welcome such advancement. Instead, they charge, blind people who are trained and producing well at low wages are kept on the job because the workshops have a vested interest in keeping them on the job.
The attachment is both social and economic, critics say. Trish Miller, who teaches cane travel in Baltimore and whose husband is blind and active in the National Federation of the Blind, says, "A lot of agency directors are attracted by the image of helping, and they want to keep that relationship of dependence rather than encouraging independence."
On the economic side, Donald Morris, who is blind and is vice president of the three workshops in Maryland, complains that the policy of paying minimum wage puts his workshops at a competitive disadvantage with other workshops in getting contracts. "I bet if you go down the line of the Fortune 500, you'd find every one of them at some point is buying something for less than the fair cost of manufacture" because of low workshop wages, he says.
The law allows workshops to pay as little as one fourth the minimum wage, based on their estimate of the proportion of "normal" productivity that each worker can achieve. It also allows the shops to maintain "work activity centers," where workers can be kept for years in so-called training programs and paid mere carfare.
At least 50 private charities administer the 100 or more blind workshops nationwide, accounting for sales of well of $100 million a year. Although the blind workshop law dates back to 1938, in recent years similar workshops have been authorized to employ people with other severe mental or physical handicaps.
Workshop revenues provide not only the salaries for blind workers, but also, frequently, for large professional staffs, generally of sighted people. Some staff members have other jobs as well; some are doctors who draw salaries from the workshops while conducting private practices outside. The charities defend the administrative setup as necessary not only to run the workshops but also to provide other services for the blind. Critics, though, say the services are often few and little used, and inspection at some charities tends to bear them out.
Whatever their overhead costs, the charity workshops can offer low bids on corporate contracts, and companies say they are delighted to accept.
"It's good business," asserts Donald Jacobsen, purchasing and transportation manager for AT&T's Western Electric unit. Sheltered workshops package Western Electric's janitorial supplies, produce office supplies (pens, pads, folders) and assemble electronic parts for the Bell System. Western Electric says it spent $7 million for the services of blind and other handicapped workshops last year. "Through their efficiencies and their management, they earn this business," Mr. Jacobsen says. "Their wage level may not be as high as others," he adds.
For GE, workers at the Lighthouse for the Blind at Tyler, Texas, package air-conditioner parts. At the Lighthouse in Allentown, Pa., blind workers sort and bundle GE conductors. GE also uses workshops in Utica, N.Y., and in Milwaukee.
"It isn't strictly just to be nice," acknowledges Phyllis Daignault, a GE spokeswoman. "They don't charge a whole lot of money. It was cheaper than to have our own people do it." Why? "The cost of labor is really your only difference," she says. In fact, she says, GE will expand its use of workshops when new jobs come up. GE would like to give the workshops some chores that are currently being done in house, but it doesn't think its union, the United Electrical Workers, would allow this, she says.
Though figures aren't available, Procter & Gamble may well be the biggest corporate user of blind workshops. Almost every shop contacted in connection with this story mentioned P&G as a contractor or potential contractor. P&G says it gives work to shops "widely scattered over the country" on a low-bidder basis, and it praises the quality of the work done. But P&G says "it isn't appropriate" to name the shops or give details.
Other sources, however, say P&G uses blind workshops to attach prizes or premiums to boxes, or to put them inside boxes, or to put items in plastic bubble containers. One worker trying to unionize the Cincinnati Association for the Blind, Roy Smith, 32, says he attached giveaway glasses to boxes of Duz soap powder for P&G for $1.49 an hour—the same pay he says he got at the workshop to put valves in plastic bags for Rockwell International.
By contrast, Milton Jahoda, the blind executive director of the Cincinnati Association for the Blind, received pay and benefit-plan payments of $42,000 in the year ended June 30, 1977, according to the association's latest report to the Internal Revenue Service. The same report shows workshops sales of more than $1.7 million for the year, an indicated operating margin of about $450,000 over workshop costs, including production wages.
A lawyer for the charity, however, says that the workshop's allocation of the charity's overall administrative expenses and overhead reduce this profit to about break-even. The lawyer and executive director Jahoda decline to comment beyond that or to discuss Mr. Jahoda's compensation on the ground that the association's labor problems are being litigated.
The labor problems involve the attempts of Mr. Smith and other workers to unionize the workshop. A little more than a year ago, about two dozen workers met to seek representation from Local l00 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The blind workers found that Mr. Smith's $1.49 an hour was much higher than some other wages. Bill Vance was getting 58 cents an hour, John Ogden 73 cents, and a dozen others from 97 cents to $1.29. Workers complained at the meeting that there was no retirement plan, no health insurance, no seniority and no notice before the frequent lay-offs. "Sometimes they'd go there (to the workshop) in the morning only to be told there was no work for them, so they'd just have to go back home," says one person who attended the meeting.
Their organizing effort was fought by the association. It argued, as do other workshop charities, that its blind workers aren't employes but "clients," whose wages already exceed their productivity. The association said it was paying an average hourly wage of $3.36 to blind and handicapped workers. (Blind workers say this figure was highly inflated by the earnings of 20 or so sighted workers without severe handicaps.)
Finally, last May, the National Labor Relations Board ordered an election for June 7. The Teamsters won, 44 to 35, despite complaints that pro-union workers were laid off just before the election so they couldn't vote. But the association still isn't bargaining with the Teamsters, saying it wants to force the issue into court to win a reversal of the NLRB ruling.
In the similar labor dispute at the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, where the Communications Workers were defeated in an organizing election, workers did succeed in getting the Lighthouse to install a $2-an-hour minimum wage. But this still doesn't apply to about 25 persons in the Lighthouse's "work activity center."
The Lighthouse's latest IRS filing shows "sales to the public of products assembled in the workshop and other similar activities" running $1.1 million, about $200,000 more than workshop expenses. The Lighthouse, however, says the workshop is running at a loss, and explains that nearly $400,000 in federal grants for training programs was erroneously listed in the "sales" figure.
Lighthouse spokesmen say the workshop paid $461,000 in salary and fringes to 200 blind workers in the year ended June 30—less than the $494,000 in salary and fringes paid to 25 or 30 sighted hourly and administrative employees.
Fred McDonald resigned in October as $46,400-a-year (salary and benefits) director of the Lighthouse, to become a consultant for the American Foundation for the Blind and other charities. His Lighthouse job remains open.
The Lighthouse workshop, like those of the Cincinnati Association for the Blind and nearly 100 others, are affiliated with National Industries for the Blind, a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Bloom field, N.J. NIB was created in 1938 as the active arm of the presidential committee assigned under the blind-workshop law to allocate government contracts. Recently it has spent much energy seeking contracts from private industry, too. It put out a fancy brochure with a full-page color photograph of Walter Mondale exchanging smiles with three officials from the NIB and the President's committee.
To support its administrative machinery, the NIB collects 4% on nonmilitary government sales (which total about $61 million a year) and 10% on sales to military commissaries (of about $7 million). The military fee is higher, the NIB says, because commissions must be paid on military sales that aren't required on other government sales.
Many workshops also are affiliated with state industries-for-the-blind organizations, which collect up to 7% of gross sales.
The NIB employs about 60 persons. None are blind. Five executives are retired military officers on pensions. In the year ended June 1977, according to its IRS report, the NIB paid out more than $1 million in salaries and pension contributions for its officers and staff. It also paid out more than $900,000 for "other expenses," including $171,000 for travel, $79,000 for meetings and conventions, $71,000 for telephone and telegraph, $15,000 for dues and subscriptions, $43,000 for office supplies, $175,000 for commissary commissions, $16,000 for board meetings, $25,000 for printing and publications, $30,000 for "consulting and other," and $14,000 for just "other."
The NIB's directors and management also operate one sheltered workshop, Royal Maid, Inc., in Hazlehurst, Miss., which took in $6.2 million in sales last year. Of that, the NIB says, $496,000, or 8%, went to pay wages to 143 blind workers (only about 100 of whom it says were employed at any given tune). According to Royal Maid's tax filings, about the same amount, some $496,714, went to pay nonblind staff (including $10,626 of pension-fund contributions). Another $230,000 went to pay brokerages and commissions; $52,000 to travel; $23,000 to conventions and trade shows; $5,000 to dues and subscriptions; $27,000 to office supplies; $39,000 to telephone and $37,000 to miscellaneous.
Royal Maid says it pays all its workers at least the minimum wage, but it says this doesn't include up to 25 workers undergoing "evaluation" and "training," who receive no wages at all but only maintenance support from the government. Although under the law, this can go on for years. Royal Maid says its workers normally spend only about seven months in evaluation and training.
At the three workshops in Maryland, Blind Industries and Services of Maryland three years ago hired blind members of the National Federation of the Blind to run things. They trimmed administrative costs and began paying everyone the minimum wage or more (up from as little as 51 cents an hour). And the blind workers, some of whom have other handicaps as well, began getting the same pension, vacation, sick-leave, insurance and tax-shelter plans as administrators.
Sales have more than doubled, to $3 million a year, under the new administration. And with additional revenue from vending stands and contributions, the Maryland organization offers counseling, training programs and other services for the blind.
The workshops have been operating at a small loss. Officials predict they will soon break even, but they worry that the shops keep losing business to the sheltered workshops that pay far less to their blind workers.by JONATHAN KWITNY and JERRY LANDAUER
Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
[Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal. Copyright, Dow Jones Company, Inc., 1979. All rights reserved. This article appeared on January 25, 1979.]
George T. wakes at 5 a.m., kisses his wife goodbye, catches three subway trains across three New York City boroughs, transfers to a bus and arrives for work at an aging factory in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant slum.
The factory is one of several "sheltered workshops" run by the Industrial Home for the Blind, a charity that aims to rehabilitate blind people. George T. (not his real name) is blind. He has worked for the Industrial Home more than 20 years. Comments a friend, "If they call that a rehabilitation shop, it's sure taking him a long time to get rehabilitated."
