Rhode Island disabled workers to be paid landmark settlement

Rhode Island-based Training Thru Placement (TTP), in an agreement with the Department of Labor (DOL), is paying $300,000 in back wages to approximately 100 disabled workers.

In this matter, workers alleged TTP segregated them into ‘sheltered workshops’ and failed to pay minimum wage or compensate for overtime work. The employees often remained in the workshops all day packaging and labeling medical supplies, wrapping remote controls or sorting jewelry at rates below an approved subminimum wage.

Federal investigations found that the average wage paid to disabled employees at TTP was $1.57 an hour, with the lowest earning worker making $0.14 per hour. The US DOL’s Wage and Hour Division brought attention to this matter, and the DOL revoked TTP’s certificate under the Fair Labor Standards Act. TTP has replaced the board, management and staff they say were responsible for the violations, falsifying documents and misleading investigators.

The settlement is the first of its kind, addressing the rights of disabled workers to have access to employment that is city and state funded, appropriately compensated, and outside of segregated workshops. The TTP workshop was related to a training program, Birch, which pulled other students from their regular classes to complete deadlines in the workshop. The students were paid between $0.50 and $2.00 per hour, or not paid at all.

TTP’s settlement will pay back wages to workers and staff with disabilities and free benefits counseling to those owed back wages. This matter arose with the backdrop of Rhode Island and the US Deparment of Justice overhauling employment services and minimum wage positions available to disabled workers.

The DOJ found thousands of disabled employees working in segregated places of work in Rhode Island alone. The New York Times described this court-approved agreement as offering a road map to similar compliance in the other 49 states, including 450,000 employees with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are segregated in their work environments.

Want to read more? Learn more about DOL sub-minimum wage rates, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or economic and statistical FLSA investigations.