Will Texas Abandon Sheltered Workshops, a system that pays disabled workers pennies per hour?

Pressure is rising to end system that allows disabled workers to be paid pennies per hour

Seventy years ago, Goodwill Industries of Houston was founded in order to employ people with disabilities whom nobody else would hire.

nice article by By Lydia DePillis for the Houston Chronicle | July 21, 2016

That whole time, a portion of those with the most severe disabilities have been paid less than minimum wage, which is allowed under a 1938 federal law enacted on the grounds that even a small paycheck is better than none. About 40 people perform tasks like stuffing bags for giveaways, or re-packaging a retailer’s returns, for a few cents an item.

At the end of July, that program came to an end — not because any laws have changed, but because Goodwill sees where the political winds are blowing.

"There’s a lot of pressure from disability rights organizations locally and nationally to change the law,” says Goodwill of Houston spokeswoman Kym King. “Part of our decision was that this was coming, and we wanted to be proactive about that.”

Only four out of the 15 Goodwills in Texas are still authorized to pay workers less than minimum wage. Many of the organization’s 165 individual outlets have already gotten out of the business. Why? Disability advocates have long argued that allowing workers to be paid less than minimum wage in segregated work environments — known as “sheltered workshops” — is disempowering and unfair.

After years of complaints, the federal government has started to curtail the practice, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has come out against it altogether, and some states have passed laws that effectively ban it in favor of services that help people with disabilities find decent-paying work.

None of that has happened yet in Texas, where the latest figures from the Department of Labor show that 10,000 people with disabilities are paid less than minimum wage. But pressure is mounting, as advocates push for the decades-old model to be replaced with something better.

Disability Rights Texas, a federally-designated protection and advocacy group, issued a report last month that lays out the case for scrapping the subminimum wage, sometimes called 14(c) employment after the section of the Fair Labor Standards Act that sanctions it. The organization interviewed 100 clients from 12 out of the state’s 109 organizations authorized to employ people with disabilities for subminimum wages, and found that the system isn’t working for the people it’s supposed to serve.

“People with disabilities are being underpaid to an extreme degree, are not developing any meaningful job skills and are denied the opportunity to find competitive, integrated employment,” the report reads. “Texas has before it both an opportunity, and an obligation, to ensure people with disabilities have access to the same employment opportunities as all other Texas citizens.”

The group did not name the institutions it targeted in its investigation, says supervisory attorney Lucia Ostrom, to protect interviewees against retaliation. But the report said that these nameless employers often do not provide the training that workers are supposed to receive, wages are frequently miscalculated and the state’s vocational rehabilitation system is failing to place them in mainstream positions.

Disability Rights Texas also provided to the Houston Chronicle a list of the 109 organizations that hold 14(c) certificates as of January 2016. Among the largest is North Texas Rehabilitation Services in Garland, which had 321 employees being paid less than minimum wage, assembling products and store displays in a segregated environment. Shelonda Coleman, the non-profit’s CEO, is impatient with those out to abolish her business model.

“If you have the patience to train them to do the job, then go for it,” she says. Coleman agrees with disability rights advocates that it’s possible for all her workers to attain mainstream employment, but she thinks it would take more resources than are currently available to support them. “Okay, come and help us. We want your help,” she says. “We’re not trying to limit anyone. Our goal is to get them ready for the community.”

Goodwill Industries of Houston’s Kym King says she’s also nervous about will happen to those who had worked in the organization’s sheltered program. “It’s really not about the money for them. It’s about the quality of life that comes along with having a job, and the confidence that comes when you are part of the world of work,” she says. “If these individuals were able to be in a competitive work environment, we would have transitioned them already.”

The largest employer of workers with disabilities in Texas, however, is the state itself: North Texas State Hospital, a mental inpatient healthcare facility in Wichita Falls, employs 636 people for less than the minimum wage. The state also supports sheltered workshops by requiring that agencies hire 14(c) employers for contracts that were worth nearly $140 million in 2013, according to a review early last year.

