As the affiliate of the American Council of the Blind (ACB) representing the blind and visually impaired men and women working as licensed managers in the business enterprise programs for the blind throughout the country, RSVA actively supports the 2004 legislative program of the American Council of the Blind.
RSVA provides the strength and influence of the oldest and largest national organization of blind persons engaged in the operation of the Business Enterprise Program. We help to promote the general welfare of blind vendors nationwide who are engaged in the operating of vending machines facilities, cafeterias, military troop dining contracts, snack bars, gift shops, and other retail businesses. We provide a forum for consideration of issues affecting licensed blind managers in the RandolphSheppard program. RSVA provides technical and legal support to vendors/managers to ensure that rights granted to them are not limited or violated by actions of property managing officials or State Licensing Agencies.
With upwards of a half billion dollars a year in sales, we are the seventh largest organization selling food, snacks and beverages to the American public. In addition to employing nearly 3,000 blind women and men, we provide employment to more than ten thousand Americans, including a large number of individuals with disabilities other than blindness.
Adopted by Congress in 1936, the RandolphSheppard Act grants a priority right to blind and visually impaired business managers to operate cafeterias, vending machine operations, snack bars, gift shops and sundry stores on any Federal property. Most state legislatures have adopted a "MiniRandolph Sheppard Act" which provides for a similar priority on state property. The RandolphSheppard Act establishes an elected committee of blind vendors in each state, which works with the State Licensing Agency (SLA) to oversee the blind vending facility program, often called the Business Enterprise Program. The RandolphSheppard program for the blind, which the Act created, is by far the most successful effort to provide employment opportunities for blind individuals to be established by government.
There are serious problems confronting the Nation's vending facility program and its ability to provide meaningful employment opportunities for blind and visually impaired men and women. In 1974 Congress amended the RandolphSheppard Act in several ways with the primary goal of doubling the number of blind vendor jobs within a few years. Tragically, the program has actually shrunk. From a total of 3,500 licensed blind managers working across the country in 1990, we now have fewer than 3,000 licensed blind managers.
While some of the reduction in opportunities can be explained by the downsizing of government at the Federal and State level, clearly much of it is directly related to the refusal of the Federal agencies to recognize the priority right to blind managers granted by the Congress. Two major Federal agenciesthe Department of Veterans Affairs and the United States Postal Service are the most serious violators of the priority. Both these agencies have long histories of fighting efforts by State Licensing Agencies to obtain permits to establish vending facilities for blind persons.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has gone to Federal Court in numerous States to block efforts to establish facilities in hospitals operated under the V.A. The first such case was in Minnesota where the State Licensing Agency had to take its case all the way to the United States Federal Court for the Eighth Circuit, winning not just once, but a second time before the V.A. partially complied. For the past several years the V.A. has mounted a similar legal challenge to efforts to establish vending facilities in Alabama. Maryland is another example of V.A. opposition.
In an effort to end the litigious relationship between the V.A. and the RandolphSheppard Program, RSVA began meetings with Secretary, Anthony Principi, and his deputies at the Department of Veterans Affairs in the fall of 2003. While these meetings have not resolved the outstanding issues, they represent an opportunity for a negotiated settlement which can be in the interest of all involved parties.
The United States Postal Service appears to remain content to stay out of Federal Court, but its antiblind vendor policies have resulted in numerous States bringing Federal arbitration complaints against USPS, conducted through the provisions of the RandolphSheppard Act by the United States Department of Education. States have been successful in the arbitrations, but postal officials simply ignore the outcome of the arbitration panel decisions. Active Participation Beginning in late 2000, RSVA, along with all representative organizations in the blind community, worked with officials of the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) in the United States Department of Education to develop a policy directive providing greater active participation of licensed blind managers in the operation of the Business Enterprise Program within each state. The document reflects the intent of Congress that blind vendors' committees share in decisionmaking for their own program. Over the course of two years, a draft directive was reviewed by program participants throughout the United States. As late as February 2003, RSA officials were saying that it would be released in the immediate future.
In April of 2003, it was learned that the policy directive had been shelved in the office of the Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) where it remains to this day.
We urge all Members of Congress to contact the Assistant Secretary for OSERS to encourage the speedy release of this important document.