Recently George got a raise. He now receives a guaranteed $1.85 an hour. A few months ago it was $1.33. Originally, it was just 25 cents.
The minimum wage is $2.90. But because George and about 150 co-workers are blind, the Industrial Home gets special approval from the Department of Labor to pay them much less.
The Industrial Home took in $3.5 million in workshop sales in the year ended June 1977 (the latest reported to the Internal Revenue Service). It paid out $384,013, or 11%, in wages to blind production workers. The government doesn't tabulate comparable percentage wage pay-outs in private industry, but they are believed to be much higher.
The Industrial Home seems typical of the more than 100 sheltered workshops for the blind around the country, though a bit bigger than most. And George T. seems typical of the 6,000 or more blind workers.
He assembles mops. The work isn't exactly easy, or stimulating. The air is thick with lint. There isn't any hot lunch because the stove in the cafeteria has been broken for six months. (It was later fixed, after a reporter questioned officials about it.)
The Industrial Home tells George he can boost his pay to the minimum wage or higher at a piecework rate if he works better, but George doesn't believe that. Half a dozen of his colleagues (all a reporter could talk to before a supervisor threw the reporter out) indicated they feel the same way.
How to assemble a mop: "You got a handle, a spring, a lever and a head," George explains. "You have to put all this together, put them on the head and then put them in the barrel. You get 22 cents a dozen. After three months I got up to five barrels a day." That's 50 dozen, or $11, or $1,375 an hour. "They say they've had guys who could do 100 dozen, but I don't believe it, "George says. "Maybe 70 or 80 if they get good." That still isn't minimum wage.
Nearby, Sara F. (not her real name) is bagging mops in plastic containers. Her fingers are nimble, and it's hard to imagine anyone doing it much faster for a prolonged time. She says she's worked at the Industrial Home 15 years. She says she gets 10 or 11 cents a dozen, depending on the size of the mop. "I can do 80 or 90 dozen in a day," she says. "If I can get $10, that's good."
Many goods made by the Industrial Home are sold to private industry at rates that competing small businesses can't match because of their higher labor costs. Most are sold to the federal government or the State of New York, which are required by law to patronize blind workshops.
Until recently, workshops added a 7% "override" fee to their contracts with state agencies, with the fee going to Industries for the Blind of New York State. Inc., a nonprofit organization approved by the state and run by the individual charities to arrange contracts. It is similar to National Industries for the Blind, which performs essentially the same task for blind workshops coast-to-coast on sales to the federal government.
On Oct. 21, the agency that handles state purchasing forced Industries for the Blind to cut its "override" fee from 7% to 3.41% because of an investigative audit released two months earlier by the state comptroller. The audit raised many questions about how Industries for the Blind was using its 7%., or $336,000 a year, from the work of George T., Sara F. and other blind workers.
Among the points questioned:
Jean C. Goehrig, the general manager, and Jack B. Kleinstein, business manager, both of whom are sighted, got salaries of $45,600 and $30,600, respectively. The comptroller termed the salaries "inappropriate." In addition, more than $17,000 a year went into an annuity account from which liberal amounts were withdrawn by the two men and possibly others. The comptroller said a $5,000 withdrawal by Mr. Goehrig "might be construed as an attempt to avoid paying income taxes on these funds." Christmas bonuses of $850 were charged to the "purchases" account, and taxes weren't withheld.
Messrs. Goehrig and Kleinstein each got new luxury cars from the charity every year. They submitted restaurant expenses "almost daily" totaling more than $25,000 a year, much of it on weekends. There were bills for $100 meals at swank New York restaurants, more than $1,400 for Christmas parties and an Easter dinner in Westhampton, but most of the money was spent near the organization's office in Garden City, N.Y. Since Industries for the Blind's customers are all government agencies that are required by law to give preference to the workshops, and whose officials aren't supposed to take gratuities anyway, the comptroller said he saw "no justification" for the restaurant bills. Besides, some bills appeared to be for meals eaten alone.
Some $96,000 was spent to purchase and spiff up the office building and lot. The building is shared with a tavern, where Industries for the Blind staff spent $3,000 a year at the charity's expense.
The comptroller criticized additional thousands spent on conventions, trips and the "unorthodox" and "high" payments made under "legal and accounting" and "dues and subscriptions."
Industries for the Blind workshops, meantime, often charged 15% more than prices available elsewhere to the state agencies required to give them preference, the comptroller said. The high prices were blamed on the supposed inefficiencies of the blind, the comptroller said, but were really caused by the way the workshops overpaid for materials. He added, "Labor accounted for less than 2% of the price."
Moreover, the report said. Industries for the Blind sometimes sold the state goods that weren't made in the workshops but were bought on the open market—and then subjected to the 1% override fee as if they were made in a workshop. The comptroller's report made no mention of conditions in the workshops themselves.
As a result of these disclosures, the override was reduced, and Messrs. Goehrig and Kleinstein discreetly traded in their charity-owned $13,000 Lincolns for a station wagon. But they stayed on in their jobs and kept their salaries. The board that appoints them promised to cast a more discerning eye on expenses from now on, and to review their salaries. The board consists of representatives from each of 10 charities that run workshops in the state, at least some of whose officials receive compensation that rivals or even exceeds that accorded to Messrs Goehrig and Kleinstein.
Beginning sometime this month, the board is to be overseen by Terrance Bartlett, acting director of the State Commission for the Blind. Mr. Bartlett says his office has already ordered a halt to spending on gifts and entertainment. He says that after he takes over, the Industries office will be moved to Albany and its salaries put in line with those of state officials. But he says any change in personnel will be a "board decision."
Asked what policy changes he has in mind for the program, he thought a long time and finally said he wanted to establish "more equitable" guidelines for allocating orders among various workshops. ("I'm not saying it was improperly done in the past," he added quickly.) Another goal: to seek out more sales upstate, which he termed "an untapped market."
Last week, Patricia Marsh, special assistant to Mr. Bartlett and, she says, the highest-ranking official at the Commission for the Blind in his absence, said that he was out ill and that she didn't know when the reorganization meeting might occur.
Meanwhile, the board apparently continues to be run by its longtime president, Joseph Pike. Mr. Pike came to the board representing the Albany Association for the Blind, whose workshops took in $1.2 million in the latest reported year, ended September 1977, and paid out about $85,000, or 7% of sales, in wages to some 25 to 28 blind workers. A third of the workers are in a so-called "work activity center,'' where they can be paid less than one fourth the minimum wage.
Mr. Pike, 56, retired early as director of the Albany association this fall so it could avoid what it calls "unwarranted bad publicity" in the wake of the comptroller's report. He is getting a pension, but won't say how much it is. John Minor, acting associate executive director of the association, says he has "nothing but good" to say about Mr. Pike.
"At no time did any in our workshop suffer," Mr. Minor says, though he says he doesn't know how many of his workers are receiving the minimum wage. "I don't believe there were any blind people in the State of New York that were hurt by this," he says.
Apparently not hurt either is John F. Heimerdinger, who runs the Jewish Guild for the Blind, one of the charities operating workshops in New York state. Mr. Heimerdinger has an office with a large desk area; a living-room area with leather-upholstered furniture, plush carpeting and paneling; a private kitchen; private washroom; one or two original art objects and a splendid view from the top floor of a new building on 65th Street just off Central Park West in New York. The building, with 10 stories above ground and two basement levels, is owned by the charity—and 94% of the space is occupied by it.
Mr. Heimerdinger says he draws a $50,000 salary (plus benefits) from the Guild, though its public filings with the IRS, sworn to by Mr. Heimerdinger, show much less. He explains that he and 50 or so other officials at the Guild are exercising their legal right to defer up to 20% of their salaries—and not report the deferred amount on public filings. The latest IRS filing shows that seven officials are paid over $30,000 a year and none over $40,000; he says that in fact at least 11 are paid over $30,000 and four or five get more than $40,000.
The public filing also says Mr. Heimerdinger devotes "100%" of his time to being executive director of the Guild. But it turns out he also draws a salary as an employe of the Cooperstown Corp. of Maryland, a Wall Street investment firm he says is owned by his family. He declines to say what the salary is. Asked about his sworn statement that he gives 100% time to the Guild, he replies, "I still have evenings and weekends." Asked how many other Guild officials may be moonlighting, he says he doesn't know.
Eleven stories below Mr. Heimerdinger, in the sub-basement, is a sheltered workshop. There, and in another shop about the same size in a factory district downtown, some 211 blind workers currently produce $2.7 million a year in sales to government and private industry (recently, Jewish Guild workers were packing thermometers for Becton, Dickinson & Co., a major medical-supply firm).
The workers get about 10% of this sales revenue as wages. The average hourly wage, the Guild says, is $1.77, but the work isn't steady, so the average annual wage is $1,400 per worker.
To help explain that to a reporter, Mr. Heimerdinger calls in a public-relations consultant who gets $25,000 a year from the Guild and also has other clients. They show figures depicting the workshops as drowning in $700,000 of red ink in 1977, despite $2.5 million in sales and lower worker salaries. The cost of materials is $1.6 million, and the blind workers' wages apparently are less than $240,000; that still leaves nearly $700,000 of revenue.
But it appears the Jewish Guild has charged to the workshop a huge share of the general overhead for the organization. The Guild takes in $11.2 million a year, about half of it from federal and state aid (it has large private donations, too). In 1977, it showed a $1 million profit after all expenses, which included $3.9 million for staff salaries. At the end of the year, it had net assets (after all liabilities) of $25. 6 million-mostly stocks, bonds and certificates of deposit. Other than the workshops, its biggest functioning operation is a home for 125 elderly blind people, which accounts for $2.1 million of the expenses in the financial statement.
