GSA commits to help blind, disabled workers

The General Services Administration has announced tentative plans to shore up the federal program that purchases products made by blind and disabled workers, who could be thrown out of work by GSA's decision to close several supply warehouses.

Programs that rely on GSA's purchases of products made by blind and severely handicapped employees were caught off guard last month when GSA announced its plans to shut down eight Federal Supply Service (FSS) warehouses. GSA stocked the products made by the disabled workers in the warehouses for sale to other federal agencies. Under GSA's new approach, agencies would by the materials directly from vendors.

While GSA pledged to help suppliers who distribute their goods through the GSA warehouses, details of their assistance have so far been scant. Agencies like the National Industries for the Blind (NIB) and NISH, the agency that provides jobs for severely disabled people, operate under the Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) program, which harnesses government's purchasing power to buy goods from blind and severely disabled workers.

According to GSA officials, the agency strengthened its commitment to assist the JWOD program once it became apparent that the decision to close the warehouses could put as many as 1,400 blind and disabled workers out of work.

"Because of these unintended consequences, we are rethinking our business strategies," GSA said.

GSA's aid to JWOD agencies so far has consisted largely of marketing help. For example, GSA has pledged to:

• Play a message about JWOD produced products on its on-hold telephone message.
• Do a cover story on JWOD and their products in a FSS catalog supplement.
• Include JWOD flyers in all shipments out of distribution centers.
• Work with JWOD to develop a marketing campaign for its new award schedule.
• Provide sales information to JWOD agencies that will help them target buyers.

According to Beverly Milkman, executive director of the federal committee that operates the JWOD program, GSA started the warehouse shutdown process without a full understanding of the consequences. "When orders stopped coming [to JWOD agencies] everyone started scratching their heads," she said.

But Milkman says she is "somewhat hopeful that, in terms of the problems our agencies are having, GSA is going to get more focused on what they can do to help."

According to Milkman, plugging the short-term drop in orders is a major problem. Orders for JWOD products have already stopped coming in, she said. Six JWOD agencies have had layoffs and work reductions while another four say they will have to undergo layoffs shortly. Until the JWOD program gets new distribution channels up and running, employees may continue to be laid off, Milkman said.

In the long-run, orders may be stabilized if new channels such as online ordering and a new call center for phone orders are successful. Those channels are not yet fully operational, but are expected to be completed in the coming months, Milkman said.

What the JWOD agency leaders are hoping to hear is that GSA will do more than just market JWOD programs. "We're hoping they will keep ordering products longer and keep them in depots for longer," Milkman said. If GSA bought regularly for the next quarter, "it would really help [the agencies] out," she said.

Milkman has presented a proposal to GSA officials under which the agency would continue taking orders for JWOD products for the next 18-24 months.

Meanwhile, the entire warehouse shutdown is still under legal debate. An arbitrator ruled in September that the GSA decision to close the warehouses violated an agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees. GSA plans to proceed with the shutdown, but AFGE has threatened to take the matter to court.