That program, known as “state use,” is currently under scrutiny by the Texas Workforce Commission. In early 2014, a task force convened by a law passed the previous year also recommended that the state ensure all workers paid under state contracts be paid at least minimum wage by September 1, 2016, which would push many more employers out of the sheltered workshop business.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/texanomics/article/Pressure-is-rising-to-end-the-system-that-allows-8401348.php?t=76a48a308b438d9cbb&cmpid=fb-premium
© 2016 the Houston Chronicle

How Much Longer Will People with Disabilities Work For Pennies Per Hour in Sheltered Workshops

The era of the "sheltered workshop" is on the way out

photo: The Chimes, a facility in Baltimore employs people with disabilities to do low-skilled tasks.

Most factory production disappeared long ago from the warehouses on the outskirts of Baltimore. There is at least one remaining, however — and it’s a little different than what you might imagine.

article by Lydia DePillis for The Washington Post | February 12, 2016
At the Chimes, a no-frills building with lofty ceilings and little heavy equipment, hundreds of workers are relaxed and smiling, sometimes approaching visitors to say hello and introduce themselves. The tasks at hand seem more like group art projects than assembly lines, with people chatting amiably while placing bottles of beer into six-pack cartons, or cutting up drop cloths for use by cabinetmakers. Some are cleaning up from breakfast in a bright cafeteria, who others help prepare lunch at the building’s industrial-size kitchen.

Here’s the difference between the Chimes and your typical manufacturing facility: The workers there have a broad range of physical and mental impairments, from cerebral palsy to autism to Down’s syndrome. The non-profit takes on contracts for low-skilled manual labor, paying some program participants less than minimum wage under an exemption from federal labor law for employment of people with disabilities.

How little do participants make? Rates may go as low as less than a dollar per hour, according to individual measurements of a person’s productivity, on the philosophy that it’s better for those who couldn’t get a job on the open market to work and earn even a token paycheck. In Maryland, workers in these types of jobs make $66 on average every two weeks for 17 hours of work. Chimes works with about 2,000 people, 25 percent of whom are paid less than minimum wage. It received $2.7 million in state and federal funding to support just the 240 people who work in the Baltimore facility, along with income from the contracts it fulfills; Lampner says the employment program still operates at a loss.

According to the Department of Labor, 228,600 disabled people across the country work in what’s known as “sheltered” employment; disability advocates estimate that number may be on the low-side due to under-reporting. But the practice has fallen increasingly out of favor in policy circles, and in could soon end entirely in Maryland: A bill is advancing through the state legislature that would phase out the practice by 2019.

Chimes’ CEO, Marty Lampner, thinks that’s way too hasty a move in isolation. “We don’t have the alternatives that are suggested are out there,” Lampner says. "I don’t think you can just slam the door and tell people to go elsewhere, or that the market will pick them up.”

For years now, disability rights organizations have opposed that line of Chimes’ business on the grounds that it creates low expectations for people who should be able to hold traditional jobs at competitive wages. In the past, most notably in the case of Henry’s Turkeys, sheltered workshops have been faulted for exploiting the low-cost labor the exemption enables without providing the services it also requires.

“There are lots of strategies out there to assist with individuals with disabilities,” says Rose Sloan, government affairs specialist with the National Federation of the Blind. “With the proper training and support, I don’t care what disability they have, they can do a job that’s worth at least the minimum wage.”

Until recently, those advocates hadn’t made much headway. A bill that would wipe out the sub-minimum wage exemption was introduced in 2013 and hasn’t gone far; a wave of media attention to the issue was short-lived. About 3,400 organizations hold the certificates, and their lobbying organization —ACCSES — has fought to preserve the status quo. One of ACCSES’s most well-known members, Goodwill Industries International, has been particularly influential in persuading lawmakers that the exemption is the only way to provide work opportunities to disabled adults.

“THE PROVIDERS THAT WANT TO MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO ARE FIGHTING PARTICULARLY HARD RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE THEY’RE TRYING TO DEFEND A DYING INDUSTRY, BUT THE TIDE HAS REALLY TURNED IN THE LAST TWO YEARS ON THIS ISSUE.” 

— Association of People Supporting Employment Director Allison Wohl

“Eliminating or phasing out the special minimum wage would likely result in many individuals with significant disabilities receiving no wages instead of earning special minimum wages,” reads a 2013 Goodwill position paper on the issue. "Furthermore, they would be denied the tangible and intangible benefits of work: independence, participation, dignity, self-esteem and sense of accomplishment, among others."