The statement charges the workshop program with $530,539 in staff salaries (compared with the $240,000 paid to blind workers and an additional $90,000 or so paid to sighted workers in the workshop). It charges the workshop with $125,566, or 24%, of the cost of occupying the main building in its choice location, even though the shop occupies only the sub-basement, and sometimes part of the basement. (The Guild says the allocation is figured by floor space, with the shop credited with occupying the two largest floors in the irregularly shaped building.)
The workshop is also charged with the largest share of depreciation for the building, for example, and with $217,780, or 63%, of the Guild's entire expense for accounting, computers and personnel and general services.
Mr. Heimerdinger arranges to give a reporter a tour. The building is attractive, well furnished and equipped—and practically deserted. There are long, empty hallways lined with mostly empty offices. There are cavernous, well-stocked craft rooms, and meeting rooms, either empty or with just a handful of people in them.
The ninth floor—8,750 square feet—is devoted to mental health. It seems nearly empty; the caseworkers are all out making house calls, Mr. Heimerdinger says. He says they make about 100 calls a week, about one hour each. Two dozen or so workers share the floor, he says.
In all, leaving aside the two workshop floors, the service and mechanical floor and one floor rented out to another organization, there are 100,000 square feet and 140 employes. That is enough to give each employee—every clerk and errand boy—a 25-by-30-foot office.
Of course, the space is also to be used by blind persons receiving services. After our tour leaves a typical large room—a ceramics shop where only one person is passing the morning—Mr. Heimerdinger says, "Maybe we had a field trip. We do a lot of that." He notes that it's nearly lunch time, and suggests looking in the cafeteria. But that isn't overflowing either. "A lot of people like to go out in the neighborhood (for lunch)," he says, adding that the cafeteria food sometimes isn't so good.
Later, Mr. Heimerdinger calls and says he's sorry there were only 56 blind persons involved in activities in the building the day of the visit. On an average day, he says, there are 83.
But the providing of services to the blind seems decidedly secondary to the running of the revenue-producing workshops. In the workshops like those run by the Jewish Guild and the Industrial Home for the Blind, where George T. and Sara F. work, the managements haven't any incentive to help them get better-paying jobs elsewhere, although that is supposed to be a function of the workshops. Instead, the workshops' self-interest is served by retaining the best workers, who produce the most income. Another complaint of blind workers is that the shops use sighted labor when it is more efficient to do so, thus violating what some see as their commitment to the blind.
For example, when the Jewish Guild got new paper-pad-making machinery recently, it bought a high-output machine that is run only by sighted workers. A lower-cost machine is available, though with lower output, that is run elsewhere by the blind. (The Guild says it thinks it bought the best machine available.)
Both the Guild and the Industrial Home, like many other sheltered workshops, have more sighted workers than the 25% allowed by law; they say the additional sighted workers are doing different kinds of tasks which blind persons can't do, and therefore don't count toward the 25%. Workers in the shops strongly disagree.
Another sore point among workers is an allegedly condescending attitude. An Industrial Home official, taking a reporter through the shop, constantly introduced grown blind men (white and black) as "boys." Another official, referring to some work-activity-center employes who were both blind and mentally retarded, but who were fitting small plumbing parts together, said the Home was paying them in beads and pocket combs rather than augmenting their 40-cent-an-hour salary. "The money doesn't mean very much," the official said. "What is important is to win a prize."
Seeking to show a reporter that workers get less than minimum wage only because they produce poorly, officials brought him to a man billed as a highly skilled worker who they said was earning much more. The man was operating a large machine that turned out brushes. He did indeed seem highly skilled; it would be hard to imagine a sighted person doing much better. On questioning, it was learned that he is paid $3.15 an hour—$129 a week before taxes.
When the officials weren't around, one worker commented, "They think, well, we're blind, anything they give us is all right."
Another chimed in. "We may be blind, but we aren't deaf."
by JAMES GASHEL
Chief, NFB Washington Office
The hearings which occurred in the 95th Congress following Congressman Phillip Burton's introduction of the Miminimum Wage for the Blind bill (H.R. 8104) moved us several steps toward securing more equitable wages for blind workers. There are so many issues in Washington that it is sometimes hard to get people to pay attention to those vital to the blind, but a full-dress congressional hearing does wonders.
At present, the Fair Labor Standards Act permits the Secretary of Labor, through regulations, to grant employers of blind workers special certificates that allow them to pay as little as one fourth the statutory minimum wage. For several years the issue of changing this part of the law was a "no no" at the Department of Labor and on Capitol Hill because in 1966, through the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind, the law was changed substantially after great controversy; and nobody wanted to touch it again—except, of course, the blind who despite some tightening of the law were still being exploited by management of the workshops. So the 1970's began with studies of the sheltered workshop system. There were studies and more studies, and then there were studies of the studies—until the blind were choking on the paper it took to print the reports.
And what do you suppose they found? Hang on to your seats—the great revelation came when they announced the finding that the blind were still unhappy with subminimum wages. At this point somebody casually observed, "If we had saved all of the money it took to do these studies, we could probably have divided it among those who now receive less than minimum wage and everybody would have been happy for at least the next ten years." But this did not happen. Here we are in 1979 still trying to get minimum wage for the blind.
What did happen, however, represents some progress. The Wall Street Journal became interested in the story behind the hearings on H.R. 8104, and its investigators found their story. Their reports are now out, and the hidden exploitation and abuse of blind workers in the sheltered workshops has been spread wide on the public record.
The hearings and the Wall Street Journal articles together provide the basis for our next major push. On February 5, 1979, we formally petitioned the Secretary of Labor for a limitation to the rules governing subminimum wages so that employers (sheltered workshops or competitive industry) would no longer be permitted to pay blind workers at rates less than the federal minimum wage.
The petition sets forth a number of strong arguments for amending the rules. The first of these is that the law that authorizes subminimum wage payments for handicapped workers itself limits that authority "to the extent necessary to prevent curtailment of employment opportunities." This law was last reviewed and altered in 1966, prior to enactment of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which now requires most employers to take affirmative action on behalf of handicapped applicants and employees. Our petition argues that the 1973 Rehabilitation Act provides a much more appropriate means of stimulating employment opportunities for blind persons and that continued application of the subminimum wage provision to the blind "blunts and nullifies" the positive approach of the Rehabilitation Act.
The petition makes a point of citing data from National Industries for the Blind which shows that the majority of blind workers are now paid above minimum wage. There are probably fewer than 1,000 blind people working for subminimum wages in competitive industry, and there are only about 2,500 earning less than minimum wage in the sheltered workshops. (There are about 5,400 blind persons in all working in the NIB shops nationwide.) The petition argues that since the majority earn above minimum wage now, and since the overall average wage of blind shop workers exceeds the minimum wage, all blind workers should be brought under minimum wage protection. The national wage average is raised above the minimum because as many as fifteen workshops for the blind have been able to pay all workers at least minimum wage voluntarily. It is valid therefore to ask the question: Why can't the others?
The workshops argue that paying the minimum wage will force them to close their doors. The petition disproves this assertion. Milton Jahoda, executive director of the Cincinnati Association for the Blind, stated at last spring's minimum-wage hearings that his agency could not afford to pay minimum wages, but his own financial statement for the year ending December 31, 1976, showed a profit (Mr. Jahoda prefers to call it a "surplus" if he mentions it at all) of $144,651 in the workshop operation. But did the workers get any of this money through profit-sharing or some other arrangement? Not on your life. Almost the entire amount was taken care of by "intrafund transfer" (a mere book-keeping maneuver) and spent on "rehabilitation and social services." Approximately $1,000 was funneled into the Association's endowment. Our petition argues that these and similar accounting tricks are used to hide how much money the workshops really make—the conclusion being that the money taken from the workshops for other agency activities would more properly be spent on increased wages for the workers.
The standard rationale given to justify subminimum wages is that workers are in "training"-preparing for employment in competitive industry. The petition, however, cites data from National Industries for the Blind (NIB) data which shows that during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1977, only six percent (343) of the workers in the NIB system were placed outside the workshops. Milton Jahoda thinks even this paltry placement rate is too much—he wants it to be zero percent in his agency. But he is still unwilling to guarantee what are admittedly long term employees a decent wage. The blind say: You can't have it both ways.
Management usually contends that subminimum wages are necessary because of the low productivity of blind workers. The petition refutes this, pointing out that the productivity of the work force is only one of many factors which determine industrial output. Blind workers control only their own productivity; they have nothing whatsoever to do with the other factors. The petition quotes an inspector in the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, who listed the following reasons for low output: "(1) poor job lay-out resulting in a lot of wasted movement and excessive material handling; (2) the lack of appropriate jigs and fixtures—for example, counting the pieces instead of using a jig or weighing the pieces with a scale; (3) deliberate work-stretching by the workshop during periods when contracts are slow; (4) job designs that do not allow the client to work to his capacity—for example, assembly lines slowed down to the lowest common denominator; (5) boring, repetitive work such as counting plastic forks and spoons; (6) attitude on the part of clients that they won't make any more money than they do right now even if they work harder . . . ." It is time for the Labor Department to take aggressive steps to protect blind workers from being victimized by management's ineptness.
A major problem with the present subminimum rules is their complexity. This favors management, which is allowed to adopt the most flexible and whimsical practices. The workshops do not need to fear they will get caught by the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor either. The shortage of compliance investigators means that only three percent of the shops are scrutinized annually. Hence violations abound. The Labor Department knows this, and privately it has admitted that minimum-wage law violations are found in about 80 percent of the shops reviewed. We argue that the flexibility must be done away with to protect the blind from continued exploitation.
