Your immediate help is needed during a national Call-In to President Clinton to urge protection for welfare recipients placed in workfare slots. The president will soon decide whether these welfare recipients should be covered by the same protections that other workers enjoy. Reports from various states indicate that recipients in workfare jobs face below- minimum wages, unsafe working conditions, no protection against discrimination, and little opportunity for advancement. One report from New York City indicates that hundreds of welfare recipients have been put to work in city parks -- "working off" what would have been their welfare check (which amounts to below minimum wage) and are not being supplied with proper equipment or training. These same folks, incidentally, have effectively displaced low wage workers -- many of whom are now looking for other employment.
Laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) offer protection for workers against being paid unfair wages, exposed to dangerous or unhealthy working conditions, or suffering discrimination without recourse. Provisions in the new welfare law either attempt to circumvent these fundamental protections or are unclear as to whether federal labor and safety laws would apply in various circumstances.
Therefore, it is critical that the president issue guidelines to the states indicating that workfare participants need safe and healthy working conditions, protections against discrimination, a decent wage, and access to training and support services on the job. We need to deluge the White House with messages on this issue, because the president has been lax in advocating proper services and supports for welfare recipients. President Clinton's recent lack of follow-through to encourage states to adopt the Family Violence Provision is one indication that he is not sufficiently committed to making the welfare-to-work process succeed. (To address that void, activists are now pressing for legislation to clarify waiver authority for states for welfare recipients experiencing domestic violence.)
Advocates are focusing many calls for Wednesday, May 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., EST; however, you may call at any time. Just please call soon and get other activists to make the call as well.
Who to Call: Erskine Bowles, Chief of Staff at 202-456-1111 or 456-6798 (White House Office of Domestic Policy)
Message: Give workfare workers equal treatment -- extend to them the same labor, health, safety, and civil rights protections that all other American workers enjoy!
White House email: president@whitehouse.gov