Nevertheless, defenders of the practice are now losing on a host of fronts.

A non-exhaustive list: In 2014, Congress passed a new workforce investment law that places a number of restrictions on the use of sub-minimum wages, requiring that disabled people be counseled about their vocational options before being referred to a sheltered workshop. The law also called for a committee to make recommendations on the future of the program, and the resulting report recommended that it be phased out entirely, which the federal National Council on Disability had already endorsed. Meanwhile, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez has stated his opposition to the sub-minimum wage exemption, and last year New Hampshire became the first state to ban the practice.

“The providers that want to maintain the status quo are fighting particularly hard right now, because they’re trying to defend a dying industry, but the tide has really turned in the last two years on this issue,” says Allison Wohl, director of the Association for People Supporting Employment First, which argues that disability service providers should adapt to support people in jobs on the open market rather than concentrating them all in one place. “The way that systems are funded, and the way that funds are distributed, is just not going to hold up in the future."

In hearings at the Maryland legislature this week, disabled people and their guardians argued passionately for the exemption to be phased out. Some disability services providers agreed, saying they had already managed to transition all of their clients to regular jobs in the community. Their trade association, the Maryland Association of Community Services, argued for a longer time frame and higher reimbursement rates for what could be a more expensive model of supporting the most impaired people.

Lampner, of Chimes, is more troubled by the Maryland bill. He doesn’t think that everyone can win competitive work, pointing to the high rate of unemployment among people with much more mild disabilities than the people he serves; he says the market could never absorb all of them. Out of its several hundred charges at any one time, Chimes is able to place around five per month in the open job market. And there’s merit, he says, in allowing people to experience higher-skilled professions in which they might never be fully productive.

“We are obliged to be competitive in the marketplace to get the work,” Lampner says. "And if I don’t pay 14(c), I need to bring in a different class of jobs that are going to be less skilled. One of the reasons I think 14(c) has value is that not everybody wants to be a janitor or a stocker.”

Still, Lampner says he recognizes that times are changing, and is trying out new business models that might fit with where policy is headed. For example, over the past few months he’s created space in the cavernous Baltimore warehouse for internet retailers to locate their entire operations, in exchange for putting disabled people to work.

One of the first pilots is with a company called Cyberspa, which sells kits that rejuvenate the hard drives of aging PCs. It’s starting to sell directly through Amazon, and expects that a team of five to ten Chimes employees could assemble and package 25,000 kits per month. With a sticker price of $99 each, that would even allow the workers to be paid the full minimum wage, even if they couldn’t move as fast as someone without a disability.

“Ten years ago, to launch this product, we would have contracted offshore,” Cyberspa’s CEO, Allen Shay says. "Have someone do this in China and ship them over in big boxes and that would be that.” But remote production is a little riskier these days, Shay says, with the risk of intellectual property theft. A partnership with Chimes made keeping those jobs in Baltimore possible.

So far, it’s worked out for Gary Ragins, 24, who’s confined to a wheelchair with cerebral palsy. He’s been at Chimes for two and a half years, and had worked for a while at TJ Maxx, but took a liking to the part of the job with Cyberspa that involved working with computers. The idea of learning more about technology, Ragins says, made him finally abandon his dream of going to Hollywood to become an actor. “Right off the bat, I really got attracted,” he says.

Lampner — who made $453,000 in total compensation in 2013 — says his goal is for the businesses to employ fully-abled people as well, to provide something more like an integrated experience. Down the road, he figures Cyberspa might get big enough to move into its own facility and take the disabled workers along. Meanwhile, the revenue from Cyberspa’s operations could finance improvements to the building, like a mezzanine level to put more workshop space.