The final point made in the petition is that the blind are uniquely banned by general subminimum wage rules that apply equally to all the handicapped. The blind have demonstrated a higher productive capacity, yet they are still penalized by a system designed for the lowest functioning, minimally productive. Beyond this, the subminimum wage rules deny blind workers the benefit of the special work incentives applying only to the blind that are found in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs. One of the biggest falsehoods spread by management is that minimum wage will cause loss of SSI for blind workers. The special disability test (that is, simply meeting the definition of blindness) which is completely unrelated to earnings is a unique feature in SSI for the blind. Also, blind employees may deduct their work-related expenses, making it possible for a person to take home well above the minimum wage and still keep every penny of SSI. Similarly, SSDI permits a higher earnings amount for the blind. Nonetheless, management still takes advantage of the blind, figuring that we will somehow not know of these other opportunities which the Congress has provided. The fact is that we do know, and we are now asking the Labor Department to force the workshops to pay blind workers what they actually can earn. SSI was never meant to be welfare for the workshops. It was intended for the blind, and we will no longer let the workshop managements rip it off.
These are the arguments we have taken to the Secretary of Labor on behalf of the blind who now suffer the indignity of subminimum wages and on behalf of those who will follow. The struggle has moved to a new level, and the opposition is mobilizing its forces, too. They have money and connections on their side. But we have the rank-and-file blind and we have justice on ours. In the long run, there is no question what the answer will be—the blind will win minimum wage. The battle will require all that we have to give in terms of our money, manpower, and persuasiveness. But if we continue to pool our resources as we have learned to do in this movement, the victory will come all the sooner. We will need the help of the Congress and the Executive Branch of the government, and we will now march forward to enlist it.The National Federation of the Blind of New York State, which for years has been working to bring about reforms in that state's sheltered workshops for the blind, achieved a real breakthrough when the state comptroller carried out an investigative audit of Industries for the Blind of New York State (IBNYS). That audit, discussed elsewhere in this issue, caused a good deal of public furor and finally alerted state officials to the sort of monster they were feeding with state funds and the lives of blind people. But uncovering a scandal is one thing. Getting a government bureaucracy to take action to clean it up is another. The agencies involved—and by agencies we mean the ten workshops whose directors govern Industries for the Blind as well as IBNYS itself—have been sacrosanct in the state. On top of that, of course, the agencies support outfits like the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) to protect them from public scrutiny and from their consumers.
The audit came out in August. In December there was no sign of any meaningful reform. But New York State has a new Commissioner of the Department of Social Services, Barbara Blum, who—unlike many of her predecessors—is willing to go to the blind themselves to learn what the blind think and need. Already since coming into office, she has replaced the head of the state Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped. The former head of that agency was extremely hostile to the organized blind movement. Commissioner Blum attended the state NFB convention in October and has been friendly to the input of the NFB. Consequently, Sterling France, president of the NFB of New York State, wrote to her under date of December 5, 1978, as follows:
"DEAR COMMISSIONER: For a long time the members of the National Federation of the Blind of New York State have questioned the performance, or the lack thereof, by Industries for the Blind. On September 8, 1978, I wrote to Senator William Smith, chairman of the Senate Social Services Committee. My letter was prompted by a letter written to you expressing his concerns regarding the audit report on Industries.
"Since that report and its subsequent recommendations, there has been no significant changes in Industries' practices or performance. If anything, they have gotten worse. For example, they attempted to justify their "slush fund," their expenditures for parties, meals, liquors, flowers, jewelry, automobiles, salaries, etc. Mr. Joseph Pike and Mr. Conrad Range remained members of the board after they no longer represented a member agency. Upstate workshops are still getting little or no orders. The price of raw material is still higher than some commercially finished goods. I can go on but I think you get the picture. I would like to point out that I learned recently that Industries totally ignored the Health and Hospital Corporation when they informed Industries they were phasing out washcloths and going to disposable ones. I have also learned Health and Hospital is going to more disposable products; yet the member agencies of Industries appear to be unaware of this trend.
"The audit points out the excessive salaries of the director and the assistant director—$45,600 and $30,600 respectively. As of October of this year their salaries are: director—$59,500 and assistant director—$40,000, and that's not including their expense accounts.
"Given the above facts and examples, it seems to be clear Industries has no intention to abide by the spirit, to say nothing about the letter, of the law—that law which, I believe, was designed to provide employment opportunity for blind persons, not slave labor for the blind.
"Commissioner, it is our belief that the best interests of the blind employees and the workshops can be served by placing the responsibility for distributing orders in the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped. As I said to Senator Smith, this could be easily done during the reorganization of the Commission. I would like to have the opportunity to present our proposal for this to you also.
"Sincerely,
"STERLING FRANCE,
"President, National Federation of the Blind of New York State."
Under date of December 28, 1978, Commissioner Blum responded, as follows:
"DEAR MR. FRANCE: This is in response to your December 5 letter regarding Industries for the Blind, Inc.
"We too are most concerned about the performance of Industries as illustrated by the recently released audit performed by the comptroller's office. Please be advised that we have already initiated very serious corrective action with Industries designed to bring the corporation under stricter state control. In this regard, I have attached a copy of my November 21 letter to Industries mandating these corrective steps required for the corporation to retain the designation as the state agent for the selling of blind-made products. In a recent meeting I held with the board of directors of Industries, these mandates were accepted. Corrective action is, therefore, now underway.
"Thank you for once again expressing the National Federation's concerns for blind people in the State of New York.
"Sincerely,
"BARBARA B. BLUM."
Here is the letter enclosed by Commissioner Blum. It is dated November 21, 1978, and directed to Joseph Pike, president of the board of Industries for the Blind.
"DEAR MR. PIKE: After careful and extensive review of Industries for the Blind of New York State, Inc., and in light of the seriousness and magnitude of the criticisms by the state comptroller's office of this non-profit agency, we have concluded that only two options are open to the department:
"(a) The development of a totally restructured operation within the existing corporate entity of Industries for the Blind, or
"(b) Withdrawal of the designation of Industries as the state's agent for allocation of purchase orders, and the absorption of this and other functions by the Department of Social Services and other state agencies.
"Should Industries, the Department of Social Services, the Office of General Services, and any other involved state agencies agree that option (a) above be selected, Industries will be required to comply with at least the following tasks by February 1, 1979.
"(1) Immediate cessation of all purchases of lunches, dinners, gifts, and other entertainment for prospective buyers or any other persons.
"(2) Relocation of the corporate offices of Industries to a rented/leased site within the Albany area, and immediately initiate steps for the sale of the premises in Garden City Park so that such a sale can be accomplished as soon as practicable.
"(3) The designation of the director of the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped to be the chairman of the board of Industries, and agreement that the employees of Industries shall be directly responsible to the chairman.
"(4) A redefinition of Industries board membership as approved by the department to preclude any appearance of financial conflict of interest, to expand the range of skills available to the board, and to bring consumer/client representation into the board.
"(5) The establishment of department-approved guidelines regarding salaries and benefits, travel, conference attendance, and working hours which are consistent with the policies which govern state employees.
"(6) Submission to the Department of Social Services of a semiannual plan indicating budget, production targets, and organizational goals.
"(7) A plan for the establishment of more equitable allocation procedures for sales among all workshops.
"(8) Development of a written plan to generate sales within the communities of upstate New York for the upstate workshops and to provide for a more equitable distribution of sales across workshops.
"(9) Development of a detailed plan for the provision of management/technical assistance to all participatory workshops.
"(10) Development of a new products plan based on the information obtained from the management/technical reviews of each workshop.
"(11) Development and establishment by the board of clear guidelines for the inception, conduct, membership, scope of responsibilities, and termination of committees.
"(12) Development of a plan to be approved by the department which demonstrates that the revolving fund will be used solely to reimburse the member workshops, providing for specific accounting procedures to reflect all transactions involving said fund. In addition, a full accounting of the present status of the fund and all disbursements made over the past year shall be provided to the department as well as establishment of financial internal controls which provide for a clear trail for future auditability and program continuity.
"In connection with this option, please be advised that the Department of Social Services intends to develop a support unit within the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped which would both monitor the performance of Industries and provide expanded state assistance in meeting the goals of Industries on behalf of the workshops.
"Effective immediately, Industries must take no action to dispose of or reduce substantially the assets of the corporation and make no distribution of assets other than the normal day-to-day operating expenses.
"We understand that a budget meeting and full board meeting are scheduled for November 28 and 29 respectively. We suggest that the above issues be the primary if not sole item on the agenda for these meetings.
"Subsequent to these meetings, we expect a written response to these issues.
"This correspondence has been shared with appropriate officials of the Office of General Services and they concur with its emphasis.
"Sincerely,
"BARBARA B. BLUM."
Commissioner Blum's letter to Joseph Pike indicates the sincerity of her statement to Sterling France that "we have already initiated very serious corrective action with Industries to bring the corporation under stricter state control." There is a current of reform in New York, and the change in top officials in the state's Department of Social Services is a part of it. Another important part, however, is the close interest of the public media. The audit by the state comptroller was a useful tool for reform, but it might have gone unnoticed, like many other government reports, had it not been brought to the public by reporter Pete Bowles of Newsday, a Long Island tabloid. The audit came out during the extended newspaper strike of last fall and winter, when the major New York City papers were not being published. Consequently suburban newspapers like Newsday suddenly were being read far more widely than usual. Pete Bowles' exposure of the state audit had a huge audience. And he continued his coverage of the story. Following Commissioner Blum's letter, a Bowles article titled "Blind Agency Agrees to Tighter Rein" appeared in Newsday. It began as follows:
"Faced with the threatened withdrawal of its designation as a state agent for the selling of products made by the blind, Industries for the Blind of New York State, Inc., has agreed to a number of demands designed to bring the corporation under stricter state control."
The article reported that IBNYS had accepted what Sterling France calls "Blum's Twelve Commandments." The article concluded as follows:
"A major critic of the Industries for the Blind operation, Sterling France, president of the National Federation of the Blind of New York State, said the reorganization 'sounds good.' He said, if they have agreed to all the points, I would say the organized blind and blind working in sheltered workshops have achieved a great deal of success in the opportunity to begin to get a fair wage and steady work from products used by the state and local municipalities.'"
