HOW FAIR IS WORKFARE? Published March 10, 1997 Previous columns by Harry Goldstein	I was walking around the East Village on a rainy mid-December day after having called in sick, the occasional case of "blue flu" (or in my case the "gastro-intestinal distress") being a small perk of working in an office. After stopping at a deli for a cloudy cup of mop-bucket brown coffee, I saw some sanitation workers fighting the rats for garbage bags swollen to bursting and was reminded of a panel I had attended a couple of weeks earlier. I knew that, unpleasant as a job like sanitation may seem to me, at least the people doing it are unionized and are paid a fair wage for their labor. The same cannot be said for the people caught up in New York City's Work Experience Program (WEP). A model for workfare programs across the country, New York Mayor Rudolf Guiliani started WEP a couple of years ago as a way to kill two birds with one stone: force able-bodied welfare recipients to work for their benefits and gain cheap labor to stoke the engine of his quality of life program, part of which entails cleaning up the city streets and parks. The Welfare Reform Law that President Clinton signed last summer gives money to states in block grants to do with as they see fit. This money is then fought over at the local level, where presumably groups like the ones that sponsored the panel I attended — Jobs With Justice, a national coalition of unions and community organizations and the Workers Rights Board which has chapters in Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo, Denver, Vermont and Western Massachusetts and uses the weapon of public shame to improve working conditions — can have some impact.
If workfare can make it here, it can make it anywhere. If it can't, welfare reform is doomed.	Here, in the nation's largest city, the challenge will be as great as in many states. On one hand, Mayor Guiliani and the City of New York are using welfare recipients as cheap labor and forcing them to work in poor conditions. On the other hand, the City is suing the Federal government, claiming that New York City cannot possibly find enough low paying jobs to move all the people who are currently on public assistance into work. If workfare can make it here, it can make it anywhere. If it can't, welfare reform is doomed. The panelists, Megan McLaughlin (of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies), Monsignor Howard Basler (coordinator, Catholic Charities, Diocese of Brooklyn), Angelo Falcon (of the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy), Joseph Murphy (former Chancellor of the City University of New York), and Brian McLaughlin (president of the NYC Central Labor Council), listened to a dozen WEP workers tell their stories: Carmen Balesh works on a sanitation detail in Long Island city and cleans 20-30 blocks everyday. She says there are no toilets for her and her colleagues to use, no time to wash hands before lunch, the workers are not trained to deal with hazardous waste like needles, and they are not properly attired. Sandra White worked at a bank for seven years, got laid off, her unemployment ran out, and she had to go into WEP. "It's not good for our bodies or our minds," she said. "This is not a training program; you are simply working for your benefits... We carry around our lunch tied to garbage cans... This is slavery... We have to go from business to business asking to go to the bathroom." Bruce Carson, a former WEP worker who put in 51 hours every two weeks and did the same job as a paid sanitation worker, said "The dream of education is gone. Education isn't important, but keeping me on welfare is." Nizardo Rodriguez, a single father who is asthmatic and whose daughter is also asthmatic, was a printer for 15 years but lost his job because he couldn't keep up with an increasingly technological workplace. He needs Macintosh computer training but can't get it, so he works as a clerk in a city government office. He has to take care of his child when she gets sick, not to mention the several times a year he himself is stricken with asthma, but he risks getting tossed off the welfare rolls for too many absences if he doesn't make up all his sick days.
Many WEP workers are doing what used to be full-time jobs that paid well and came with benefits — except they're doing these jobs without being justly compensated.	In addition to the WEP workers, Ken Peres, research director for the Communications Workers of America District 1, presented some startling statistics about economic impact of WEP. According to Peres, city services will increasingly be provided by WEP workers instead of full-time workers because the cost/benefit to the City is so attractive. A full-time clerical worker costs the City $12.32 an hour not including benefits, or $22,500 per year for a 35-hour week. Contrast that with a WEP worker, who is a mother with two children: She costs the City $1.80 per hour for a 20-hour week with current benefits and cost sharing. New York City only pays 25% of that cost. The State pays 25% and the Feds pick up the other 50%, which means that out of $577 per month, the City only pays $144. The costs are even more attractive to the City as the Welfare Reform Law takes effect. By the year 2002, that same mom of two will have to work 30 hours per week for the same benefits, meaning that her hourly "wage" will drop to .96 per hour. If New York Governor George Pataki's plan is adopted, she will get a measly .53 per hour for a 30-hour week — a grand total of $317 per month in the year 2002. What city in this country would pay a full-time employee $12.32 per hour when it could get the same work down for a tiny fraction of that? Plus the City does not have to pay WEP workers benefits like sick leave and vacation pay. New York City has already eliminated 22,100 full-time city positions and now uses 34,000 WEP workers. Many WEP workers are doing what used to be full-time jobs that paid well and came with benefits — except they're doing these jobs without being justly compensated. Those looking for work are going to be facing a very bleak job market as more people start looking for jobs that simply won't be there. Peres says that even though the city's economy is going through a relatively booming period this year, only 30,000 net new jobs have been created. Then factor in the 370,000 employable adults on welfare who will be looking for work in the next few years on top of the 271,000 people who are currently unemployed and looking for work, which means that if workfare was to be fully implemented today in New York City, 671,000 people would be vying for jobs that aren't even there. At the current level of net job creation, Peres estimates that it would take 21 years for everyone to get a job. Apparently, Mayor Guiliani agrees with this assessment, which is why New York City is fighting the Welfare Reform Law in court.
A huge number of poor, under-educated Americans may become indentured servants of the State.	A few days after the hearing, I talked with Dominic Chan, Executive Director of the New York City Workers Rights Board, to see what the Board was going to do with the information that had come out at the hearing. The Board, which consists of about 50 prominent activists, would be appointing a committee to review the testimony and come up with recommendations for further action. Since local activists across the country will be looking at New York to see what transpires over the course of the next year, the NYC WRB is carefully assessing its options and gathering its considerable resources to wage what will undoubtedly be a long, arduous battle to make workfare fair and help a huge number of poor, under-educated Americans avoid becoming indentured servants of the State. Harry Goldstein is a writer and editor living in Manhattan. His work has appeared in Utne Reader, American Book Review, Promethean, AltX, word.com, and other periodicals. ©; 1997 Harry Goldstein, all rights reserved.