A landmark lawsuit filed in Oregon on Wednesday claims that thousands of disabled individuals are stuck in dead-end jobs at sheltered workshops because of failed state programs that should be helping them obtain mainstream employment and alleges violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Sheltered workshops or “work-activity programs” are facilities funded by state and local agencies and nonprofit groups to provide the disabled with jobs. Workers perform basic unskilled labor such as packaging or simple assembly and most often are paid less than minimum wage.
Intended to be “stepping stones” to lucrative jobs in the competitive labor market, the workshops have recently come under fire from critics who believe that the disabled are being segregated and exploited and further suggest that the sheltered work environment creates stereotypes that the disabled are incompetent and incapable of succeeding at “real” jobs.
The class-action suit filed on Wednesday on behalf of the Oregon Chapter of the Cerebral Palsy Association and eight individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities is the first of its kind in any state, according to National Disability Rights Network President, Michael Bailey.
Bailey says the federal suit was filed in Portland because Oregon once led the nation in providing vocational training services that helped integrate developmentally disabled workers into community-based jobs earning minimum wage or better.
However, the suit claims that since the mid-1990s, “Oregon has reversed course, increasing its reliance on segregated workshops while simultaneously decreasing its development and use of supported employment services,” and that Oregon’s “over-reliance on sheltered workshops and its failure to timely develop and adequately fund integrated employment services” violates protections against discrimination under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act.
The plaintiff class in the case could potentially include several thousand individuals of various mental and physical disabilities who are qualified for integrated employment or programs to transition them to mainstream jobs.
At present, more than 2,300 disabled persons are segregated in sheltered workshops in Oregon at any one time. The suit alleges, they are “stuck in long-term dead-end facilities that offer virtually no interaction with non-disabled peers; do not provide any pathway to integrated employment; and provide compensation well below minimum wage.” It further notes that back in 1988, half those people received state support in making the transition to mainstream work environments offering competitive wages but by 2010, that number had dropped to less than a quarter.
The Oregon Department of Justice counters the claim and issued a statement that the state of Oregon was working “to improve its services to the developmentally disabled, including assistance with employment opportunities for the disabled in the broader community.” It went on to say that the latest effort involved a “stakeholder planning process” and that both the United Cerebral Palsy Association and Disability Rights Oregon, whose lawyers filed the suit, had been invited to participate.
Wednesday’s lawsuit comes a year after the National Disability Rights Network published a scathing critique of sheltered workshops, saying they “have replaced institutions in many states as the new warehousing system and are the new favored locations where people with disabilities are sent to occupy their days.” The report asserted that “segregated and sheltered work keeps people with disabilities in the shadows.”
The eight named plaintiffs and the plaintiff class in the suit are seeking injunctive and declaratory relief for supposed ongoing violation of the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. Additionally, an order is being sought to end needless segregation in sheltered workshops and to provide the individuals with supported employment services to allow them to participate in competitive employment in integrated settings.