Still, the mismangement of Industries for the Blind is just the tip of the iceberg. What of the ten agencies which govern IBNYS and whose representatives allowed the abuses to continued unchecked? These are the agencies that directly exploit the blind, keeping them in economic bondage and ruthlessly limiting their lives.
On February 6, 1979, therefore, Sterling France sent letters to the state attorney general and the state comptroller. The letters transmitted resolutions passed by the NFB of New York State at its October convention which called for investigations of every one of the IBNYS-connected workshops. As the letter to the attorney general stated:
"The action taken by the comptroller's office and by the commissioner of the Department of Social Services without a doubt merits the highest level of praise. These actions in the interests of the blind have not been equaled in recent years. However, this is not enough. The blind across our state working in sheltered shops are still being exploited. The Wall Street Journal articles dated January 24th and 25th clearly point this out. The Finance Law of New York State which gives preference to sheltered shops in receiving orders from the state and local municipalities is being abused. We are certain that the lawmakers at the time they passed this legislation did not intend its use in the manner now being revealed."
The blind of the nation and the state of New York will not rest until the full scandal of the workshop system and the custodial blindness establishment is uncovered and corrected. The reaction of the press and the public to the revelations in New York recall the conclusion to the speech by President Jernigan titled, appropriately, "Is the Public Against Us?" It reads, in part:
"As we look ahead, the world holds more hope than gloom for us—and, best of all, the future is in our own hands. For the first time in history we can be our own masters and do with our lives what we will; and the sighted (as they learn who we are and what we are) can and will work with us as equals and partners. . . . We know who we are and what we must do—and we will never go back. The public is not against us. Our determination proclaims it; our gains confirm it; our humanity demands it. My brothers and my sisters, the future is ours. Come! Join me on the barricades, and we will make it come true."It has been some months since we reported on the NFB lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and our other efforts to establish once and for all the right of blind persons as American citizens to unhampered use of public transportation. We have still not won a definitive victory, but there has been real progress on several fronts.
To sketch in the background briefly, our problems with discriminatory treatment by airlines began in earnest when the FAA published its regulations for carriage of handicapped passengers in March 1977. Apparently feeling inadequate to deal with the matter, the FAA turned over its regulatory authority to the airlines themselves. It ruled that airlines should make up their own procedures, and further, that they could deny passage to any handicapped person who refused to abide by the procedures. The regulation containing this startling decision (Federal Aviation Regulation 121.586) was titled "Authority to refuse transportation," and the title was apt. Whereas, up to that point, airline discrimination against the blind had been spotty and fairly easy to combat, now the airlines began making up rule after regressive rule to limit our freedom. A low point may have been reached when Eastern Airlines began enforcing a rule that all handicapped passengers must sit on blankets, since the "handicapped" often cannot control their bladders.
The advisory circular that accompanied the new FAA regulation rejected our suggestion that travel canes are necessary in case of emergency evacuations and stated that the canes must be stowed in accordance with the rule governing carry-on baggage. The rule referred to contained no explicit reference to canes; and as a result, different airlines came to very different conclusions about the meaning of this decision. The only airline to interpret it as a command that travel canes must be confiscated during flights was United Airlines—the nation's largest air carrier.
In the fall of 1977, the Federation filed a petition with the FAA, asking that the new section 121.586 be repealed and asking further that the carry-on baggage rule be amended to exclude travel canes from those items which must be taken away on boarding. The FAA took its time, but eventually, in March 1978, rejected our petition.
In the meantime, United Airlines had begun to enforce its cane confiscation rule with a vengeance. The matter came to a head in May 1978, when some 1,000 blind persons traveled to Des Moines for a testimonial dinner marking Kenneth Jernigan's departure from Iowa after 20 years as director of the Iowa Commission for the Blind. United is the only airline servicing Des Moines from much of the country, and major battles broke out in Chicago and Denver as planes with dozens of blind people were delayed when Federationists refused to give up their canes. Immediately following that weekend, the Federation instituted a lawsuit against United in a Maryland court.
United defended itself by claiming it was only following the FAA rule. The FAA denied this at first, but then backed up the airline. Although there was no explicit policy on the subject, the FAA decided that its denial of our petition a few months earlier constituted an official ruling. At that point we withdrew our state lawsuit and brought another suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., appealing the FAA rejection of our petition. The D.C. Court of Appeals accepted our suit, and the long, tedious process of litigation began.
[Insert]
Washington tourists watch as 1,000 members of the National Federation of the Blind demonstrate in front of the Federal Aviation Administration, July 5, 1978, to protest the FAA 's cane policy.
This was just one of our fronts, however. In July 1978, as Federationists poured into Baltimore from around the country for the NFB National Convention, more skirmishes with United took place—the most glaring of which involved the expulsion of six Minnesota Federationists from a United plane during a stopover in Cleveland. This and other incidents (as well as the whole history of FAA ineptitude) persuaded us to take the matter to the public. On July 5th, 1,000 Federationists traveled to Washington, D.C., for a three-hour demonstration on the steps of the Federal Aviation Administration—an action that was reported that same evening on all three television network news shows and the following morning in dozens of newspapers across the nation. It was estimated at the time that 60 million Americans learned of our battle that week. The reaction was very favorable.
(Ironically, the only fiercely critical article on the issue appeared in the Rapid City, South Dakota, Journal, in September. The article stated in part: "As the mob milled about, supposed leaders of the organized blind, in the name of progress, accused airlines of all sorts of unfair practices and illegal acts. . . . How tragic it is that the nation should be so caught up in a farcical, mob-like demonstration which can only bring shame to the visually impaired . . . ." The author of these remarkable assessments? None other than Delbert K. Aman, the first vice-president of the American Council of the Blind. The ACB, of course, also believes blind workers have no right to bargain collectively and believes the blind have no business pushing for minimum wages.)
During the fall, there was a steady increase in interest and support for our position. The first real success came when we were approached by the Association of Flight Attendants, the largest of several flight attendant unions and the one to which all United flight attendants belong. The AFA was under considerable pressure from its members to attempt a resolution of the problem. After all, they pointed out, it is fine for airline officials to make up these repressive rules, but it is the flight attendants who must carry them out. The attendants, we were told, had begun to dread seeing a blind person approach the plane.
We began serious negotiations with the officers and flight safety department of the AFA to see if we could come up with a joint position. Piedmont Airlines made available one of its planes, and a group of union officers and staff met at National Airport in Washington with Federationists Jim Gashel and Steve Machalow to carry out some experiments. The AFA flight safety department is one of the strictest and most respected in the industry, but even they came up at once with several methods that would allow blind persons to keep their canes at their seats without endangering other passengers.
As a result, in mid-October the AFA and the NFB held a joint press conference in Washington at which AFA president Patricia Robertson stated: "We're tired of being the object of the blind people's justifiable anger. We don't think the blind should have to give up their canes, and we never have. The question should not be 'Can the blind keep their canes?' but rather 'What is the safest way for them to do so?' The Federal Aviation Administration has not conducted a single test to try to answer that question."
This statement was soon borne out. In federal court, the FAA requested a 90-day stay of the proceedings so that it could at last perform safety tests involving canes. At the same time, the FAA admitted that its ruling on the matter had been made solely on the basis of the opinion of one of its safety advisors. The FAA claims that such an expert opinion is all it needs to institute rules that limit our constitutional rights.
The blind are all too familiar with this pattern: Our rights as citizens, it is all too often felt, may be limited if a so-called "expert" believes it would be in our best interest. This pattern is the basis for our contention in the lawsuit that the blind should be declared a "suspect class"—that is, declared the victims of traditional discrimination in the same way as are racial minorities, persons born outside of marriage, and aliens. In a sense, it is the most important part of the suit, since if it is granted, every law that treats us a class and imposes special rules on us must be scrutinized to make sure that the different treatment is not simply the result of the traditional discrimination.
In any event, there is not much reason to suppose that this new testing will be fairer than the earlier tests done by the FAA to determine whether blind persons would interfere with emergency evacuations. Those tests were performed using mainly what the FAA called "simulated blind persons"—in other words, sighted persons wearing blindfolds and pretending to be blind. It would be hard to dream up a more foolish or demeaning way to proceed. In itself, it is an instance of a long-discredited stereotype. We meet it regularly: A reporter or a school class will don blindfolds and wear them for a day to learn "what it is like to be blind.'" The procedure has about as much validity as performing evacuation tests at sea using "simulated swimmers"—or non-swimmers thrown into the water to see how they fare. We will be examining these new FAA tests to see whether they are not just one more case of traditional stereotyping.
Since the lawsuit has months, and possibly years, ahead before we can expect a resolution, the Federation has been exploring other routes to solving the problem. One of these concerned the Department of Transortation's duty to publish regulations implementing section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 bars discrimination on the basis of handicap in any activity funded by the federal government. Since airlines use airports staffed by the FAA, they fall under this statute. The Department of Transportation did make up some proposed rules last year, but they were strangely silent on the matter of airlines. On November 15, the Federation filed a petition with the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the independent agency that handles other forms of discrimination in air travel. Subsequent to that petition, the CAB and the FAA held a meeting and agreed that the CAB would take the lead in devising 504 regulations. This is a very positive development, and the proposed regulations are expected by the end of February. Needless to say, a rule titled "authority to refuse transportation" is not in the spirit of section 504, nor are decisions based on the unsupported opinions of "experts."
From the beginning, a number of members of Congress have taken a keen interest in the cane matter. In January, Jim Gashel began discussions with Congressman John Burton, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government Activities and Transportation. The subcommittee is now threatening to hold a full-scale oversight hearing at which the FAA can publicly explain its in-action on the cane issue. If the threat of a hearing spurs the FAA into action, fine; but we are ready for the hearing as well.
Finally, Jim Gashel has been holding negotiations with a senior vice-president of United Airlines. United would like to drop the whole issue and is talking about compromises that will keep it out of trouble with the FAA. These negotiations are going on at the time we write this, and we feel that an agreement acceptable to the blind can be worked out. After all, most airlines have refused to confiscate canes—a few of them have even stated this publicly in the press—and the FAA (which is often and justly accused of being a lackey of the airlines) has yet to take any action against them.
