Disability advocates call for an end to paying disabled workers less than minimum wage

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Vodec was founded in 1968. Here, a Vodec direct support professional demonstrates how to complete packaging work in Vodec’s Omaha prevocational program.
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 By Sheila Brummer, Iowa Public Radio 

The federal government is looking at doing away with a program that allows employers to pay people with disabilities less than the minimum wage.

Iowa-Data from the U.S. Labor Department shows five Iowa nonprofits have 14(c) certificates that allow them to pay less than $7.25 per hour.

This includes Vodec (Vocational Development Center Inc.), headquartered in Council Bluffs. They oversee around 80 people who work in Omaha under the program.

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“A lot of the people whom we’ve had working here in our prevocational center through the years have really enjoyed the experience and found it to be very productive,” Steve Hodapp, Executive Director of Vodec said. “We bring real work, and there are real expectations for quality and timeliness in the production aspect of it. We’ve always been thought of as being a premier provider of that service, both from the business community and from the service side.”

Sheila Brummer/Courtesy of Vodec
Steve Hodapp became CEO of Vodec in 1997. “My role allows me to feel good at the end of each day about what I did to support Vodec’s mission of enabling people we serve to reach their full potential,” he said.

But Brooke Lovelace, the executive director of the Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council, said real work should earn real wages.

“It’s not that they’re a bad provider [Vodec] or they’re doing anything wrong, it’s just the way they set up their services,” Lovelace said. “It all stems from the philosophy or the belief that people with disabilities cannot work at the same level as somebody without a disability, which just isn’t true.”

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Lovelace is pleased with a potential change by the U.S. Department of Labor that would phase out a rule that allows employers to pay some workers with disabilities less than minimum wages.

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“It’s really kind of an inequitable and outdated practice that’s been around since the ’30s, and it’s time to make that change,” she said. “People with disabilities need to be paid a fair wage alongside people doing the same jobs without disabilities.”

Without the program, Hodapp believes many clients would drop out of services.

Sheila Brummer/ Courtesy of Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council                          Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council Executive Director Brooke Lovelace was inspired to help others by her best friend’s sister, who had Down syndrome. “She made me realize that we need to do better on helping people with disabilities be more part of their community,” she said.

“In Iowa, when we ended up having to end that operation, we had many people who we presented choices to, in terms of, would they like to have a job in the community or go through our supported employment program? If not that, would they like to be a part of our rehabilitation program and do independent living skills training, life skills training and so on? And they opted to stay at home,” he said.

Lovelace spent a decade at Easter Seals of Iowa and said the organization closed its workshop back in the early 1990s because of outdated principles on pay.

“The conversations have been happening for decades,” Lovelace said. “So why it’s taken so long for the Department of Labor to finally propose these rules changes is a little questionable. But we’re glad that they’re doing it because it is a change that needs to be made.”

The rules would be phased in over a three-year period if approved after a public comment period that ended last week. However, the proposal could change under the new Trump administration.

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