• Thursday, October 22, 2015; 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. Eastern
• Register online

On September 8, 2015, the United States entered into a proposed settlement agreement with the State of Oregon to vindicate the civil rights of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) who are unnecessarily segregated in sheltered workshops, or at risk of such unnecessary segregation. The settlement agreement with Oregon resolves a class action lawsuit by private plaintiffs in which the Department of Justice moved to intervene in May 2013. The lawsuit alleged that the State’s employment service system over-relied on segregated sheltered workshops to the exclusion of integrated alternatives, such as supported employment services, and placed individuals, including youth, at risk of entering sheltered workshops.

As a result of the proposed settlement, over the next seven years, 1,115 working-age individuals 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 – 24 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 served will receive, at a minimum, an Individual Plan for Employment through the State’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services. Correspondingly, the State will reduce its reliance on sheltered workshops and implement policies and capacity-building strategies to improve the employment system to increase access to competitive integrated employment and the opportunity for people with I/DD to work the maximum number of hours consistent with their abilities and preferences.

Join this webinar to hear directly from representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice about the elements of the settlement agreement, as well as from stakeholders in the state of Oregon who will be positively impacted by these developments.

Speakers:

• U.S. Department of Justice: Eve Hill, Max Lapertosa, Regina Kline, Sheila Foran
• United Cerebral Palsy Association of Oregon: Ann Coffey
• Other Speakers TBD

Please note: This webinar will be captioned and a link to download the presentation will be sent to registrants prior to the webinar. To request any other reasonable accommodations, please contact Brittany Taylor at [email protected] at least 48 hours prior to the webinar.

“Work Early, Work Often” is a video-based campaign created by the Youth Transitions Collaborative’s career preparation and management working group. Together, the three-part series highlights the importance of work and work-based experiences in an individual’s transition to adulthood, particularly for young adults with disabilities.

Each video is told from the perspective of key audiences that are part of the transition journey: young adults with disabilities, employers, and parents or caregivers.

To watch the videos individually or as a series, visit www.thenytc.org or www.youtube.com/thenytc. All videos include open captioning and audio descriptions. You can also watch the videos on a loop via the “Work Early, Work Often” playlist.

Seven leading organizations comprised of Americans with disabilities announced today that they are calling for reform of the AbilityOne Program and set forth seven principles for overhaul of the program, which affects hundreds of thousands of American workers with disabilities. The announcement was made by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), TASH, the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), the Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE), the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), and the United Spinal Association. The seven principles for reform put forward by the organizations are as follows:

1. Commitment to the expressed integration mandate set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Olmstead v. L.C.: Segregation of people with disabilities in work sites, such as sheltered workshops and enclaves, is inconsistent with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. People with disabilities must be supported to lead fully integrated lives in their communities, including throughout their workday.
2. Implementation and development of best practices for employment of people with significant disabilities: People employed by contracts negotiated through the AbilityOne procurement process must have their employment goals supported by providers implementing recognized best practices, such as Supported Employment and Customized Employment, that result in good jobs in the community.
3. Elimination of conflicts of interest that contribute to exploitation, fraud, and abuse: Conflicts of interest in AbilityOne contract implementation are rampant, and must be identified and prohibited. These include determination of employee eligibility by community rehabilitation programs (CRPs) implementing contracts, as well as the use of contract funds for lobbying and other purposes.
4. Payment of prevailing wages and the elimination of subminimum-wage payments: Payment of subminimum wages to people with disabilities is intolerable in the United States. People with disabilities should be paid the prevailing wage for the task they are performing.
5. Ensuring financial and operational transparency and accountability: AbilityOne contract use of funds must be transparent and readily available (online) to the public at every level, including the purpose and amount of funds used by the Central Nonprofit Agencies, executive compensation packages of nonprofits involved in the program, worker wage ranges, and purposes of funds used.
6. Relationship with employer: The ultimate objective of a federally-sanctioned special procurement program should be to connect employees with mainstream employers, as opposed to having people with disabilities working for nonprofit entities under specialized, set-aside contracts.
7. Prioritizing awarding of contracts available through the procurement process to disability-owned businesses, including self-employed individuals with disabilities: Rather than all contracts going to the non-profit organizations currently involved in the program, individuals with disabilities should be encouraged to compete for service contracts.