“It’s a not-for-profit. It’s not a non-profit,” Lampner says, explaining his attitude towards earning money.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/12/disabled-people-are-allowed-to-work-for-pennies-per-hour-but-maybe-not-for-much-longer/

Disability Rights Ohio, & National Federation of the Blind Win Landmark Dept of Labor Decision Against Ohio Sheltered Workshop

In a groundbreaking opinion issued February 3, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor found that a sheltered workshop in Ohio had violated federal minimum wage laws by underpaying three of its workers with disabilities, including one autistic man. The opinion followed a petition that Autistic Self Advocacy Network filed along with Disability Rights Ohio, the National Federation of the Blind, and the Baltimore law firm of Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP. Seneca Re-Ad, a sheltered workshop run by the Seneca County Board of Developmental Disabilities, had been paying the complainants, Joe Magers, Pam Steward, and Mark Felton, an average of $2.50 an hour for more than three years.
Following is a press release from the National Federation of the Blind.

Disability Rights Ohio, National Federation of the Blind, and Autistic Self Advocacy Network Celebrate Landmark Decision Ordering Fair Pay from Sheltered Workshop

COLUMBUS, OHIO – In a precedent-setting opinion issued by an administrative law judge from the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), three clients have been awarded minimum wage going forward and back pay from Seneca Re-Ad, a sheltered workshop run by the Seneca County Board of Developmental Disabilities.The original petition was filed by Disability Rights Ohio (DRO), the National Federation of the Blind, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, and the Baltimore law firm of Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP.

Joe Magers, Pam Steward, and Mark Felton had been paid an average of $2.50 an hour for more than three years and are among the first workers with disabilities ever to invoke the petition process to seek a review of their wages by the USDOL. The administrative law judge found that Seneca Re-Ad has not proven that the petitioners’ disabilities keep them from accomplishing the work. Further, the decision holds that their wages have not been calculated correctly. Therefore, Seneca must pay at least the minimum wage.

“The opinion highlights that each of our clients brings valuable employment skills to the Seneca Re-Ad facility, and their value as workers should be respected,” says DRO Attorney Barbara Corner. “People with disabilities are full and equal members of society and should be paid fairly.”

"Many people are shocked when they find out that it is legal to pay people with disabilities less than minimum wage," said Samantha Crane, Legal Director and Director of Public Policy at ASAN. "But what's even more surprising is how rare this type of enforcement action has been until now. We hope this decision puts other workshops on notice that they won't get away with this sort of exploitation."

Mark A. Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: "This decision cuts through the low expectations based on stereotypes and misconceptions that undergird the antiquated and discriminatory subminimum-wage employment model. The National Federation of the Blind is proud of our role in helping these workers to earn compensation that reflects the skilled work that they perform. We believe that this decision sends a strong signal that subminimum wages are an idea whose time has long since passed."

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About Disability Rights Ohio 
Disability Rights Ohio is the federally and state designated Protection and Advocacy System and Client Assistance Program for the state of Ohio. The mission of Disability Rights Ohio is to advocate for the human, civil and legal rights of people with disabilities in Ohio. Disability Rights Ohio provides legal advocacy and rights protection to a wide range of people with disabilities.

About the National Federation of the Blind 
The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.

About the Autistic Self Advocacy Network 
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) is a national, private, nonprofit organization, run by and for individuals on the autism spectrum. ASAN provides public education and promotes public policies that benefit autistic individuals and others with developmental or other disabilities. Its advocacy activities include combating stigma, discrimination, and violence against autistic people and others with disabilities; promoting access to employment, health care and long-term supports in integrated community settings; and educating the public about the access needs of autistic people. ASAN takes a strong interest in cases that affect the rights of autistic individuals to participate fully in community life and enjoy the same rights as others without disabilities.

Release Date: 

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Category: 

National

Chris Danielsen

Director of Public Relations

National Federation of the Blind

(410) 659-9314, extension 2330

(410) 262-1281 (Cell)

cdanielsen@nfb.org

Settlement Agreement in Lane v. Brown Employment Case, people with disabilities forced to work in segregated workshops

In Oregon, lawyers arrived at a major settlement agreement in the case of Lane v. Brown, a lawsuit filed on behalf of people with disabilities who were forced to work in segregated, sub-minimum wage workshops. The attorneys who fought for the right for people with disabilities to secure competitive, integrated employment. This case is expected to set a national precedent.

