Helping the Disabled Work

THINKING AHEAD

Helping the Disabled Work

In an interview with Government Executive, Beverly Milkman, former executive director of the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled, discussed the challenges facing the blind and disabled and what government can do to help. Milkman headed the group that works to harness government's purchasing power to buy goods from blind and severely disabled workers for more than 11 years. Under the 1971 Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) Act, federal agencies are required to purchase certain products and services from nonprofit agencies that employ blind and disabled workers. Milkman oversaw the launch of www.jwod.com, a Web site designed to allow agencies to make online purchases of JWOD products.

On challenges to employing the disabled:
Even with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), unemployment among the blind and disabled is still outrageous-it is greater than 70 percent. I think the major challenge at the turn of the century is still attitude. Employers are still concerned about liability, sick leave and financial burdens. They're also concerned that someone with a disability can't do the job.

We have a committee member who is both legally blind and deaf who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. She came out with an MBA and a 3.8 grade point average. No one would hire her. Employers all over told her, "You can't hear, you can't see, you can't possibly fit in." She finally got a job and went on to get a law degree from Columbia University.

We still need to be reaching out to employers in this country to highlight cases that show people with disabilities, given reasonable accommodations, can be as productive as anyone else, and often they bring to the workplace a tremendous work ethic and desire to succeed.

On the role of the federal government:
The JWOD program is just one small example of how the federal government helps people with disabilities by providing training and jobs.

The JWOD program uses federal procurement power to generate income opportunities for the blind and disabled. Decisions are made as to which contracts should be set aside for local nonprofit organizations that employ persons with disabilities and provide them with jobs and training that ideally will enable them to move into competitive jobs.

Last year almost 30 million hours of work were generated for persons with disabilities through the JWOD program. Just over $200 million in wages was generated, with an average hourly wage of over $7an hour. JWOD employs around 34,000 individuals every year.

On the effect of procurement reforms:
As a result of procurement reform, we have to do things differently than we have in the past. We really do need to educate the federal workforce about JWOD and the products we sell.

In the service area, bundling of contracts and fewer acquisition professionals are challenges. We expect that in the months and years to come we will see more and more JWOD contracts being bundled into larger contracts. We need to make sure that in the process, JWOD agencies get a fair shake from the prime contract.

The federal government is increasingly turning to outside distributors. The Defense Logistics Agency, General Services Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies that have run depots are now looking to the private sector to take on that responsibility for them. Given that historically these agencies have bought our products, warehoused them and then disseminated them, we now need to be working with commercial companies and setting up our own distribution.