The term sheltered workshop refers to an organization or environment that employs people with disabilities separately from others, usually with exemptions from labor standards, including but not limited to the absence of minimum wage requirements.
At the end of the 20th century, a movement to end sheltered workshops gained traction, with supporters stating that the jobs pay low wages, lack advancement training and opportunities, permanently trapping disabled people in those jobs while reducing their independence, and are discriminatory because they segregate disabled workers into separate work environments.
[4] In some ADEs individuals are paid as little as $1.79 an hour, based on the BSWAT (Business Services Wage Assessment Tool), which was found to be discriminatory in 2013, to be phased out by April 2015.
[5][6] Following on from the court challenge on the discriminatory nature of the BSWAT, a large percentage of parents and employees of ADEs (along with the relevant Peak Body, National Disability Services) began a campaign to ensure their jobs were protected.
[10] Government procurement law in the European Union makes special provision for contracting with sheltered workshops for the supply of goods and services to public authorities.
[17] These entities are generally non-profit facilities that exclusively or primarily employ people with disabilities, and also provide vocational rehabilitation.
[18][19][15] In 2020, the United States Commission on Civil Rights issued a report which recommends that the minimum wage exemption be phased out because it keeps workers in "exploitative and discriminatory" jobs.
[22]: 73 Disability service providers, almost all of which are non-profits, as well as many parents and disabled workers themselves support the workshops and state that eliminating the minimum wage exemption would eliminate those jobs and the choice to work and thereby enjoy the many non-wage benefits of work (like a sense of pride for their societal contribution), and replace it with adult day care or "glorified babysitting".
[15][19][20][21] Some parents and caregivers rely on the sheltered workshops so that they can work, sleep, or care for themselves, or for the benefit of getting their children out of the house to see other people.
[15] Advocates of the new legislation feel that subminimum wage programs segregate disabled workers into separate work environments, reduce their independence, and prevent them from learning better job skills which could lead to advancement.