Review finds many who work during rehab aren't being paid
Across the country, drug and alcohol recovery programs claiming to help the poor and the desperate are instead conscripting them into forms of indentured servitude, requiring them to work without pay or for pennies on the dollar, in exchange for their stay.
Some work at rehab-run businesses, such as thrift stores or car washes. Others work at outside enterprises, including small businesses, temp agencies and some of the largest, most profitable corporations in the country. Rehab participants have worked at Williams Sonoma, Shell, Walmart and Tyson Foods.
They have manufactured supplies used in the coronavirus pandemic, staffed hospitals, maintained oil refineries, made lawnmowers, roasted coffee, detailed cars and sorted clothing donations.
Many of the programs claim the work is treatment, often calling it “work therapy.” Labor experts call it illegal.
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This article was provided to The Associated Press by the nonprofit news outlet Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.
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“I don’t think there’s any real ambiguity about what the law requires,” said D. Michael Hancock, former assistant administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. “There’s nothing therapeutic about not paying workers.”
For the first time, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has determined how widespread these programs have become, identifying at least 300 rehab facilities in 44 states that have required participants to work without pay. In recent years, at least 60,000 people a year attended such rehab programs, Reveal found.
To identify these rehabs, Reveal contacted several hundred programs with survey questions, interviewed hundreds of current and former employees and participants, and reviewed thousands of pages of tax...
