Larysa Kautz, President and CEO of Melwood, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the work her organization performs to provide people with disabilities access to good jobs with livable wages and benefits. She also discussed how partnerships with several unions and federal agencies have led people with disabilities on a path to a career.
Melwood is a social enterprise founded over 60 years ago that operates in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Kautz explained that Melwood supports people with disabilities so they can live, work and thrive in their communities. The organization employs individuals who have physical disabilities and intellectual disabilities, are neurodivergent and some who are veterans. Melwood hires these men and women and then contracts them out to work in good jobs that pay living wages and offer career growth. Many of the 1,600 people they employ are experiencing the freedom of a living wage and good benefits for the first time.
The types of jobs that Melwood employees work range from federal government positions to jobs through Local and International unions. Among the unions Melwood partners with are the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Union of Operation Engineers (IUOE). Kautz said their employees receive training, earn industry-specific certifications and have opportunities to advance in the workplace. She discussed one of their employees, an IUOE Local 99 member, who is currently enrolled in the union's apprenticeship program. Once this individual tops out, they will become Melwood’s first person with disabilities to work as a stationary engineer.
Ensuring people with disabilities have access to full-time jobs that pay a living wage and provide good union benefits is not without challenges. Kautz explained that people with disabilities face exclusion in the workforce and noted that these exclusions impacted her family. She said 15 states permit timed work trials for disabled employees. These trials allow an employer to monitor the employee with disabilities for a set amount of time and then dock their pay accordingly. This creates a situation where the job only pays a few dollars per hour. Melwood’s goal is to break down the cycles of poverty these exclusionary practices create and show that people with disabilities can have a successful career in any field, she added.
For more from Kautz on Melwood, listen to the show above and visit their website to learn more about the organization.
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.
