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Legalized Slave Labor— Otherwise Known as “Workfare"
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by Linden Gawboy
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Workfare forces parents (mostly mothers) receiving welfare to work for no pay in order to receive the monthly welfare grant. Workfare is an appalling attack on poor mothers and an economic attack on all working people. This year, one of the projects of the Welfare Rights Committee (WRC) is to outlaw workfare in the state of Minnesota.
There are some important points to keep in mind when we think about workfare. For instance, if there is a job to be done, make it a real job with a living wage. Then people won’t have to be on welfare in the first place. Workfare drives down wages for all working people. If bosses know they can go somewhere to get impoverished mothers and fathers to work for free, it undermines any incentive to pay a living wage or, in this case, any wage.
Contrary to right-wing rhetoric, mothers on welfare “know” how to work, and have worked the hardest jobs this society has to offer, for the least pay. It is an insult to force us to work for free. Besides that, there is the larger issue of the real work in this world of raising children.
Workfare displaces paying jobs, and often these jobs are decent paying or union jobs. In New York City, after the 1996 federal welfare changes, over 30,000 union jobs in the parks department and transportation were lost within the first year as welfare recipients were forced to work those jobs for free in order to get their grant.
The so-called “volunteer work” is never volunteer if there is threat of sanction (which is a 10 to 45 percent cut to the whole family’s welfare grant). No job counselor or county financial worker should be put in a position to force people into slave labor. Not only that, it’s not possible to quit an abusive workfare job and go on welfare... if participants quit, they are thrown off of welfare!
There is not a kinder or more “meaningful” form of workfare. Whether it is a retail job at Wal-Mart, or a nonprofit that provides a valuable service to the community, workfare is still workfare—it is still forced, free labor. The only truly “meaningful” work is work that pays a livable wage and provides benefits so that we can then get our families off welfare and out of poverty.
Workfare jobs do not have to and will not turn into real jobs. When the companies are done with us, they can go down to the welfare office and get another welfare recipient who is being forced to work for free. Workfare has been around for a long time, all over the country. The WRC fought workfare in the 1990s, and we were successful in getting workfare almost eliminated in Minnesota. But workfare is creeping back, with Governor Pawlenty pushing it this year.
Pawlenty’s current budget proposal would expand workfare statewide. Pawlenty’s budget proposal takes $1.65 million a year from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—money that is needed by poor families—and gives grants to counties to set up slave labor programs for those families in the public and private sector.
Minnesota does not need to accept the workfare system to meet federal welfare regulations. There are many other options in federal law that will meet work requirements, such as subsidized work, paid on-the-job training, and education. These are the options that Minnesota should take. Senator Linda Berglin has a bill that will allow Minnesota to meet the federal requirements without workfare.
At the legislature, the Welfare Rights Committee is working in three main areas this year. One, we are trying to undo the devastating cuts to poor families, because in 2003 poor families took the harshest cuts. There are also bills to raise the welfare grants. The welfare grant has not been increased in 21 years, while the cost of living has risen by 84 percent. The bills concerning workfare outlaw the practice both in state welfare law and in labor law.
Our main task right now is to make a public noise against workfare and make the legislators aware of how bad it is. Senate File 514 is the bill that undoes workfare in labor law—the chief authors of SF514 are Sen. David Tomassoni of Chisholm and Rep. Willie Dominguez of Minneapolis. Senate File 154 is the bill that undoes workfare in welfare law (the chief authors are Sen. Linda Berglin and Rep. Neva Walker). The House File numbers will be available shortly after this newsletter goes to press.
Besides sounding off to legislators, here are other ways to assist in this effort: Sign on to the Welfare Rights Committee declaration against workfare. Go to www.welfarerightsmn.org for more information. Go to the hearings on these bills at the capitol to show support. These often come up with very little notice. You can get on the capitol e-mail lists – call WRC to find out which are the relevant committees. When the WRC is mobilizing for major hearings, we send e-mails.
To get on the WRC e-mail list, please call or e-mail.
Welfare Rights Committee and Minnesota Welfare Rights Coalition
310 E. 38th St. #207, Minneapolis, MN 55409
612-822-8020
welfarerightsmn@yahoo.com
www.welfarerightsmn.org
Linden Gawboy, of Ely and Minneapolis, is a longtime member of the Welfare Rights Committee. |
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Word UP!
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, ‘I see no probability of the British invading us’ but he will say to you ‘be silent; I see it, if you don’t.’
The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved toso frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.
—Abraham Lincoln
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© 2007 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete March 2007 Index - click here
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