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The Department of Labor announced last year it would phase out certificates that allow employers to pay some workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage. That ruling was recently withdrawn along with other decisions that could impede on the disability community earning a living through employment.
Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 allows employers to apply for certificates that permit them to pay employees with disabilities subminimum wage. The minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
These subminimum-wage workers are often individuals with developmental disabilities who work in sheltered workshops.
Eve Hill, disability rights attorney at Brown, Goldstein and Levy, said disability advocates should focus their efforts on the Transformation to a Competitive Integrated Employment Act. That’s a bipartisan bill that would phase out subminimum wage employment for developmentally disabled workers.
“That would assist employers who provide subminimum wages to transform their programs into competitive integrated employment,” she said, “meaning paying competitive minimum wages and being more integrated, and it would phase out the use of the Section 14(c) certificates over time.”
Hill said the Department of Labor is also proposing to eliminate the affirmative action requirements for people with disabilities of federal contractors.
“Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act requires federal contractors with contracts over $15,000 to engage in affirmative action, to hire and retain people with disabilities in their workforce,” said Hill.
The law requires certain employers to aim for a workforce made up of 7% of persons who self-identify as living with a disability.
Hill also said that “the Department of Labor is now proposing to rescind that regulation that allows self-identification, and to eliminate the 7% benchmark."
She said these regulations have made an impact on the disability community.
“Employment of people with disabilities has gone up over that time, and they're going to undo all that good work,” she said.
Public comments on the proposed rescission are being accepted through Sept. 2.
Sixteen states have eliminated the subminimum wage. Texas is not one of them.
