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operators for it should serve to reduce the costly assessment charges which are now levied upon them to meet supervisory and managerial expense.

RESOLUTION 64-12

Whereas measures, particularly H.R. 5194 and S. 648, have been introduced in Congress proposing certain changes in the Federal vocational rehabilitation law, which would permit vocational rehabilitation agencies to accept as clients disabled persons whose employment possibilities appear nonexistent or are difficult to predict, to provide such persons with services for a specified length of time, and then, at that point, make an evaluation whether such persons are employable; and Whereas the National Federation of the Blind today, as in the past, gives unqualified support to programs designed to supply self-care or independent living services to persons for whom vocational rehabilitation is not feasible; and

Whereas such services, however, are presently provided for by the Social Security Amendments of 1962. To the extent that coverage is not sufficient or is not available steps should be taken to increase the coverage or supply the availability under the Social Security Act; and

Whereas the blind men and women of the United States, speaking through the National Federation of the Blind, earnestly wish to call the attention of Congress to the impact upon existing vocational rehabilitation of adding self-care and independent living services to the vocational rehabilitation program, quite apart from the obvious duplication with social security which would result. Adding such services to the vocational rehabilitation program would amount to a basic alteration in the vocational rehabilitation law, away from vocational rehabilitation to rehabilitation-from the economic restoration of the potentially employable, to the social rehabilitation of the doubtfully employable. This alteration would result in deemphasizing the presently required vocational orientation of State vocational rehabilitation programs with their efforts and purposes directed toward the goal of employment: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the National Federation of the Blind in convention assembled this 3d day of July 1964, in Phoenix, Ariz, That in the view of the National Federation of the Blind, no person can or should be regarded as rehabilitated within the meaning of vocational rehabilitation, as used in the vocational rehabilitation program, unless such a person is placed in a self-supporting occupation and not in a sheltered workshop or other sheltered employment. Unanimously adopted, July 3, 1964.

RESOLUTION 64-15

Whereas measures have been introduced in Congress which propose the authorization of substantial sums of Federal funds for the improvement of existing sheltered workshops, and the establishment of others, in order that they may be used as rehabilitation facilities, to provide disabled workers with job conditioning, job training, and to serve as a transition to regular employment; and

Whereas we blind people know from centuries-long experience with sheltered workshops that such establishments do not nor can they prepare disabled people by training and conditioning to compete in ordinary economic endeavors of the community, for they are centers of failure and futility, despair and destitution; and Whereas sheltered workshops are either geared to outmoded skills and production methods and procedures, or they provide training on work which is rapidly being automated out of existence; Now therefore, be it

Resolved by the National Federation of the Blind in convention assembled, this 3d day of July 1964, in Phoenix, Ariz., That this organization condemns and deplores the use of sheltered workshops as job conditioning, job training, and rehabilitation facilities, and it orders and directs its officers and staff to take such steps as are necessary by the presentation of testimony in congressional hearings and otherwise, to indicate our opposition to any legislative proposal which would grant to sheltered workshops any function in the rehabilitative process; and be it further

Resolved, That in the rehabilitation and training of disabled persons, emphasis should be placed upon methods alternative to the sheltered shop; such as, onthe-job training in competitive, nonsheltered employment, the use of vocational schools, apprenticeship training programs, tutorials, and regular educational institutions.

Unanimously adopted, July 3, 1964.

87th Congress, 1st Session, Report 145, Fair Labor Standards AMENDMENTS OF 1961

Mr. McNamara from the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare submitted the following report together with minority views (to accompany H.R. 3935). The following paragraphs appear at page 45 of the report:

H. SHELTERED WORKSHOP

Questions have been raised with the committee about the adequacy of minimum wage protection for handicapped workers, particularly those in sheltered workshops. Sheltered workshops are organizations designed to provide employment (and various services) for handicapped persons unable to work in competitive industry, generally with the objective of rehabilitating such persons to permit them to enter competitive industry.

Under section 14 of the act, Congress has authorized the Secretary of Labor to permit subminimum wages for those whose earning_capacity is impaired by age or physical or mental deficiency or injury. The Secretary has developed administrative standards for authorizing sheltered workshops to pay less than the statutory minimum. These standards are in title 29, part 525, of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Individual workshops are granted a certificate by the Secretary specifying a minimum for their operations. The certificate minimums are often set at extremely low levels, frequently as little as 50, 25, and even 10 cents an hour. The workshop managers then decide themselves, on the basis of broad criteria developed by the Secretary, what wage should be paid each handicapped worker between the certificate minimum and the statutory minimum. This procedure for subminimum rates in workshops, while commendably flexible, also obviously permits ready abuse at the expense of handicapped workers, particularly in the absence of a vigorous investigation and enforcement program.

