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Absender : ww@wwpublish.com (Workers World) Betreff : Workfare workers disrupt NY hearing Datum : Mi 08.04.98, 16:43 (erhalten: 10.04.98) Groesse : 3016 Bytes ----------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 9, 1998 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
NEW YORK WORKFARE WORKERS DISRUPT HEARING
By Molly Charboneau New York
Just one week after their first confrontation with New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's new welfare ax wielder Jason Turner, workfare workers and welfare recipients were in his face again March 25.
After holding a news conference on the steps of City Hall, they disrupted a crowded City Council committee hearing where Turner was trying to sell the administration's war against the poor.
Before he came to New York, Turner headed Wisconsin's viciously anti-woman workfare program.
"We're calling for a moratorium to stop pushing people off of welfare," said Workfairness Co-Chair William Mason. "It's cruel, insane and inhumane.
"Let's stop Jason Turner from killing us. We need real jobs and real wages."
Workfairness is involved in a union organizing drive with AFSCME District Council 37. Larry Holmes, a co-founder of the group, called attention to a recently released New York state report showing only a fraction of some 400,000 people kicked off welfare in the city have actually found jobs.
"What was Mayor Giuliani's response to this report? That they're not accounted for because they're selling drugs," said Holmes.
"This is an outrage. Someone should be calling for his resignation. This is an attempt to divide the workers of this city on the basis of racism."
Vondora Jordan, a mother of two who co-chairs Workfairness, said Giuliani "has no right to disrespect us like that. The reality is he's pushed us off welfare and he has no idea where we are.
"We have to rise up and fight for our rights-against racism, discrimination and the war on the poor. Martin Luther King did it, and if he were alive today, he'd be right here with us."
Juan Galan, a Bronx organizer for ACORN, supported Jordan's remarks and called workfare a dead-end program. Legba Rodriguez from Community Voices Heard said the city's program amounts to slavery.
Suzanne Paddock of the National Organization for Women expressed "outrage" at Turner and Giuliani's welfare policy. She demanded that they use New York's estimated $1.2 billion budget surplus to improve conditions and create real jobs with real rights and a real future.
In a statement, Workfairness organizers promised Turner: "We will dog you wherever you go, and we'll do it until we get justice-in the form of real, union-wage jobs!"
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Last Modified: April 20, 1998