re-destributing overtime, even if it could be administeres, is still not a solution... Eva ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 08:45:19 -0800 (PST) From: Ken Boettcher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: A Problem With Workfare To: Recipients of The_People List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Status: THE PEOPLE APRIL 1998 Vol. 108 No. 1 GETTING TO WORK A MAJOR PROBLEM OF WORKFARE In past issues, THE PEOPLE has discussed the many flaws in the government's program to transfer welfare recipients to workfare, such as providing low income and dead-end jobs for them, unsafe working conditions, lack of protective clothing in certain more hazardous jobs, and using minimum-wage workfare workers to fill jobs formerly held by higher paid unionized workers. Another serious problem is the transportation low- income workers need to get to their jobs. Transportation can be expensive, particularly when the cost must be deducted from wages that are among the lowest paid to any workers. That burden becomes even greater when low-income workers must travel many miles to where their jobs are located. Three-quarters of the welfare recipients live either in the central cities or in rural areas, but two-thirds of the new jobs are now in the suburbs. Only one in 20 of those on welfare owns a car. In Cleveland, for instance, more than half the available entry-level jobs require an 80-minute or more commute on public transit for residents of the inner city. The Clinton administration has sought to budget funds for new alternatives in transportation to aid people leaving welfare for work, but Congress does not want a high price tag on the effort. The federal government is promoting city-to-suburb commuting efforts with van pools and shuttle buses. The demonstration project known as Bridges to Work has been sponsoring transportation of workfare workers to jobs in business parks near several large cities. Mark Allen Hughes, who is directing the Bridges to Work project, commented, "If a low-wage worker faces a long commute, that job might as well be on Mars. But a two-hour commute on public transit can be reduced to 30 or 45 minutes with a little engineering." (PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE, Oct. 7, 1997.) Some states have begun using jitney and van pools and improved bus services. Some others are more innovative in trying to help low-income people get to work. One Tennessee rural county, for instance, has been offering no-interest auto loans to welfare families. Kentucky leases various old government vehicles, including police cars, at low cost to workers leaving welfare status for work. All these endeavors reveal federal, state and local officials scrambling desperately to deal with the results of poverty rather than tackling its basic cause. Their remedial actions will go on forever as long as the capitalist system exists. Getting workers to jobs does not guarantee that they will receive enough from those jobs to live a decent life or even that the jobs they secure will remain viable into the future in these days of downsizing and layoffs. Jobs exist only as long as labor is profitable to capitalistic enterprise. There are never enough jobs to go around in the capitalist system, even during good times. Getting workers from home to work is only part of the problem for many of these people moving off welfare. Some will find only late-night jobs or week-end jobs, when public transportation operates on a limited schedule. A large number of new workers will be single mothers struggling not only to get to work but to find care for their children while they are away at work. For mothers who have night jobs, this in an even more serious problem, and a potentially dangerous one for their children. Those mothers fortunate enough to find day jobs would have to put in 10 to 16 hours a day getting their children to and from school and day care and themselves to and from work. Poverty and inequality are endemic to capitalism and no amount of tinkering with that system will abolish poverty for all times. Well-meaning reformers continue to try chasing down all capitalism's inefficiencies, but the inherent nature of the economy continually overrides these piecemeal efforts. The permanent cure will come only with the permanent replacement of the unjust and destructive economic organization that continues to cause all our misery. --B.G. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
