Paid work in the Blind Industry Program

It is an employment programme, not occupational therapy. The Act says so in those words: social and economic rehabilitation is pursued “through paid work opportunities.” The Program organizes workshops producing articles for sale to the public, and there it gives training and paid employment to blind people or people with physical, mental or developmental disabilities. And it brings something almost no employment programme has: a market mandated by law, because agencies and municipalities must buy from it.

The Act describes the population served in the Program’s own name and in its Article 2: blind persons or persons with physical, mental or developmental disabilities, whom the text also calls persons with functional diversity. The Act publishes no eligibility criteria, no thresholds and no admission procedure: that lives in the Program’s regulations and in the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration’s processes, which we did not read.

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1. 1

   Step 1: It is paid work, and the Act says so

   Article 2 leaves no room for another reading: “The Program’s purpose is to provide for the social and economic rehabilitation of persons with functional diversity through paid work opportunities.” And it details how: “the Program may organize workshops for producing articles for sale to the public. Through those workshops it may provide training, paid employment within its economic capacity, and any other service deemed convenient or necessary for the rehabilitation of blind persons or persons with physical, mental or developmental disabilities.”

2. 2

   Step 2: The mandated market: agencies and municipalities must buy

   Article 3 is what economically sustains the workshops: “All departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, including municipalities, shall purchase with the resources at their disposal, directly or through the General Services Administration as the case may be, for use by the services under their respective jurisdiction, those articles produced by the Program.” Note that municipalities are expressly named.

3. 3

   Step 3: But the duty carries two conditions

   We quote them because without them the rule reads as something it is not. The duty to buy applies to articles “that reasonably meet the specifications established for such purchases and whose prices do not exceed those current in the market.” That is: the article must reasonably serve what the agency needs, and cannot cost more than the going market price. It is not a purchase at any price.

4. 4

   Step 4: Where the Program lives

   Article 2 places it: the Program “shall be attached to the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, as an integral part of that Administration’s structure.” It is not a separate entity with its own front door: you enter through the ARV. If you are already a vocational rehabilitation client, it is the same administration.

5. 5

   Step 5: Who can dismiss and who cannot

   This governance detail protects whoever works in the workshops, which is why we publish it. The ARV Administrator “shall designate a trust official to assist in executing and implementing the Program,” and that official may be an Assistant Administrator or another within the management structure. But the Act sets the limit in the same sentence: “Nevertheless, this may not imply delegating to that official the power to dismiss or appoint personnel, or the power to approve regulations.”

6. 6

   Step 6: There is a special fund

   Article 4 “authorizes and orders the Secretary of the Treasury to create the Special Fund for the Industry Program for Blind Persons and Persons with Physical, Mental and Developmental Disabilities.” We did not read the detail of what goes in and how it is spent beyond what the article says, so we publish no figures.

7. 7

   Step 7: This Act replaced one from 1948

   We mention it because if you look for the old act you will not find it in force. Article 8 “repeals Act No. 207 of May 14, 1948, as amended,” which was the previous blind-industry act. We did not read that repealed act and publish nothing from it.

The Program is attached to the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, as an integral part of its structure, and the ARV sits under the Department of Labour and Human Resources. The Act publishes no address, telephone, form or workshop locations, and we do not invent them. If you are looking for another income route for a person with a severe disability, the sales concession in public buildings is another Act the ARV also administers, and it has its own guide.

• Thinking it is occupational therapy: the Act speaks of paid work opportunities and paid employment.
• Looking for a separate office: the Program is attached to the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration as an integral part of its structure.
• Believing agencies must buy at any price: the duty applies to articles that reasonably meet the specifications and whose prices do not exceed market prices.
• Assuming municipalities are outside the purchase duty: the Act names them expressly.
• Thinking the designated official can dismiss staff: the Act expressly excludes that power and the power to approve regulations.
• Looking for Act 207-1948: it was repealed by this Act.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento del Trabajo y Recursos Humanos (DTRH)

  Departamento del Trabajo

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov