Are People With Disabilities Being Exploited?

As with most questions it depends on who you ask. Recently an article appeared in regional papers implying that non-profit agencies in NYS were doing just that, exploiting people with disabilities by paying sub-minimum wages in vocational rehabilitation programs. In addition, the article tried to tie the salaries of the agencies' executive directors to the issue. Now this issue has been raised in the past, most recently on the national level with a story about Goodwill Industries. In addition, Congress has been looking at reforms to not only vocational rehabilitation but to the much larger issue of supports and community based services to people with disabilities. It should also be noted that people with disabilities, government agencies and providers of services have been working together to try to find solutions to these issues for some time and no surprise. problems as well as solutions all seem to revolve around money.

Right or wrong, our society and culture has always placed a high value on work. People who don't work are seen as less valued, drains on society, bums, welfare cheats, etc. Work has often been cited as a tool used to rehabilitate people in our society, from prisoners to people held in institutional settings for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled. It's a long and somewhat shady history. In many cases it had its basis in religious teachings from the Puritan culture. I recently read an article about an Austrian immigrant in the early 1900 who was placed at what was once Willard Psychiatric Center. Over the years he dug 1500 numbered graves by hand for individuals who passed away at the institution. All of this was justified as part of his 'rehabilitation'. In very recent history, up through the 80's, people in institutions for the developmentally disabled performed work tasks and manual labor without pay or with small subsidies. Prisoners today are still paid pennies per hour as part of their 'rehabilitation'. Recently people in local communities have attempted to keep a number of prisons open using the justification that municipalities and non profits got 'free labor' from the inmates. All of this relates to the history of how rehabilitation has been viewed.

In the 1930's people began to develop centers for people with disabilities that trained people in work expieriences using real work. These programs expanded greatly during and after World War ll in response to the large number of returning disabled veterans. They were later expanded to include other populations. The Fair Labor Standards Act included a section that recognized the concept of using contract work and allowed people to be paid at below minimum wage. Their wage was based on the percentage of their productivity using accepted methods and time studies. That legislation has been criticized and updated over the years and is currently under review.

The problem with the recent article is that it is blame based and offers few if any real solutions. There are people in our society who have serious and challenging disabilities. Some of them, not all, want very much to work in a very traditional sense. States, NYS included, have come up with processes and regulations relative to how all of this should happen. States and the federal government fund vocational training and rehabilitation and the model is one that uses real work, through contracts with private industry and government, that allows people to be paid in the process. The ultimate goal is competitive employment. In other words, the person with the disability working side by side with a non disabled employee making minimally the same wage as their co-worker. Sounds easy. Let's do it. Then no need for articles about people with disabilities being exploited. But I think we all know its not that easy. We currently are graduating students from college who can't find work. What about access to the workplace? Are work sites accessible to people with disabilities? Then there's the economic challenge. Are private employers prepared to pay minimum wage or above to people who may in fact have serious challenges to their productivity? If the answer to all of these things is a resounding yes, then lets get started. There are many people to be hired right now and any rehabilitation agency will assist in that process.

My point is that there are a number of problems related to all of these issues. That doesn't mean though that we shouldn't be trying to find solutions. Some solutions revolve around funding and economics. If people think or expect that rehabilitation agencies should be the only employer of people with disabilities and therefore pay everyone minimum wage or better, then they will need additional employment subsides. Another solution is making sure people with disabilities are really doing the things they want to do with their lives and that may not include work. Hmm - how do we fund the things people really want to do - living in a community with all of the necessary supports? Another solution to a problem pointed out in the referenced article is that enforcement should be enhanced. It should be more than complaint based and yes there should be more personnel from the US Department of Labor assigned to this task (sorry folks, more money). Another solution is to look at a well thought out, planned reduction in any States' use of sheltered employment. NYS has been attempting to do that but the plan still needs lots of work with input from the people impacted, people with disabilities, their families and the people responsible for providing the supports. The danger is that some solutions could just shift people and funding from one program or support model to another. Some of that's happened already. As an example - Let's not have people work where they get paid. Let's have them volunteer where in effect they do real work for no pay. We need to be very careful with solutions like that.

The salaries of CEO's or executive directors may grab attention but they aren't really a part of the solution. Most of these executives are responsible for much more then one program. In addition if you do the math, reducing these salaries to create minimum wage or above jobs create few in relation to the number of people with disabilities these organizations are already supporting.

At the end of the day, it is human nature for people to feel their life has a purpose, to feel valued and to help others. When this doesn't happen, for whatever reason or set of reasons, what is government's role in helping to make it happen and are we prepared to pay the cost?