Whether any of these various activities will lead to a resolution of the problem by next July when thousands of blind people converge on Miami Beach for the NFB Convention remains uncertain. But one thing is certain: If United or any other airline tries to take our canes and tell us that in case of an emergency someone will come along and help us after everybody else has been safely evacuated—well, they had better think again. We know who we are, we know what our rights are, and we will never go back.by KENNETH JERNIGAN
As Federationists know, the past few months have been tumultuous and lively. In the first place we had all of the activity and disruption involved in moving the NFB Office from Des Moines to Baltimore. Mrs. Anderson went to Des Moines in mid-November and she, Mrs. Gueblaoui, Mr. Thompson, and a host of Iowa volunteers dismantled shelves, packed materials, and loaded semis. As a matter of fact, we ended up with nine semis fully loaded with all our materials, recordings, films, file cabinets, furnishings, and the rest. Those who participated in the 1973 NAC demonstration in New York will be happy to know that we even brought the pine coffin which so fittingly graced that ceremony to bury NAC. The coffin came across the country filled with NFB canes—serving, as always, a useful purpose.
Our new headquarters building in Baltimore was not fully ready for occupancy, so we had to store our materials and furniture in one corner of the top floor, covering them with plastic to keep them clean and digging out items as we could to try to fill orders from Federationists throughout the country. For that matter, at this writing, we are still digging out items and piecing together orders.
In the meantime we have continued to occupy the temporary offices at 1101 Saint Paul Street in Baltimore, which we have used since last summer. The space is crowded; the boxes are stacked on top of each other; and we are shuttling backward and forward between the temporary offices and the new building—the remodeling of which, incidentally, is nearing completion.
What a building it is! It will serve our needs extremely well, and it symbolizes the growing strength and prestige of our movement. Those Federationists who have visited Baltimore and seen the remodeling in progress have uniformly expressed a sense of pride and an uplift of spirit upon touring the facility.
Although this article will appear in the March Monitor, it is being written in mid-January. The contractors confidently assure me that somewhere around the first of February all of the remodeling will be finished and that we can move in and begin to sort out our material and get settled. Not only will we have adequate space for the first time in our history but we will also have the possibility of arranging our material in such a way as to improve the efficiency of the operation to a degree that will be reflected in better and quicker service than we've ever been able to give. Also, the economics of it all look extremely favorable for the movement.
The NFB Board will be meeting at the new building February 9, and we are planning for a stepped-up schedule of seminars. There is also the possibility of our own recording studio and of other services.
Of course, all of this costs money, but that money translates into better lives for blind people. In recent issues of the Monitor we have emphasized our program of recruiting sighted members at large and getting them to become "Associates" through their cash contributions. All of those who became Associates before October 1st are counted in the 1978 tally. Those becoming Associates between October 1, 1978, and September 30, 1979, will be counted for 1979.
As Federationists know from previous Monitors, we are in the midst of a contest. The person who recruits the most Associates between October 1, 1978, and May 31, 1979, will receive a prize at the Miami Beach Convention. To be eligible for consideration the forms must actually be received at the Treasurer's Office or the National Office by the end of the day May 31, 1979. Notice that we have refined and clarified the rules of the contest. Here they are:
The first prize will be $400. The second prize will be $300. The third prize will be $200. By paying a dollar and signing the membership form an individual becomes a member at large. Members at large are urged to contribute and become Associates. Those who pay only $1 and become members at large are not counted as Associates. Any members at large paying more than one dollar but less than $10 will be listed as Associates but will not receive official Associate cards. Those contributing $10 will receive cards stating that they are Associates. Those giving $25 are Contributing Associates. Those giving $50 are Supporting Associates. Those giving $100 are Sponsoring Associates. Those giving $500 are Sustaining Associates. Those giving $1,000 are Members of the President's Club. Cards will be sent to those giving between $10 and $100. Certificates will be sent to those giving $100 or more.
There is a space on the membership form for the name of the Federationist who recruits the Associate. If the space is left blank, no individual will receive credit for doing the recruiting, but the credit will be given to the state in which the Associate lives. Of course, this does not affect the contest since the prizes are for individual recruiters and not states.
It should be noted that it is the number of Associates recruited and not the amount of money that will determine the rating. Also, the address given on the form will determine which state receives credit. For instance, Jim Gashel currently lives in Virginia and works in D.C. Let us suppose he recruits an Associate from Ohio. If Jim neglects to put his name on the form as the recruiter, Ohio will get the credit since we cannot determine who did the recruiting or where he or she lives. If (as I am sure will be the case) Jim puts his name and state in the appropriate space on the form, the state he designates will receive credit—that is, Virginia, where he lives, or D.C, where he works. Suppose that an individual lives in one state from October through January and recruits 10 Associates, then moves to another state and recruits 10 more. Each state will get credit for 10-assuming, that is, that the appropriate information is recorded on the form.
Contests are fun, and all of us could use the prize money; but, of course, this is not really the reason for it all. Our movement is truly a people's movement. We are striving to make the lives of blind people better, and we can say and do what we really think since we are not controlled by government grants. Also, unlike some other groups we are not bought and paid for by the American Foundation for the Blind—or, for that matter, anybody else. We have the freedom and the independence to call it as we see it and to work with no other thought than the advancement of the blind. But this freedom carries a price tag. It can only be maintained if we the members are willing to work on a continuing basis to make it possible—not just a few of us, not just the leaders, but all of us. Each of us must give what we can through individual donations and through the PAC plan, but we must also recruit sighted members at large and Associates to share the load. We need their financial assistance, yes; but just as important, we need their moral support and their understanding. In the long run we either change public attitudes about blindness and educate the average citizen, or we lose. We fail to achieve our ultimate goal, equal treatment and first-class status in society.
This is what the Federation is all about. This is why we must give of our time and stand up to be counnted. It is why we must disregard the people who misunderstand our motives and label us as militants or trouble-makers. It is why we must find the money to finance our activities. It is why we must recruit Associates. It means the difference between full lives and second-class status for blind people.
The following lists give the rankings of the individuals who have recruited Associates and of the state totals. As you read these lists, please keep the following facts in mind: In December a letter was sent to all of the 1978 Associates, inviting them to continue as Associates during 1979. A membership form was sent to each. Some of those who responded listed the Federationist who recruited them. In such cases the Federationist was given credit. Some left the space blank. In this case credit was simply given to the state in which the Associate lived. Some may argue that this is not a proper way to proceed, but it is hard to know how else to do it—besides which, it can also be argued that those Federationists that follow up on the Associates they recruit, keeping them informed and showing interest, deserve credit and that such Associates are more likely to renew for the coming year and to list the name of their Federation contact.
In the lists the recruiters are ranked by the number of Associates they have enrolled. If two Federationists have enrolled the same number of Associates, the recruiter having secured the most money is rated higher. If two recruiters have the same number of Associates and the same amount of money, the ranking is done alphabetically.
On a personal note I am pleased to see that my brother (Lloyd Jernigan, a General Motors employee from Michigan) has taken my urgings seriously and is working away at recruiting. In fact, he tells me that he intends to win the contest. But then, he doesn't know Gail Flateau of Florida, and there is also JoAnn Giudicessi.
The first list contains the ranking, followed by the name of the individual, followed by the number of Associates, followed by the amount of money, followed by the state listed on the last form received from that individual. The second list contains a ranking of the states in order of the number of Associates enrolled. Finally there is a list in alphabetical order of the states which have not enrolled a single Associate. These lists cover the period October 1, 1978, through December 31, 1978. The next listings we make will, I am sure, show some startling changes. As I write, January is only a little more than half gone, and the Associates are pouring in. Today, for instance, I think we received five in one bunch from Karen Mayry of South Dakota, and Fred Schroeder of Nebraska (formerly of California) keeps sending them in in bunches. Then, too, there is that bet that I made with E. U. Parker of Mississippi as to which of us would recruit the most Associates before the end of May.
