Working Conditions: EEOC v. Henry Turkey Service People with intellectual disabilities, and in some cases mental illness, are often pushed into extremely limited options for employment. In her book Disability Servitude: From peonage to poverty, author Ruthie-Marie Beckwith equates this type of surreptitious discrimination to society having “effectively sentenced those individuals to a lifetime of poverty and dependency on government benefit programs” (2016 p. 141). Unfortunately, employers do sometimes take advantage of disabled workers, as was the case with Henry Turkey Service. On April 6, 2012, the EEOC filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Iowa against Henry Turkey Service, on behalf of thirty-two workers who have intellectual disabilities. The charges included wage violations, disparate treatment, and creating and …show more content…
Additional allegations which were all either admitted or proven true at trial included wage discrimination and theft. These charges were based on the facts: 1. Disabled men were paid $65 a month and were never paid overtime, even when they were eligible. 2. Disabled men received monthly deposits from Social Security and/or Supplemental Security Income, and the defendant subsequently used these funds used to offset the company’s costs for substandard and inadequate housing. Non-disabled workers employed by Henry Turkey Services in the same or similar positions, received significantly higher wages. Henry’s defense was that it bore for expense "room and board" and "in kind care", which should be credited toward the company, therefore justifying low wages for workers with disabilities. The court found these facts to be undisputed and ruled that had engaged in unlawful and discriminatory pay practices, awarding the plaintiffs $1,941,402, while a jury trial settled the abuse charges. In the latter, the jury award totaled $240 million, although it was subsequently reduced to $1.6 million or $50,000