The number of such workshops and workers in them has increased substantially in recent years, virtually doubling in the last half-dozen years. The growth has been accompanied by an increase in complaints that minimum wages paid under the Secretary's regulations may often be inadequate and that some sheltered workshops may be undercutting competitive industry because of wage differentials. The committee has not undertaken to explore the problem in this year's hearings. We are aware that there are dedicated and responsible leaders in this field who are genuinely concerned with the well-being of the Nation's handicapped and with furtherance of the constructive role of sheltered workshops. They apparently have become increasingly cognizant of the value and need of observance of meaningful minimum standards and we have been informed that they are seeking to meet the problems through development and application of new and suitable standards.

We trust that adoption and observance of more satisfactory standards can be accomplished through administrative machinery now functioning. If not, the committee would hope to explore and develop formal statutory standards to assure adequate minimum wage protection for all handicapped persons.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF IRVIN P. SCHLOSS, LEGISLATIVE ANAYLST, AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you in support of S. 1525, the Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1965. In expressing endorsement of this legislation, I am representing the American Foundation for the Blind, the national voluntary research and consultant agency in the field of services to blind persons, and the American Association of Workers for the Blind, the national professional organization of workers for the blind.

S. 1525 is urgently needed legislation designed to strengthen the Federal-State program for vocational rehabilitation of the Nation's disabled citizens. We should like to recommend amendments to it which would further strengthen this vital program as well as an important ancillary service. The recommended amendments would: (1) increase the amount of Federal financial participation in the program; (2) require minimum industrial safety standards to be observed in the installation and use of machinery and other equipment in workshops receiving construction or renovation grants provided under S. 1525 and in work

shops or other vocationally oriented rehabilitation facilities receiving Federal funds under existing provisions of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act as amended; and (3) remove the ceiling on the authorization of appropriations for the work of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped.

The Vocational Rehabilitation Act, which was enacted in 1920 and substantially strengthened by the Congress in 1943 and again in 1954, has long been a major weapon in the war against poverty among the disabled citizens of our country. Unfortunately, a serious physical or mental impairment which affects an individual's ability to earn a livelihood invariably results in the impoverishment of the individual and of those dependent upon him for financial support and frequently creates a serious financial strain for other members of the family on whom he must rely for help. However, through the Federal-State vocational rehabilitation program, hundreds of thousands of disabled persons have been restored to the working force of the Nation-converted from tax consumers subsisting on welfare payments or supported by thier families into productive taxpayers.

But there is still a major unmet need in achieving the national goal of eliminating poverty among the Nation's disabled through vocational rehabilitation-a need which can only be met if the program is substantially strengthened. According to the welfare administration, approximately 600,000 blind or seriously disabled individuals are presently receiving monthly assistance grants through the FederalState public welfare program. In addition, it is estimated that 250,000 Americans each year become disabled to such an extent that they are eligible for services under the Federal-State vocational rehabilitation program. According to the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness, approximately 40,000 individuals become blind each year; and a substantially higher number sustain severe visual impairments, so that they require vocational rehabilitation.

INCREASED FEDERAL FINANCIAL PARTICIPATION

Although S. 1525 would strengthen the vocational rehabilitation program in many ways, it does not provide for the most effective way of serving the backlog of disabled persons who will otherwise continue to be a burden to themselves, their families, and the national economy, or of keeping up with the demand for services by the hundreds of thousands of individual who become seriously disabled each year. Therefore, as the most effective means of meeting the need, we strongly urge the subcommittee to increase Federal financial participation under section 2 of the existing law by increasing the Federal share of the cost of services to 100 percent for services to the most severely disabled and to at least 75 percent for services to the less seriously disabled. For this purpose, severe disability should be defined as blindness of both eyes with light perception only, loss or loss of use of two or more extremities at a level precluding the use of prostheses, severe visual impairment in combination with severely impaired hearing, and other severely disabling conditions to be specified by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.