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A Press Release from  Disability Rights Oregon 0n Dec. 30, 2015 

The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon approved a settlement agreement between the Justice Department, a class of private plaintiffs and the state of Oregon, which resolved the department’s and the class plaintiffs’ claims against the state under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  The agreement will impact approximately 7,000 Oregonians with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) who can and want to work in typical employment settings in the community.  The private plaintiffs were represented by the Center for Public Representation, Disability Rights Oregon and the law firms of Miller Nash Graham & Dunn LLP and Perkins Coie LLP.  The agreement resolves a class action lawsuit by private plaintiffs in which the department intervened.  The parties’ settlement agreement was approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart of the District of Oregon, who presided over the lawsuit.

The agreement calls for 1,115 people in sheltered workshops to receive jobs in the community at competitive wages over the next seven years.  In addition, 7,000 people will receive employment services that will afford them the opportunity to work in the community, including at least 4,900 youth ages 14 to 24 years old, who are exiting school.  At least half of the youth served will receive an Individual Plan of Employment, which sets forth the services and supports necessary to achieve competitive employment, from Oregon’s vocational rehabilitation system.

The Settlement Agreement, negotiated by state officials, the U. S. Department of Justice and attorneys for individuals with developmental disabilities, stems from a class action lawsuit, Lane v. Brown, that charged Oregon with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Olmstead v. L.C. by segregating individuals with disabilities in settings where they have little to no interaction with non-disabled peers.

Lead plaintiff Paula Lane, who made a high of 66 cents an hour packaging gloves on a sheltered workshop assembly line over a 12-month period in 2010-11, recently started a community-based job that pays minimum wage.  She said her new job is “good,” and said, “I can make more money this way.”

Executive Orders 15-01 and 13-04, the Oregon Department of Human Services’ (DHS) Integrated Employment Plan (Revised July 2015), the DHS Employment First Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement Plan, the DHS Employment First Communication, Outreach, and Awareness Plan, the Oregon Office of Developmental Disability Services’ Training and Capacity Plan, and the Oregon Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services’ (OVRS) Provider Transformation Grant Program together represent a commitment by the State of Oregon to reform its employment service system for individuals with I/DD. The Settlement Agreement builds upon these plans and commitments, and incorporates many of their provisions.

We at DRO as well as our co-counsel, The Center for Public Representation, Miller Nash and Perkins Coie are very pleased for Oregonians with intellectual and developmental disabilities who want to pursue greater independence and self-sufficiency through gainful employment.  We look forward to working collaboratively with the State of Oregon to implement the provisions of the settlement.

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Read the rest of our coverage of our involvement in Lane v. Brown here.

https://droregon.org/lane-v-brown-settlement/

Justice Dept Reaches Proposed ADA Settlement Agreement On Oregon's Developmental Disabilities System

from a PRESS RELEASE;

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Justice Department Reaches Proposed ADA Settlement Agreement On Oregon's Developmental Disabilities System

The U.S. Justice Department announced today, along with private plaintiffs, that it has entered into a proposed settlement agreement with the state of Oregon that will resolve violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and will impact approximately 7,000 Oregonians with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) who can and want to work in typical employment settings in the community.  The private plaintiffs were represented by the Center for Public Representation, Disability Rights Oregon and the law firms of Miller Nash Graham & Dunn LLP and Perkins Coie LLP.  The proposed agreement resolves a class action lawsuit by private plaintiffs in which the department intervened.  The parties’ proposed settlement agreement must still be approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart of the District of Oregon, who is presiding over the lawsuit.  The agreement will be filed with the court in the coming weeks.

The department alleged that Oregon’s employment services system unnecessarily placed people with I/DD in, or at risk of entering, sheltered workshops instead of in integrated jobs in the community, in violation of the ADA.  As interpreted by the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Olmstead v. L.C., the ADA affords individuals with disabilities the right to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.  Sheltered workshops are segregated facilities that exclusively or primarily employ people with disabilities.  They are usually large, institutional facilities in which people with disabilities have little or no contact with non-disabled persons besides paid staff.  People with I/DD in sheltered workshops typically earn wages that are well below minimum wage, sometimes pennies per hour.  By contrast, supported employment services assist people with I/DD to prepare for, gain and succeed in integrated employment at competitive wages.  Approximately 450,000 people with I/DD across the country spend their days in segregated sheltered workshops and facility-based day programs.  Approximately 1,900 Oregonians with disabilities currently receive services in sheltered workshops.  Since the initiation of the lawsuit, approximately 3,900 Oregonians with disabilities have received services in sheltered workshops, and historically hundreds of students have transitioned each year from Oregon public schools to sheltered workshops.