Anyway, the movement is alive and growing, and here are the lists. If your name is not shown, think about it and see what you can do:
Ranking of recruiters for the Associates Program |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Recruiter |
Number of Associates |
Money |
State |
|
1. JoAnn Giudicessi |
19 |
$350 |
Mass. |
|
2. Lloyd Jernigan |
16 |
200 |
Mich. |
|
3. Fred Schroeder |
15 |
325 |
Nebr. |
|
4. Anna K. Jernigan |
11 |
186 |
Md. |
|
5. Harvey Heagy |
6 |
131 |
Conn. |
|
6. Ralph Sanders |
6 |
101 |
Md. |
|
7. Jonathan May |
6 |
90 |
Conn. |
|
8. Herb Magin |
5 |
50 |
Md. |
|
9. Mike Hingson |
4 |
40 |
Mass. |
|
10. Larry Posont |
4 |
40 |
Mich. |
|
11. Kenneth Jernigan |
3 |
210 |
Md. |
|
12. Gail Flateau |
3 |
120 |
Fla. |
|
13. Marc Maurer |
3 |
45 |
Md. |
|
14. Terry Harris |
3 |
30 |
Idaho |
|
15. Mrs. E. F. Lane |
3 |
30 |
Kans. |
|
16. Al Maneki |
2 |
60 |
Md. |
|
17. Dr. and Mrs. Schrader |
2 |
60 |
Iowa |
|
18. Alan Acorn |
2 |
50 |
Mo. |
|
19. Steve Machalow |
2 |
50 |
Md. |
|
20. Adrienne Asch |
2 |
35 |
N.Y. |
|
21. Norm Gardner |
2 |
35 |
Idaho |
|
22. Barbara Pierce |
2 |
35 |
Ohio |
|
23. James Fox |
2 |
20 |
Md. |
|
24. Allen Harris |
2 |
20 |
Mich. |
|
25. Ann Johnson |
2 |
20 |
Iowa |
|
26. Berneice Johnson |
2 |
20 |
Iowa |
|
27. Trish Miller |
2 |
20 |
Md. |
|
28. Jeanne Marie Moore |
2 |
20 |
Colo. |
|
29. Michael Rossi |
2 |
20 |
N.H. |
|
30. Susan Stanzel |
2 |
20 |
Kans. |
|
31. Ruth Swenson |
2 |
20 |
Nebr. |
|
32. Louie Vinson |
2 |
20 |
Tex. |
|
33. Carl Wyatt |
2 |
20 |
Mo. |
|
34. Julie Dedan |
1 |
200 |
Colo. |
|
35. Jim Mitchell |
1 |
100 |
Calif. |
|
36. Cecile Paice |
1 |
100 |
Mass. |
|
37. Maxine Bohrer |
1 |
50 |
Kans. |
|
38. Diane Carson |
1 |
50 |
Iowa |
|
39. Jimmie Sofka |
1 |
50 |
N.J. |
|
40. Evelyn Weckerly |
1 |
50 |
Mich. |
|
41. John Cheadle |
1 |
28 |
Nebr. |
|
Ranking of recruiters (continued) |
||||
42. Associated Blind of Greater Brockton |
1 |
$25 |
Mass. |
|
43. James Glaza |
1 |
25 |
Iowa |
|
44. Clarita Golander |
1 |
25 |
Md. |
|
45. Don Hudson |
1 |
25 |
Colo. |
|
46. Louise Orick |
1 |
25 |
Mo. |
|
47. Georgina Silva |
1 |
25 |
Calif. |
|
48. Dorothy Singleton |
1 |
25 |
Tex. |
|
49. Dorothy Steers |
1 |
25 |
Mich. |
|
50. Franklin Van Vliet |
1 |
25 |
N.H. |
|
51. Pat Eschbach |
1 |
11 |
Ohio |
|
52. Mike Barber |
1 |
10 |
Iowa |
|
53. Steve Benson |
1 |
10 |
Ill. |
|
54. Jacquiline Billey |
1 |
10 |
Conn. |
|
55. Ken Brackett |
1 |
10 |
R.I. |
|
56. Gail Cowart |
1 |
10 |
Calif. |
|
57. Carol Crosby |
1 |
10 |
Tex. |
|
58. Glenn Crosby |
1 |
10 |
Tex. |
|
59. R. J. Edlund |
1 |
10 |
Kans. |
|
60. Mary Gibbons |
1 |
10 |
Va. |
|
61. Myrtle Golanis |
1 |
10 |
Utah |
|
62. Deanne Gueblaoui |
1 |
10 |
Md. |
|
63. Mrs. Martin Howe |
1 |
10 |
Wisc. |
|
64. Dick Jones |
1 |
10 |
Idaho |
|
65. Budd Little |
1 |
10 |
Idaho |
|
66. Karen Mayry |
1 |
10 |
S. Dak. |
|
67. James Omvig |
1 |
10 |
Md. |
|
68. Joseph Paxson |
1 |
10 |
Calif. |
|
69. Bob Ray |
1 |
10 |
Iowa |
|
70. Cecilia Ross |
1 |
10 |
Ill. |
|
71. Harold Snider |
1 |
10 |
D.C. |
|
72. Jimmy Sparks |
1 |
10 |
Ark. |
|
73. Stamford Chapter |
1 |
10 |
Conn. |
|
74. Clearman and Net Sutton |
1 |
10 |
Md. |
|
75. Marshall Tucker |
1 |
10 |
S.C. |
|
76. Ethel Untermeyer |
1 |
10 |
Ill. |
|
77. Suzann Whalon |
1 |
10 |
Tex. |
|
Unknown recruiters |
32 |
747 |
||
Totals |
219 |
$4,364 |
Ranking of the states that have recruited Associates, October 1—December 31, 1978 |
|||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
State |
Number of Associates |
Money |
|||||||
1. Maryland |
48 |
$892 |
|||||||
2. Michigan |
27 |
365 |
|||||||
3. Massachusetts |
25 |
515 |
|||||||
4. Nebraska |
18 |
373 |
|||||||
5. Iowa |
12 |
231 |
|||||||
6. Texas |
12 |
206 |
|||||||
7. California |
9 |
235 |
|||||||
Ranking of states (continued) |
|
||||||||
8. Kansas |
8 |
160 |
|||||||
9. Connecticut |
8 |
110 |
|||||||
10. Idaho |
7 |
85 |
|||||||
11. Florida |
5 |
230 |
|||||||
12. Missouri |
5 |
95 |
|||||||
13. Colorado |
4 |
245 |
|||||||
14. Ohio |
4 |
56 |
|||||||
15. Illinois |
4 |
55 |
|||||||
16. New Hampshire |
3 |
45 |
|||||||
17. New York |
3 |
45 |
|||||||
18. District of Columbia |
2 |
110 |
|||||||
19. South Carolina |
2 |
110 |
|||||||
20. South Dakota |
2 |
20 |
|||||||
21. Virginia |
2 |
20 |
|||||||
22. New Jersey |
1 |
50 |
|||||||
23. West Virginia |
1 |
26 |
|||||||
24. Louisiana |
1 |
25 |
|||||||
25. Arkansas |
1 |
10 |
|||||||
26. Georgia |
1 |
10 |
|||||||
27. North Carolina |
1 |
10 |
|||||||
28. Rhode Island |
1 |
10 |
|||||||
29. Utah |
1 |
10 |
|||||||
30. Wisconsin |
1 |
10 |
|||||||
Totals |
219 |
$4,364 |
States that recruited no Associates between October 1 and December 31, 1978 |
---|
1. Alabama |
2. Alaska |
3. Arizona |
4. Delaware |
5. Hawaii |
6. Indiana |
7. Kentucky |
8. Maine |
9. Minnesota |
10. Mississippi |
11. Montana |
12. Nevada |
13. New Mexico |
14. North Dakota |
15. Oklahoma |
16. Oregon |
17. Pennsylvania |
18. Tennessee |
19. Vermont |
20. Washington |
21. Wyoming |
by KENNETH JERNIGAN
Something happened last fall which made me proud to be a Federationist and proud of my close ties with Iowa. During the past year, the blind of that state have undergone a good deal of attack and abuse. Nevertheless, they have refused to be discouraged or diverted from their goals.
When a number of us moved to Maryland during the summer and fall (several of us substantial PAC plan contributors), it seemed as if Iowa might lose its ranking as the top PAC plan contributor in the nation. Maryland is coming up fast, and the Marylanders have made it clear that they intend to overtake the Iowans. At the Orientation Alumni meeting in Des Moines in November Iowa increased its PAC plan pledge by more than $400 a month, and that was followed very shortly by a $75-a-month pledge from one vending stand operator and an equally substantial contribution from another. Iowa still leads the pack in PAC, and I think anybody who intends to challenge them had better plan to meet some tough competition. More power to you, Iowa. Nineteen seventy-eight brought some tough fighting, but we know who we are, and we will never go back.
While credits are being passed out, I must say a word about Colorado. Never before in the history of the movement has any state given so much in a single year. In 1978, Colorado gave more than $40,000 to the National Office. Iowa wasn't far behind with well over $30,000, and Maryland is moving up fast with more than $20,000. Who says we can't finance our movement and keep the Federation viable? With all its problems, 1978 was a good one, but just watch 1979.
And speaking of 1979, all of those states I have mentioned had better keep on their toes. I am writing in January, and we have just received a check from Louisiana in the amount of $20,000. How's that for a beginning?
This note is to remind you to write in soon for your hotel reservations. The NFB Convention will be held in Miami Beach, Florida, from Sunday, July 1, to Friday, July 6. The convention rates will be available between June 27 and July 8. This year the special rates will be available only to those who register at the convention.
We will be using five hotels—all within a block of each other. No matter what hotel you stay in, you must send your reservation request to the headquarters hotel, which is the Deauville. Include the following in your request: (1) your name and address; (2) your date of arrival; (3) your date of departure; (4) whether you want a single, double, triple, or quad. (5) If you indicate a certain hotel, also put down your second and third choice. (6) Include a check or money order for $20 payable to the Deauville Hotel. This $20 (which is not refundable) will apply to your room bill. (7) Send the request to the Deauville Hotel, Ocean at 67th, Miami Beach, Florida 33141. (Note that we will be meeting in Miami Beach, not Miami.)
The rates are: the Deauville, singles—$15, doubles—$20; Carillon, singles—$18, doubles—$22; Rowe, singles—$14, doubles—$16. At both the Monte Carlo and the Sterling, both singles and doubles are $20. At all five hotels, triples are $5 more than doubles, and triples are $10 more than doubles.by SCOTT H. LEWIS
Note: Scott Lewis is a dedicated member of the National Federation of the Blind of Washington who has thoroughly repudiated some of the goings-on in that state being stirred up by the state agency and some of its employees, who are trying to take over the affiliate. He is professionally employed with a public relations firm and is not subject to pressure from the state agency.
Scott Lewis has prepared a far more detailed discussion of public relations, titled "The Federationist's PR Handbook." Watch future issues for details on the availability of this booklet.
As the former public relations director of the NFB of Washington, Federationists would approach me at conventions and meetings and ask how they could better let the community know where the chapter meets, and more important, that the chapter exists. Having been on both sides of the editor's desk, I can say I've seen the best and the worst of local publicity releases. And I can say that even the worst release I've seen does more good than no release at all.
What then is the trick to getting the information out about your chapter? Knowledge of your city's media, and knowledge of the path to the local editor's desk.
The first move is for the chapter president to appoint a person to handle public relations chores for the chapter. It should be one of the members who has a good degree of writing skill, and who can organize and clearly present facts.
