Worcester rehab participants were used as unpaid workers: A.G.

• Posted by Worcester News Sep 1 - Filed in News - #Worcester  #Attorney General  #Chatham Street  #Adult & Teen Challenge  - 2,479 views

  
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  WORCESTER — The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office has issued $1.15 million in citations against an addiction treatment organization that authorities say required participants at its Worcester and Brockton programs to perform unpaid work for outside businesses and fundraising operations.

  Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced Tuesday that Adult & Teen Challenge, Northeast, Inc., known as TCNE, was cited for alleged violations of state wage laws, including failing to pay minimum wage, keep accurate employment records and allow workers to earn and use sick time.

  TCNE operated a residential program for men at 81 Chatham St. in Worcester, the former site of the Spring Valley Center, a residential care facility that closed and was sold in 2020.

  The citations order TCNE to pay restitution to hundreds of participants as well as penalties to the state. The Attorney General’s Office determined participants were owed more than $850,000 in wages.

  “People seeking treatment for substance use disorder deserve to be treated with dignity and fairness, not exploited for their labor,” Campbell said. “This first-of-its-kind enforcement action makes clear that when treatment centers require individuals to do work that is unrelated to rehabilitation or training, they must follow our state’s labor laws and pay people for the work they perform.”

  According to the Attorney General’s Office, participants in the Worcester and Brockton men’s programs were required to work for outside, for-profit companies that paid TCNE through a program called “Labor Source.”

  The work included office cleaning, landscaping, moving, snow shoveling and food preparation. Participants also were required to conduct in-person fundraising outside supermarkets, coffee shops and other businesses and to solicit donations by telephone, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

  TCNE did not pay participants for that work, contending the activities qualified for an exemption from Massachusetts minimum wage requirements for rehabilitation and training programs, according to the state.

  The Attorney General’s Office rejected that argument, concluding that the work was not covered by the exemption and that participants should have been treated as employees and paid for their labor.

  The Mass. Department of Labor Standards reached the same conclusion in a determination letter. The agency said work performed for outside organizations and fundraising did not qualify for the rehabilitation and training exemption and that participants were entitled to at least the state minimum wage.

  The department found that the work appeared to benefit TCNE and its customers more than the treatment program participants. It noted that assignments were based on the needs of TCNE or its clients — such as a need for landscaping or snow removal — rather than the rehabilitative needs of individual participants.

  State officials said the determination is the first in Massachusetts finding that certain work required by a substance use disorder treatment program constitutes employment under the state's minimum wage law rather than rehabilitation or training.

  TCNE is a Brockton-based nonprofit with substance use disorder treatment centers around New England. It is part of Adult and Teen Challenge USA, a national network that says it has 220 residential programs in more than 20 states.