Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1997 13:05:04 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: NY March for Workfare Union


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

>I hear you. Organized labor callously ignored attacks on women on welfare
>until workfare really began.

Hey, Sweeney sent Clinton a telegram urging him not to sign the welfare
bill the day before Clinton did sign the welfare bill. Don't say the
AFL-CIO didn't do anything!

>The only thing that those big wigs truly care
>about is the threat posed by workfare workers to union jobs and *dues*. In
>this sense, grass-roots community organizers were much better, though
>basically they lost the struggle and that's why we have the present state
>of affairs.

Depends on who you mean by grassroots. Most poor people's advocacy groups
did a fairly bad job on welfare reform. According to a study by the Applied
Research Center of Oakland, these organizations - most of them
foundation-funded, it's important to say - were so focused on local
concerns that they didn't mobilize until the very last minute. And their
idea of mobilization is to lobby legislators in state capitals, not
organize a mass political effort to change national legislation. Since
they're foundation funded, they make no effort to build any real
organization, and their orientation is entirely towards the amelioration of
poverty, not a systematic approach to the fundamentals of income
distribution.

ACORN has done some organizing of workfare people in New York, but no one
can really figure out what they're up to. The cards they've been collecting
have no legal standing; ACORN wouldn't be in a position to do collective
bargaining. Lots of the people who've paid their $10 to ACORN think they're
signing up for some nonexistent jobs program. Speculation is that ACORN is
just trying to boost its membership rolls and increase visibility, without
having any strategy in mind. Meanwhile, a front for the Workers World party
has been working in conjuncdtion with the main municipal union, DC37, in
signing up workfare people in NYC, surely one of the stranger alliances in
recent memory.

Doug




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