The AbilityOne Program must be brought up to contemporary standards of practice for supporting people with disabilities to access competitive integrated employment. When these reforms are adopted, an inspector general should be appointed to provide rigorous oversight to ensure that the days of exploitation and fraud are brought to an end.

Barb Trader, Executive Director of TASH, said: “The continued segregation of people with disabilities in employment is unjust, and the payment of subminimum wages is discriminatory and demeaning. Americans with disabilities must be freed from the overwhelming control of the entities that simultaneously determine their eligibility for services, administer those services, and function as their employers. The concentration of power in community rehabilitation programs and sheltered workshops is a fundamental flaw in the AbilityOne Program. Any federally-sanctioned program must be a positive force for workers with disabilities by providing them freedom, self-determination, and real employment and career development opportunities.”

Mark A. Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “The principles we are setting forth today reflect the hopes and aspirations of all Americans with disabilities. Neither AbilityOne nor any other program that purports to serve us can do so without reference to our own determinations on how to live the lives we want. We urge all other organizations of Americans with disabilities and like-minded service providers to join us in calling for an end to discrimination and low expectations, and to work with us for a future in which we, as Americans with disabilities, have full control over our destinies.”

The City of St. Louis has quickly become a flash point in the disability rights movement’s ongoing effort to eliminate subminimum wages for people with disabilities. On August 28th the Board of Aldermen passed a local minimum wage bill (bb83) that gradually increases the minimum wage to $11 / hour in 2018. The historic part of the bill was the lack of exemption for sheltered workshops. People with disabilities and their allies have let the Alderpersons know that they believe people with disabilities should enjoy the same rights and protections as any other American worker and should be paid at least minimum wage. 

A bill, filed yesterday (bb173), would reinstate the exemption for sheltered workshops and allow the practice of paying workers with disabilities subminimum wage to continue in St. Louis.

Advocates there are asking for your help. A list of Twitter handles for the Aldermen and Mayor of St. Louis is available below.

Civil Rights:

• Systemic wage discrimination on the basis of disability status should end.
• No other minatory group is exempt from fair labor laws purely by virtue of their minority status be it race, sexual orientation, gender, circumstances of birth, or any other identity which an individual brings to the workplace.  [Read more…]

Source: Justin Harford, NCIL Employment Subcommittee Co-Chair and Author of Blind Yanqui Reflections

At the Annual Meeting of the National Council on Independent Living in July 2014, a delegation of approximately 700 individuals with disabilities passed a resolution urging NCIL to push for a redefinition of disability as it relates to the Social Security Act. Since 1982, NCIL, a cross-disability organization that is populated by those whom it represents, has been one of the most significant voices of the disability community in Washington DC, advocating a variety of issues from public transit, to employment. Interest in redefining Social Security’s definition of disability over the last year with organizations like National Council on Disability and the World Institute on Disability has grown. That little section in chapter II of title 42 of the US code has had all sorts of far-reaching effects in the world of employment for people with disabilities since 1956, and we must update it.

As it is, disability is defined as a medically determinable physical or mental impairment, expected to last longer than 12 months or to result in death, and which prevents the individual from doing work of any kind. There is no possibility of partial disablement – you are either completely and totally disabled, or not. The first question that adjudicators ask is whether or not you are working, and your very character as someone who is employed is enough to disqualify you immediately.

Mundane as it may sound, the way that the Social Security Administration delineates between who is and isn’t disabled not only impacts whether or not someone can get on cash benefits, but a variety of other important matters as well. It also factors and eligibility for Medicaid, a federal program that offers personal and health care services to people with disabilities and people on limited incomes. Personal assistance services are what enable individuals with disabilities to take care of activities of daily living including bathing, grooming, eating and getting out of bed among other things. A personal attendant might cost anywhere between $20,000 and $30,000 per year. Medicaid is not only the only way for someone to get these kinds of services, it is also the only resource for covering expensive medical costs such as catheters, which can go for $1500 per month, and which are not covered by private insurance.  [Read more…]