by Charles H. Crawford
ACB has always advocated strongly for the right of blind people to have freedom of choice. Until recently, that has often meant that people with visual impairments could choose their career paths, where they would receive training, what kinds of services they might receive and so forth. Now ACB faces a curious dilemma in which we find ourselves advocating for folks to have a choice to work in an industrial program for the blind, which we decried just a few years ago as one of an unacceptably limited number of options available to us.
In the past, we fought to expand our options, to work pretty much wherever we wanted — and so, now why is it that we are concerned about opportunities at so-called sheltered workshops? It’s a winding road to the answer, so get prepared for the ride.
Our struggle to gain entrance and acceptance in the American workplace has been a long and difficult battle. The battle is certainly not yet won, but we have made progress, and our victories are manifest in the range of careers blind people enjoy today. Some of the benefits of our collective success have been greater social integration, a rising level of expectation within our community, a greater sense of equality and increased financial security for many. Even as our community has undergone substantial changes over this period, so too has our larger society traveled in different, more integrated and more global directions. These trends have contributed to the workshop-related controversy in which we now find ourselves embroiled.
The civil rights struggle of the 1960s; the liberty litigation for people with developmental disabilities, the education and total inclusion struggles for all people with disabilities, and the disability rights movement, all of which took shape — and flight — in the 1970s; the supported employment movement of the early 1980s; and the independent living movement — all contributing to the culminating Americans with Disabilities Act — have led to the notion that mainstreaming and integrated settings are the only equitable and acceptable solution to transcending differences (real or perceived) between people. This full-integration mentality has taken firm root in the federal government and amongst many who believe themselves to be progressive thinkers in our society. Small wonder, therefore, that the sheltered workshops of the past have become widely viewed as undesirable places to work and nothing short of exploitation mills for people with disabilities. In fact, these undercurrents in perceptions about workshops have long been present within ACB as well. So why should we be defending them now?
There are two major factors that have caused the American Council of the Blind to be supportive of modern industrial programming for the blind. First, we are aware of an evolution of many workshops from paternalistic and custodial exploitation mills to progressive industrial environments which pay well above minimum wage and offer benefits. Second, we know blind people who clearly choose to work at these industries for many reasons; and ACB has a long-standing commitment to honor the informed choices that any of us make.
While there are clearly some workshops left that more resemble the past than the future, there has been a substantial progression, especially within the National Industries for the Blind shops, to modernize wage rates, benefit schedules, and working conditions. At the top of the scale, we have seen industries jobs which bear no resemblance to the workshop environments of the past, where people earn competitive wages doing jobs that are better than most — in any sector. Continued progress in this direction warrants our support. This is especially true when we are pushing for greater upward mobility and other improvements that we believe will come in the not-too-distant future as ACB continues our advocacy on behalf of industries workers.
ACB does not know all the reasons why some folks choose to work in the “non-integrated” work setting. What we do know is that there are those who make that choice for themselves. For some, it may be the comfort and personal satisfaction they experience from working with other blind people. For others, it may be just getting fed up with discrimination and rejections from mainstream employers and co-workers. Still others might find the job opportunities, wages and benefits to their liking.
No matter what their reasons, ACB will stand beside people who choose to work in the so-called workshops, and we will support their right to make free and informed choices about where they wish to work.
Having said all of this, I must explain now, that we find ourselves taking a position which is directly opposite to one the Rehabilitation Services Administration of the United States Department of Education has taken. RSA has deliberately moved to limit the freedom of choice for people who seek to work in industrial settings for the blind. Despite the clear testimony of ACB and despite language in a recent U.S. Senate committee report warning of the senators’ concerns about this very subject, RSA has recently proposed rules that will count only work in “integrated settings” as valid for competitive closures from state rehabilitation agencies. This new policy of RSA is expressed in the form of a proposed regulation that ACB will fight through every avenue available to us. There are both philosophical and concrete reasons why ACB must take on this battle for choice.
In our view, rehabilitation can occur only in the partnership which assists people to the point where they have the skills and knowledge to take control of their own lives. This partnership simply cannot happen when the government arbitrarily defines the choices people can make in terms of a limited domain — the only one that is acceptable to the government.
In short, no matter how high-minded the government might believe its objectives to be, there is a point where public policy must honor the choices of consumers even when those choices are viewed collectively by policy-makers as “the wrong ones.” Otherwise, there is only rehabilitation to the liking of bureaucrats, which is as outrageously paternalistic as that of the old-style workshops they despise.
Moving away from a philosophical discussion to the concrete ramifications of the RSA proposal, it is important to point out that the rule RSA proposes would deny blind people who choose to work in the industries environment services such as mobility training and home teaching. RSA maintains that industries workers can get that training from the independent living funds given to the states. What a ridiculous position to take! Does RSA really believe that there are any mobility and home teaching services, including braille instruction, out there in independent living facilities? Even where these services allegedly exist, does RSA believe they are being delivered by competent instructors?
So, there you have it: The federal government exercising its heavy hand to slap down the choices that some blind folks have made and will continue to make. This despite the demands of ACB that RSA reconsider its stance and allow for informed choice.
The American Council of the Blind will continue to seek a change in the RSA proposed regulation that will allow for the agency and ACB to move forward as partners, but make no mistake: we will not abandon our brothers and sisters who have the human and legal rights to make choices about where they will work and to receive the assistance of the government to get there.