Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Sheltered workshop" in English language version.
There are 194 Australian Disability Enterprises or ADEs. The work they do—everything from packing boxes and mowing lawns, to washing sheets and preparing frozen meals—generates more than $730 million each year. More than half of the ADEs make a loss each year, however. Many of the rest barely break even. ... Disability enterprises are competing in very tough markets. They're not-for-profit organisations established specifically to employ people with severe disability, usually intellectual disability, and they're competing with low wage economies overseas. They're barely breaking even, often they're making a loss so you know they're struggling to have the capacity to pay higher wages.' ... Some of them, their productivity really is very low. Their disability is very severe, but they want to work. My view is if they want to work and they gain the benefits of work which are not just wages: which are friendships, social networks, a sense of dignity, a sense of contributing to society; these are very important benefits and people should be entitled to those benefits.'
Opponents of subminimum wage programs like Vistability's say they segregate people who have disabilities, keeping them from obtaining better paying work and greater independence — which they could achieve with the right services to assist them. On the other side, program operators and some workers' families defend the current arrangements, saying these workers would not otherwise have job opportunities. About 20% of people who have developmental disabilities in California are employed, the state's Department of Developmental Services says. ... After they graduated, Goodwill of Orange County placed him, with two or three others, at a clothing company's warehouse and later at a local retailer. They hung clothes on racks, splitting one minimum-wage job. Corey took home $2.50 an hour, his father said. He loved his job and came home feeling accomplished and eager to spend his paycheck, taking his parents out to dinner, Chris Bowers said.
The fate of these work programs has been contentious. Disability-rights advocates say the programs limit the workers' potential while using them as cheap labor. But some workers' families and the organizations themselves argue that eliminating them would threaten the well-being of people who are happy to be there and take away their choices.
Under pressure from the federal government, states are starting to phase sheltered workshops out entirely. But there's disagreement within the disabilities community about whether that's a good idea. More than 15 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that keeping people with disabilities in separate work settings constitutes discrimination. ... Daphne Pickert, who runs St. Lawrence NYSARC, another disability services provider, says ending them removes an option for people who may never be ready for an outside job. "For some people, because of their actual diagnosis and disability, they need the support of the workshop," she says, "And they literally cannot perform in a competitive setting."
But the concept has increasingly come under fire by disability advocacy groups. They say the workshops reinforce a life of poverty, leaving thousands isolated and exploited by their employers. ... He says it would be nearly impossible for some people with severe intellectual disabilities to get a job at all. It's sheltered workshops, he says, that give them a chance to work and earn a paycheck. "Some of the individuals may not even completely understand what the value of that paycheck is," van den Brink says. "But they know they are receiving a paycheck, so they are getting a lot of self-esteem. They are very proud of it."