Once appointed, the PR person should develop a media file for the area. Basically, this is a list of the newspapers, TV and radio stations within 20 miles of your meeting place. Put the name, address, and telephone number of each on a separate filing card. Then, call each paper, TV or radio station, and verify their mailing address and phone number. Ask the name of the news director and public service director for each radio station, and ask TV stations for the name of their news assignment editor and public service director. Ask newspapers for the name of the education writer or city editor.
Also, ask whether radio stations and newspapers feature a regular calendar-of-events section or program. Note the name of the person responsible and the deadline for each on the file cards.
Now that you have an up-to-date media list, you're ready to go to work!
We'll assume that the biggest problem you are currently facing is an inability to get new people into the chapter. There are two things you can do immediately to work toward new membership.
Calendar—Look through your media cards and pull out the ones that have calendar sections or programs. Being careful to include complete information, write a press release that clearly tells people that you're meeting. It might read like this:
"NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND, Oyster City Chapter, meets Sunday, July 30, in room 234 of the Oyster City Library. Meeting time is 3 p.m. President Sally Morris will lead discussion concerning the White Cane Law. No charge."
It's simple, direct, and tells people what you're doing. At the top of the page, type your name, address, and your daytime phone number. Make clear, easy-to-read photocopies and deliver them (by hand or by mail) to the media on the file cards you pulled. Don't worry that it doesn't sound much like a news story—let a professional writer take care of that. Always keep a copy for yourself of whatever you send out, and send another to your chapter president.
Press Release—Each month, about ten days before your chapter meets, write a release for all of the radio stations and newspapers on your list. Make it short, simple, to the point. It can be very much like the one you send to the calendar list, but it should include a sentence about what the Federation is, what the topic of discussion will be, and whom to call (usually it's you or the president) for more information. Again, ask yourself the question: "What would I want to know to become motivated to attend?" and "What would I need to know to get to the meeting on time?"
Some quick extra rules to follow: Don't call the stations or papers unless it is very important. They haven't got a lot of time to do their jobs. Don't call a press conference for 99.9% of the reasons I can think of (one editor I know uses The Second Coming as a good reason—for anything less, send a release). And please don't send more than one release to the same paper on the same topic. You may send two releases and get two mentions in the same edition—once. But the editors don't like it and will not print anything in the future if you do. An active chapter public relations operation is well worth your while. These ideas should get you started.
by JOHN ZUSKA
Ingredients
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup hot whipping cream
1/3 cup brown sugar (approximately)
Mix the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and heated cream together thoroughly. Place in either individual ovenproof custard dishes or a small casserole dish. Heat the oven to 250 degrees. Place the custard dishes in a baking pan and pour in boiling water until it surrounds the custard dishes (but not, of course, so there is a danger of the water spilling into the custard when it continues to boil in the oven). Cook for 35 to 45 minutes (a single casserole dish will take longer) or until the custard sets. Remove from the oven and let the custard cool. When it is cool, refrigerate until it is well chilled. Spread the brown sugar on top of the custard so the coating is about 1/4 inch thick. Use a plant sprayer to moisten the sugar very slightly. (Another possibility is to use liquid brown sugar, or even to sprinkle a few drops of water on top, but be careful not to add too much water.) Place custard under a hot broiler for two to three minutes, until the sugar has melted and caramelized (a dark-brown color, but not black). Cool once again and serve. (Caution: Sugar caramelizes at about 400 degrees, so be certain to cool sufficiently before serving or your guests will suffer second-degree burns.)
If you have an electric ice cream maker, you can put the finished custard (caramel topping and all) into the maker and produce delicious caramel-custard ice cream. The recipe will serve two to four people depending on appetites, but it can be doubled with no problem. This is an old creole recipe and is very rich.
We begin the Miniatures this month with two corrections. In the November-December 1978 Monitor we listed the addresses for used Braille watches, white canes, and Braille books and writing equipment, so they can be forwarded to blind persons overseas—a project carried out by the NFB Cultural Exchange and International Program Committee. The address listed for Braille books and writing equipment was incorrect. These should be sent to the NFB of Denver, 2232 South Broadway, Denver, Colorado 80210.
The second mistake occurred in the January 1979 issue. We reported that much of the Lord Baltimore Hotel was destroyed by fire on December 13th. This report came from a Baltimore television station, and the effects of the television report were worse than the fire, according to the hotel management. Apparently the fire was a very minor affair—a blaze in a mop closet or some such—and soon extinguished. Federationists will be glad to know the Lord Baltimore is still standing and ready to hold future NFB Conventions.
Following the adoption by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners last summer of the NFB's model regulation barring insurance discrimination against the blind, and with the help of Jim Omvig's extensive correspondence with state insurance commissioners, bolstered by the activities of state NFB affiliates, a number of states have taken action—either legislatively or by regulation—to eliminate such discrimination. In order that we can keep track of the rapidly moving events in this area, Jim Omvig asks that state affiliates keep him abreast of their states' activities. If possible, send him copies of the actual regulation adopted in your state (so that he can determine whether the NFB model regulation has been watered down) and keep him in touch with other developments. His address is: Jim Omvig, 364 Marydell Road, Baltimore, Maryland 21229.
Allen Harris, president of the NFB of Michigan, sends the following note: "Jim Palmer, an active Federationist for the last eight years, died November 1, 1978. He was an executive board member for seven years, the last three as state treasurer. Jim was instrumental in the formation and active participation of the Grand Haven Chapter of the NFB of Michigan. Although Jim had been having some health problems in recent months, his death was sudden and unexpected. Jim will be greatly missed by all of his friends and colleagues in the Federation. He will be remembered for his hard work, his enthusiasm, and his dedication to the National Federation of the Blind."
Jerry Whittle of South Carolina sends the following: "The Student Division of the NFB of South Carolina will sponsor a Carolina Cooler on Monday, July 2, at the NFB Convention, from 9:00 p.m. until midnight. The location will be announced at the Student Division meeting. This informal drop-in will feature southern hospitality at its finest. See you in Miami Beach."
The 1979 convention of the NFB of Mississippi will be held April 20 and 21 at the Downtowner Motor Inn, 225 East Capitol Street in Jackson—the site where the affiliate was organized in 1972. Registration is $2, luncheon is $6.50, or only $8 if you attend both.
The Black Hills Chapter will host the fourth annual NFB of South Dakota state convention on Saturday, April 28, 1979, at the Imperial 400 Motel in Rapid City, South Dakota. Registration is $1, lunch is $4, and the banquet is $4.25. Send registrations to NFB of South Dakota, P.O. Box 124, Rapid City, South Dakota 57709.
That same weekend, the NFB of the District of Columbia will be holding its convention at the Holiday Inn Central, 1501 Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest, in Washington. Activities will begin Friday night with a business meeting and election of officers. Saturday will be devoted to panels and speakers and end with a legislative banquet Saturday evening.
The annual convention of the NFB of Georgia will be held May 18 to 20 at the John Wesley Hotel in Savannah. For further details, contact Jesse Williamson, convention coordinator, at (404) 881-6757. All who can possibly come are invited.
The Mutual Federation of Cleveland has elected the following officers for 1979: Annette Anderson, president; Margaret Knall, vice-president; Sue Franklin, secretary; and John Knall, treasurer.
The Dayton (Ohio) Federation elected these 1979 officers at its annual Christmas social at the home of Bob and Pat Eschbach: Sheila Samson, president; Brother John Soehnel, vice-president; Clarence Cordrey, secretary-recording; Ron Williamitis, secretary-recording; and Pat Eschbach, treasurer.
Many Federationists became acquainted with the Larry King Show, an all-night call-in and talk show on the Mutual Broadcasting System, after Jim Gashel was Larry King's guest last fall. Larry has one or two guests each night, and the first hour to 90 minutes are devoted to an interview, after which the guest talks to listeners who call in. The final hours of the five-hour program are thrown open to general topics. When Jim Gashel appeared, however, Larry kept him talking for the full five hours, and at three o'clock in the morning, every line into the studio was lit up—the first time that had happened. One amusing moment took place when a women called in, identified herself as a member of the American Council of the Blind, and then asked what the Federation was going to do about several problems she was having. Despite her affiliation, she knew where the action was.
Federationist Ernest M. Ward, of Scottsdale, Arizona, stays up most nights to record the Larry King Show, which he then edits to remove commercials and the hourly news. He will make these cleaned-up tapes available to Federationists on cassettes for $2.75 plus 75 cents for first-class postage in a crush-proof mailer. If you are interested, send the total price ($3.50) in a check or money order to Emco Tapes, 6813 East Avalon Drive, Scottsdale, Arizona 85251. So far, Mr. Ward has the following interviews available (the numbers are Mr. Ward's ordering numbers): (9) Vincent Bugliosi, Los Angeles district attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson, with Herbert Cohen, negotiator for the FBI and the State Department, on side 2; (10) Dr. Alvin Levin, president-elect of the American Optometric Association; (11) John Ehrlichman, former Nixon aide, on the prison system; (12) Jimmy the Greek, famous gambling odds-maker; (13) Bill Baird, known as the "Father of Birth Control"; (14) Jack Warner, assistant director of the U.S. Secret Service; (15) Dr. Miles Schneider, podiatrist expert in athletic injuries to the foot, ankle, and leg, with Dr. Bill Nape, psychiatrist, and Eleanor Devore, of the Devore Cancer Foundation, on side 2; (16) Phyllis Schlafley, anti-ERA figure, with Dr. Nancy Joyner, ERA-proponent, answering her on side 2; (17) Sarah McClendon, White House reporter during the terms of eight presidents, with columnist Jack Anderson on side 2; (18) Sonny Grosso, New York City detective who was the technical advisor to the Kojak and Baretta television shows, with a discussion of the Bakke case on side 2; (19) Herbert Hetu, director of public relations for the CIA; and (20) Dr. Fitzhugh Dodson. psychologist and expert on child-raising.
THE DEADLINE FOR ARTICLES TO APPEAR IN THE MAY ISSUE IS MARCH 10th.