As a result of the proposed settlement, over the next seven years, 1,115 working-age adults with I/DD who are currently being served in segregated sheltered workshops will have opportunities to work in real jobs at competitive wages.  Additionally, at least 4,900 youth ages 14 to 24 years old will receive supported employment services designed to assist them to choose, prepare for, get and keep work in a typical work setting.  Half of the youth who receive employment services will receive, at a minimum, an individual plan for employment through the state’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services.  

The proposed settlement resolves the first class action lawsuit in the nation to challenge a state funded and administered employment service system, including sheltered workshops, as a violation of the ADA’s integration mandate.  The class action, Lane v. Kitzhaber (since renamed Lane v. Brown), was filed in January 2012, by eight named individuals and United Cerebral Palsy of Oregon and Southwest Washington, on behalf of themselves and other individuals with I/DD who are in Oregon sheltered workshops or have been referred to sheltered workshops.  In March 2013, the Department of Justice moved to intervene in the lawsuit, seeking to vindicate the rights of thousands of individuals with I/DD across Oregon.  The department’s claims included that Oregon violated the ADA by unnecessarily segregating adults with I/DD in sheltered workshops and by placing Oregon youth with I/DD at unnecessary risk of segregation in sheltered workshops. 

The proposed agreement recognizes that Oregon has made substantial progress in providing employment services to and improving employment outcomes for individuals with I/DD since the filing of the plaintiffs’ complaint and the department’s complaint-in-intervention.  In 2013 and 2015, respectively, Oregon’s then Governor John Kitzhaber issued Oregon Executive Orders 13-04 and 15-01 and the state developed Integrated Employment Plans committing to implement strategies for the Oregon Department of Human Services and Oregon Department of Education to improve Oregon’s employment service system for individuals with I/DD.  These plans call upon the state to reduce its reliance on segregated sheltered workshops and increase its investment in supported employment services. 

“Work is a fundamental aspect of most people's lives,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division.  “People with disabilities deserve opportunities to work alongside their friends, peers, and neighbors without disabilities and to earn fair wages.  We are pleased that the state of Oregon has fully embraced integrated employment services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and we look forward to the new ways people with intellectual and developmental disabilities will be able to contribute to their communities as this proposed agreement is implemented.”

“This proposed agreement not only realizes the requirements of federal law, but just as importantly, it embraces policies and practices to support both youth and adult community members with disabilities to successfully interact and work alongside non-disabled Oregonians,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams of the District of Oregon.  “The implementation of the agreement will bring all of our communities together in recognizing the work capabilities of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.” 

The Civil Rights Division enforces the ADA, which authorizes the Attorney General to investigate whether a state is serving individuals in the most integrated settings appropriate to his or her needs.  Please visit www.ada.gov/olmstead to learn more about the division’s ADA Olmstead enforcement efforts and www.justice.gov/crt to learn more about the other laws enforced by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-proposed-ada-settlement-agreement-oregons-developmental

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More than 1,100 severely disabled Oregonians who now labor in sheltered workshops, often earning pennies an hour, will get a chance in the next seven years to take jobs in the general workforce that pay a living wage.
article by Bryan Denson | The Oregonian/OregonLive  | Sept 8, 2015

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that parties to a 2012 lawsuit against the state of Oregon have reached a proposed settlement that paves the way for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities to migrate from the workshops to mainstream jobs.

The Justice Department estimates that the lives of roughly 7,000 people 14 years and older will be enriched by the settlement, which will give them chances to become gainfully employed in the open marketplace. 

"People with disabilities deserve opportunities to work alongside their friends, peers and neighbors without disabilities and to earn fair wages," Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a news release.

The United Cerebral Palsy Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington, along with eight individuals, sued Gov. John Kitzhaber and top Department of Human Resources managers with the aim of putting an end to sheltered workshops.

