§ 525.3 Definitions.

(a) FLSA means the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended.

(b) Secretary means the Secretary of Labor or the Secretary of Labor's authorized representative.

(c) Administrator means the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor, or the Administrator's authorized representative.

(d) Worker with a disability for the purpose of this part means an individual whose earning or productive capacity is impaired by a physical or mental disability, including those relating to age or injury, for the work to be performed. Disabilities which may affect earning or productive capacity include blindness, mental illness, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, alcoholism, and drug addiction. The following, taken by themselves, are not considered disabilities for the purposes of this part: Vocational, social, cultural, or educational disabilities; chronic unemployment; receipt of welfare benefits; nonattendance at school; juvenile delinquency; and, correctional parole or probation. Further, a disability which may affect earning or productive capacity for one type of work may not affect such capacity for another.

(e) Patient worker means a worker with a disability, as defined above, employed by a hospital or institution providing residential care where such worker receives treatment or care without regard to whether such worker is a resident of the establishment.

(f) Hospital or institution, hereafter referred to as institution, is a public or private, nonprofit or for-profit facility primarily engaged in (i.e., more than 50 percent of the income is attributable to) providing residential care for the sick, the aged, or the mentally ill or retarded, including but not limited to nursing homes, intermediate care facilities, rest homes, convalescent homes, homes for the elderly and infirm, halfway houses, residential centers for drug addicts or alcoholics, and the like, whether licensed or not licensed.

(g) Employ is defined in FLSA as to suffer or permit to work. An employment relationship arises whenever an individual, including an individual with a disability, is suffered or permitted to work. The determination of an employment relationship does not depend upon the level of performance or whether the work is of some therapeutic benefit. However, an individual does not become an employee if engaged in such activities as making craft products where the individual voluntarily participates in such activities and the products become the property of the individual making them, or all of the funds resulting from the sale of the products are divided among the participants in the activity or are used in purchasing additional materials to make craft products.

(h) Special minimum wage is a wage authorized under a certificate issued to an employer under this part that is less than the statutory minimum wage.

(i) Commensurate wage is a special minimum wage paid to a worker with a disability which is based on the worker's individual productivity in proportion to the wage and productivity of experienced nondisabled workers performing essentially the same type, quality, and quantity of work in the vicinity in which the individual under certificate is employed. For example, the commensurate wage of a worker with a disability who is 75% as productive as the average experienced nondisabled worker, taking into consideration the type, quality, and quantity of work of the disabled worker, would be set at 75% of the wage paid to the nondisabled worker. For purposes of these regulations, a commensurate wage is always a special minimum wage, i.e., a wage below the statutory minimum.

(j) Vicinity or locality means the geographic area from which the labor force of the community is drawn.

(k) Experienced worker means a worker who has learned the basic elements or requirements of the work to be performed, ordinarily by completion of a probationary or training period. Typically, such a worker will have received at least one pay raise after successful completion of the probationary or training period.