[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZPZtCsJkyE]

The Democratic Party sure does know how to pick 'em, don't they? I'm sure he and Zane Tankel of Applebees would get on famously.

I'd also like to point out that tipped workers aren't the only folks paid sub-minimum wages. People with disabilities are as well. In fact, that's what outfits such as Goodwill are known for. Meanwhile, executive compensation is as exorbitant as one would expect. From a HuffPo article in 2013:

More than 100 Goodwill entities employ workers through the Special Wage Certificate program, a Depression-era loophole in federal labor law that allows organizations to pay subminimum wages to people with disabilities. According to Goodwill, 7,300 of its 105,000 employees are subject to the minimum wage exemption that affects 300,000 workers nationwide. My investigation revealed that these same Goodwill entities that use the special wage program simultaneously spent $53.7 million in total executive compensation. Here are some more highlights:

Goodwill of Southern California paid more than $1.1 million in total compensation to its then-CEO, making him the highest paid Goodwill executive in the country.

A husband-wife Goodwill executive team in North Carolina collected a combined $795,372 in total compensation.

Seventeen Goodwill entities reported executive compensation in excess of $1 million per year.

Goodwill entities spent more than $39.1 million in travel-related expenses.

The Goodwill of the Columbia Willamette is a great example of Goodwill’s wage disparity. In 2011, the lowest paid worker earned just $1.40 per hour. Michael Miller, the president and CEO, earned $742,875 in total compensation. His pay has actually gone down in the past decade. Matthew Kish, a reporter with the Portland Business Journal, wrote in 2011 that, at one time, Miller’s compensation package topped out at $831,508.

The National Federation of the Blind has been campaigning for years to end the deplorable subminimum wage policy. “People with disabilities have the right and ability to work in the same jobs earning the same wages as nondisabled workers,” the group argues on its website.

The only thing more pathetic than this is the assanine defense of the practice by so-called 'advocacy groups'. Florida's Association for Rehabilitation Facilities' defense is particularly laughable:

Why support continuation of 14(c) wage certificates?

Simply stated, eliminating or repealing Section 14(c) provisions would deny work opportunities for individuals with the most significant disabilities who cannot meet established productivity standards established by the nondisabled workforce unless employer subsidies are provided to bridge the gap between wages paid and productive output generated. While such subsidies routinely occurred in the past, they rarely exist today.

It also doesn't help that Florida's corrupt to the core government has been steadily slashing disability services since Rick Scott took office in 2011.

The permission slip for employers to exploit disabled workers otherwise known as 14(c) wage certificats goes back to 1938 with the passage of the original Fair Labor Standards Act. The Obama Administration passed, at best, token legislation with regards to this.

Of course, I fully expect Dipshit Trump and his gaggle of corporate goons to roll even that back, if they haven't done so already. And I doubt most albe-bodied folks would give two fucks if he did. We are the most ignored demographic behind the elderly, after all, unless RepigDems need props for a video or photo op. Yeah, let's see those assholes try to find employment through Voc Rehab. They wouldn't last a day.

America needs a real, all-inclusive Labor Party because the tranquilizing drug of gradualism doesn't fuckin' work anymore.

See ya around,

Aspie