-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [WORKFARE] Re: Question Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:55:56 +0100 From: "Bob malecki" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "Bob malecki" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Barabara wrote.. >From: "Barbara R. Sands" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Hello comrades- > >Here in the US of A, Workfare means Working for your benefits. These are >state programs. Each state determines how the program will be >operationalized. And the state contracts with its counties/cities. "Make >sure you get X percentage of folks off welfare by such and such date or you >aint getting your money." In New York state alone, during the past two >years, 600,000 people have been kicked off of welfare. Interesting to note >that the jobs which people are pushed in to are often jobs in the very >agencies that dole out social assistance benefits----foodstamps, medicaid, >rent vouchers. > >So, what is Workfare in other parts of the capitalist world ? Will warmly >greet all responses. >I am a public service worker, a single parent, and previously a social >assistance recipient. > >Thanks, >Barbara Sands >Albany NY >USA Well here in Sweden it is being used to dismantle the welfare state. Especially turning welfare payments based on a subsistent minimum away from a right to become something you must work in order to get. With mass unemployment and the growing sector of millions on the dole is now being turned into and instrument to drive down wages and to produce a labor force for jobs which no body in their right minds ever would have taken..But also jobs in many sectors which formally were done by unionized workers is now being done by non union labor but also for almost noyhing except the minimum subsistent requirement. It is the state organizing scab labor in all sectors of society both to weaken the unions and at the same time justify the destruction of the welfare benefits. For example many women thrown out of the public sector in the ninties are now being re-employed under various programs under workfare/welfare thus doing the same job they once did for a monthly pay now for the right to get the minium requirement of money for living. I for example a single father whom worked with handicapped children is invited to once again work in this field where i was making about 15,000 crowns a month before the downsizing and now returning for the pityful sum of 10,000 crown a month thus a cut in pay of a third. Over and above this it has meant that tens of thousands after being laid off were forced to sell everything they own, the divorce rate climbing to ever new highs and now being used has a highly mobile reserve army with no rights what so ever and no union to back them up. Unfortunately here the turn is now coming to those on unemployment benefits. Where this system is now being introduced in order to change unemployment benefits into workfare welfare and with the good wishes of the trade union bureaucracy who have completely capitulated to thuis stuff.. The latest debate in all this is a new law which will require the people on welfare and unemployment benefits to take house hold jobs in the homes of the middle and upper middle classes in order to get their benefits while at the same time giving a tax reduction to these families in order to get hired help. And people here are getting extremely angry about it. Both the unemployed and welfare parcipiants are organizing in their own committees around the country. So we shall see what this leads to and how will we approach this stuff. Warm regards Bob malecki ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WORKFARE- A list for international activists concerned about workfare, forced labour and related issues. end ============== Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html The Year 2000 Bug - An Urgent Sustainability Issue http://www.peg.apc.org/~psutton/grin-y2k.htm