The present formula for Federal financial participation in the Federal-State vocational rehabilitation program results in from 50 to 70 percent of such services provided by a State agency being paid for by the Federal Government. In the growing complex of Federal-State financial partnership programs, the vocational rehabilitation program is becoming unattractive to the States from a strictly financial viewpoint. Other programs assure the States of more Federal money for less State money-notably the Federal-State public welfare program, which assures the States of 75 percent Federal funds toward the cost of providing rehabilitative and preventive services; the Federal-State highway program, which assures the States of 90 percent Federal funds; the Economic Opportunity Act, which provides for up to 90 percent in Federal funds toward the cost of community action projects; and the Manpower Development and Training Act, which currently provides for a Federal share of 100 percent. Surely, a program designed to restore the Nation's disabled citizens to the working force of the Nation deserves to be as well financed as other Federal-State partnership programs.

Increasing the Federal share of the cost of services to the most seriously handicapped to 100 percent would result in a sharply increased number of rehabilitations among these individuals. Because of lack of understanding, which manifests itself in employer resistance, it frequently takes more skill, salesmanship, and time for the rehabilitation counselor to assist the severely disabled client to become successfully rehabilitated and obtain satisfactory gainful employment. With the Federal Government bearing the full cost of services, the States would have the incentive to devote adequate time and effort to these cases.

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY

The President's Committee on Occupational Safety with staff assistance from the Bureau of Labor Standards of the U.S. Department of Labor has been striving to focus attention on the need for preventing disability in industrial operations. It is only logical and sensible, therefore, that any Federal legislation involving industrial operations should require conformity with accepted minimum standards of occupational safety. The American Standards Association has developed such standards; and it is particularly fitting that these be observed in connection with programs under the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, which are designed to restore to the labor force individuals who are disabled in industrial accidents.

Section 3 of S. 1525 provides for grants for the construction, including remodeling and renovation, of workshops and rehabilitation facilities. We would strongly urge the subcommittee to require that workshops constructed under these provisions, whether by public or voluntary agencies, adhere to minimum standards of occupational safety for equipment and procedures prescribed by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. The report on S. 1525 should indicate that the occupational safety standards developed by the American Standards Association should be used by the Secretary in developing minimum standards.

We would further recommend that S. 1525 be amended to provide that all workshops and rehabilitation facilities used for occupational training under the Vocational Rehabilitation Act through contractual arrangements with the Federal Government or State agencies also observe the same occupational safety standards.

PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT OF THE HANDICAPPED

Since its inception, the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped has played an important ancillary role in supporting the rehabilitation of the disabled and in promoting job opportunities for the disabled. Over the years, the increasing activity of the President's Committee has resulted in the need for periodic increases by the Congress in the authorization of appropriations for its work. Therefore, in order to eliminate the need for increasinly frequent amendments to the enabling legislation, we would strongly recommend removal of the ceiling on appropriations, thus leaving the annual appropriation for the work of the President's Committee to the normal budgetary and appropriations processes.

EVALUATION AND READER SERVICES

One of the most significant improvements in the Federal-State vocational rehabilitation program will be the establishment of the program of evaluation of rehabilitation potential under section 2 of S. 1525. With regard to the blind and others with very severe disabilities, this new program will assure these individuals of a much more adequate diagnostic service to determine feasibility for vocational rehabilitation. Observation in test training and work situations over a period of time is a much more practical approach than has been possible in the past with the limitations of the existing law.

I should also like to point out the vital significance for blind persons of the provision of section 9 of S. 1525 eliminating economic need as a criterion of eligibility for reader service. A blind or severely visually impaired individual who is attending college under the Vocational Rehabilitation Act requires many hours of reader service to keep up with his school work. Only the extremely wealthy family can really afford to pay for adequate reader service for a blind or severely visually impaired child, and the question of economic need becomes a highly relative The additional cost of providing reader service to blind clients without regard to economic need, even to wealthy ones, will be relatively small and will be considerably outweighed by the benefit derived.

one.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I should like to restate the wholehearted support for S. 1525 of both the American Foundation for the Blind and the American Association of Workers for the Blind. All of its provisions will result in substantial strengthening of the Federal-State vocational rehabilitation program for the blind and other severely disabled persons. We respectfully urge the subcommittee to report the bill favorably with the amendments we have recommended as a means of assuring to the Nation's disabled an opportunity to earn their own way and thereby contribute to the economic well-being of the country.

The CHAIRMAN. The subcommittee will now stand in recess. (Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m. the subcommittee adjourned.)

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