The proposed settlement resolves what the government characterizes as the nation's first lawsuit to challenge a state-funded and administered employment service system, including sheltered workshops, which officials allege was a violation of the Americans with Disability Act of 1990.

Justice Department officials alleged that Oregon violated the landmark law by unnecessarily segregating adults with severe disabilities in sheltered workshops and by placing disabled youths at risk of following in their footsteps.

Parties to the suit, which the Justice Department joined in 2013, worked for years to reach a settlement. They expect to file their agreement in Portland in the next few weeks, but it must be approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart.

"This is a big win for Oregonians," Gov. Kate Brown said in a news release. "We are already on track to provide integrated employment opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This settlement continues our commitment to ensure that all Oregonians are part of the economic recovery."

Eve Hill, a deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the defendants in the lawsuit took the issue head on.

"During the course of this litigation, Oregon decided to own this issue," Hill said. "They stopped thinking that the federal government was forcing them to do something they didn't want to do. They realized this is an approach that serves all Oregonians, including those with disabilities."

Hill noted that big corporations have already come to realize the value of having people with severe disabilities on the payroll.

For example, she said, 40 percent of the employees at Walgreens' distribution centers have serious disabilities. They must meet the same company standards and earn the same wages. Hill noted that job accidents are down and so is absenteeism.

For generations, people with severe disabilities who sought work were often steered into sheltered workshops, where they almost always labored in menial and repetitive jobs – such a putting stickers on record album covers or sorting nuts and bolts. Caregivers for many of them found the places safe harbor. Many still do.

Jobs in the cloistered settings typically pay less than the minimum wage. A federal law allows the nonprofits to pay piecework wages that often amount to pennies an hour, which meant that few workers could ever learn a living wage.

Many progressives began to see this as a new form of segregation.

Oregon in the 1990s became a national leader in finding innovative ways to integrate workers with even the most severe disabilities – such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation and spinal injuries – into the general workforce. Nonprofits provided coaching and supports for the workers and helped get them jobs such as sacking groceries, watering plants or cleaning tables.

But by early 2013, according to a Justice Department study, 2,600 people were working in Oregon's sheltered workshops – more than twice the number from a decade earlier. More than 60 percent of working Oregonians with severe disabilities worked in the shops, while just 16 percent found work in the general public.

The settlement seeks to reverse that trend.

"As a result of the proposed settlement, over the next seven years, 1,115 working-age adults with (severe disabilities) who are currently being served in segregated sheltered workshops will have opportunities to work in real jobs at competitive wages," the Justice Department said.

"Additionally, at least 4,900 youth ages 14 to 24 years old will receive supported employment services designed to assist them to choose, prepare for, get and keep work in a typical work setting."

Half of the youths now receiving employment services will get, at a minimum, an individual plan for their employment through Oregon's Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services.

The state of Oregon has already helped to move 1,000 people out of sheltered workshops into jobs in the public midst. Add to that the 1,115 workers expected to make the same move, and the 4,900 youths who will be prepared for work, roughly 7,000 workers will benefit from the settlement agreement, Hill said.

A little more than a week after the Justice Department joined in the class-action lawsuit against Kitzhaber, the governor announced a plan to move more Oregonians with severe disabilities into the general workforce and gradually decrease funding to nonprofit sheltered workshops.

Then in a landmark Americans with Disabilities ruling in April 2014, state officials in Rhode Island announced that they had entered an agreement with the Justice Department to move people out of low-paying sheltered workshop jobs into the general workforce. Top lawyers in the Justice Department hailed this as a blueprint for the nation – including Oregon.

Early last February, Kitzhaber issued an executive order intended to guide people with severe disabilities into jobs in the general workforce. The order set up a plan to provide job training, internships and work experience to high school special education students so that when they left school they could join the workforce instead of being segregated in sheltered workshops.

Bob Joondeph, the longtime executive director of Disability Rights Oregon, said the settlement will open doors for people and show that Oregon can return to being a leader in employing people with disabilities.

"There's a history of excluding people with disabilities in society," he said, "and the damage that's inflicted over the years is tremendous. ... This is another step in changing society's direction."

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2015/09/oregons_sheltered_workshops_fo.html