Disability Servitude

ISBN-13: 9781137540300 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 184 str.

Ruthie-Marie Beckwith

Opis

Disability Servitude traces the history of peonage unpaid, forced labor by people with disabilities in public and private institutions. Describing the work they performed and lawsuits filed to get paid, it links that history with the continued segregation and exploitation of workers with disabilities that are paid far less than minimum wage.
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Recenzje

"Disability Servitude tells the history of the end of peonage in American institutions for people with intellectual disabilities. ... a welcome addition to the field of disability studies, treading the line between advocacy and balanced critique with great skill. ... strength of this volume is that it takes a hitherto underexplored area of disability policy and shows how central it is to our understanding of the place of disabled people in contemporary American history. In this sense, it is invaluable." (Gareth Millward, H-Net Disability, h-net.org, May, 2017)

"This book is to provide a historical review of how a system of legally imposed economic impoverishment has been, and remains, a cornerstone of our social practice of segregation and seclusion for this segment of our population. ... Beckwith presents a persuasive argument that an understanding of the history of unpaid, or barely paid, labor of people with intellectual disability is essential if we are to ever successfully support their integration into our communities as productive and valued citizens." (Philip M. Ferguson, Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, Vol. 41 (4), 2016)

Spis treści

1. Introduction
2. Institutionalized Peonage and Involuntary Servitude
3. Fighting Forest Fires: The Lost Heritage of Competence and Contribution
4. The Peonage Cases
5. The Aftermath
6. The Peculiar Institution of Sub-minimum Wage
7. Institutional Peonage and Involuntary Servitude in Segregated 'Employment' Settings
8. Perpetuation of Peonage and Poverty in the 21st Century
9. Conclusions: Stone Buildings and Stone Walls

O autorze

Ruthie-Marie Beckwith is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Disability Studies Program at City University of New York, USA.

Blurb

Disability Servitude traces the history and legacy of institutional peonage. For over a century, public and private institutions across the country relied on the unpaid, forced labor of their residents and patients in order to operate. This book describes the work they performed, in some cases for ten or more hours a day, seven days a week, and the lawsuits they brought in an effort to get paid. The impact of those lawsuits included accelerated de-institutionalization, but they fell short of obtaining equal and fair compensation for their plaintiffs. Instead, thousands of resident and patient-workers were replaced by non-disabled employees. Disability Servitude includes a detailed history of longstanding problems with the oversight of the sub-minimum wage provision in the Fair Labor Standards Act oversight. Beckwith shows how that history has resulted in the continued segregation and exploitation of over 400,000 workers with disabilities in sheltered workshops that legally pay far less than minimum wage.