Brice Alexander, Senior Vice President of Contract Operations at Melwood, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the organization's mission and workforce as part of National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
Melwood is a non-profit social enterprise that operates in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. They are a preferred employer, provider and advocate of people with disabilities. Melwood directly employs 1,600 people, including 1,000 with significant disabilities. The non-profit assists roughly one in four Americans who have a disability in overcoming the barriers of traditional employment to prevent a cycle of poverty and homelessness. Their workforce can be found in union and non-union shops and helps operate 43 different custodial, ground-keeping and recycling services in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia.
For more than 50 years, Alexander’s family has owned a cleaning business. This, combined with his wife working as a special education teacher, helped draw him to Melwood. He discussed the importance of providing individuals with disabilities with various career options. Alexander also spoke about the accommodations provided through Melwood that enable them to work and live a fulfilling life.
Many employers hesitate to hire workers with disabilities, and Alexander addressed the need for proper education. Through education, employers are more likely to hire workers with disabilities thanks to the inexpensive accommodations that can be provided. Alexander discussed the research that supports the decision-makers who choose to utilize workers with disabilities and how it positively impacts the lives of those workers.
For more on Melwood, listen to the show above.
America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.
America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.
