Workforce Wednesday

All I Want for Christmas is the End of Sub-Minimum Wage & Segregated Work

I am one of those people who think about work on the holidays. Such is the delightful burden of being called.

The United States Department of Labor has proposed a rule change that would lead to the end of paying Americans with disabilities sub-minimum wages.

I have shared my comments in support of this rule change below. If you want to learn more about this significant proposed change - from people like David Hoff, Kerri Zanchi, and Kathleen Walker who are far more policy savvy than I am - please register for the MA-APSE Lunch and Learn on January 6th.

More workforce development nerd noise below. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

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I am writing in support of the proposed rule change (RIN 1235-AA14) to section 14c of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Since my early college years I have had the privilege of supporting people with diverse disabilities in pursuit of employment. I spent a summer working in the Sertoma sheltered workshop in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1996, when I was only 19. Over a decade later I was hired by Triangle, a large community rehabilitation provider in Malden, Massachusetts, to work with transition age young adults to secure paid employment before high school exit. The intention was that these young adults would secure competitive employment during high school and would not enter the large sheltered workshop at Triangle.

I joined Triangle in 2007 and starting in 2013 I worked to help guide the organization through the closing of their two sheltered workshops. The process of closing the workshops required significant retraining of Triangle’s staff, carefully listening to the concerns of families, and partnering with the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services to ensure that as many clients as possible would transition from sub-minimum paying sheltered work to competitive or supported employment opportunities in the community that paid minimum wage or higher.

Although there were a number of families and a very small number of Triangle clients - only three or four of the over 140 served at the two sheltered workshop locations combined - who were nervous or opposed to the transition, Triangle made the switch in July of 2014. I am proud to report that by June 30th end of Massachusetts state fiscal year 2016, there were almost twice as many Triangle participants, over 240, who were working at least part-time in the community. All of those workers were earning minimum wage or higher.

While Triangle was one of the largest sheltered workshop providers, we only lost two or three clients during the transformation into competitive or supported employment. After the transition, a number of our clients worked fewer hours than they had worked in the workshop setting, but almost all of the clients earned more money since they were earning minimum wage or more at their jobs in the community.

I am proud of the summer that I spent working at the Sertoma workshop in Tulsa. I am also proud of Triangle’s over 50-year history of equipping people with disabilities who live north of Boston to enter the workforce. During the 1970s through the 1990s, when states like Massachusetts were going through the vital process of shutting down the state hospitals and schools like the Fernald Developmental Center, the sheltered workshops were a vital resource for career seekers with disabilities and their families. However, as people with disabilities moved progressively into the mainstream of American society through the passage and implementation of laws like the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (especially section 504), the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014, the practice of segregating people with disabilities in workshops and paying people with disabilities - or any other population group for that matter - sub-minimum wages became a relic of the past.

Many states, like Massachusetts, have broadly ended the use of sub-minimum wages through regulation and practice. It is time for United States Department of Labor to follow the states’ lead by following through on the proposed rule changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act.

I am sure that you will receive public comments from numerous constituencies arguing that subminimum wage is the only guarantor of work for people with significant disabilities. They may continue by asserting that without the guarantee of paying subminimum wages many disability nonprofits will have to close their doors and deprive people with disabilities of service. That has certainly not been the case in Massachusetts. Through my work with the Massachusetts chapter of the Association of People Supporting Employment First, I have the privilege of collaborating with provider agencies throughout the Commonwealth and I do not know a single community rehabilitation provider that closed following the end of sheltered work. In many cases, I have no doubt that for many providers the transition out of segregated work in 2015 was challenging, but providers altered their service models, continued collecting Medicaid funds as well as philanthropic support, and charted a path forward.

The continuation of 14(c) simply cannot align with the intention to fully integrate people with disabilities into the workforce that was consistently affirmed in the pieces of federal legislation previously highlighted. On a moral level, the abomination of slavery in the 19th century and the shameful segregation of minorities through innumerable laws, policies, and practices at the local, state, and federal levels in the 20th century have taught us that separate but equal never is.

For this reason, on a bright day in June 1990, surrounded by thousands of disabled advocates and their allies, President George H.W. Bush boldly proclaimed that with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act we have seen “the shameful wall of exclusion come down.” Rebuilding those walls, through the continuance of 14(c) certificates and the maintenance of segregated work environments for Americans citizens with disabilities is unacceptable. The United States Department of Labor has rightly concluded the subminimum wages are no longer necessary to ensure people with disabilities access to the workforce. For this reason, I sincerely hope and urge the Department of Labor to implement the proposed rule phasing out the issuance of 14(c) certificates.

I currently have the privilege of serving as the Sr. Director of Disability services at Jewish Vocational Services Boston (JVS). JVS is the largest workforce development organization in New England and we are proud to serve over 400 career seekers with diverse disabilities a year who are pursuing competitive integrated employment. I also serve as the President of the Massachusetts Association of People Supporting Employment First (MA-APSE). MA-APSE is the state chapter of the Association of People Supporting Employment First, the only nationwide organization that is solely focused on leveraging the Employment First approach established in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to facilitate the full inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace and community. If you have any questions about my comments, please to not hesitate to contact me at jgentry@jvs-boston.org.