Arbeitslosenselbsthilfe O l d e n b u r g
Kaiserstr. 19
D-26122 Oldenburg (Oldenburg)
Absender : culturex@VCN.BC.CA (Franklin Wayne Poley) Org.-Empf. : LABOR-L@YORKU.CA Weiterleiter owner-labor-l@YORKU.CA Antwort an : LABOR-L@YORKU.CA Betreff : The Growing Anti-Workfare Movement. Datum : Mi 08.07.98, 14:12 (erhalten: 09.07.98) Groesse : 14440 Bytes ----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 14:00:47 -0700 From: Andrew Mitchell <wlfrwtch@welfarewatch.toronto.on.ca To: ow-watch-l@netserver.web.net Subject: OW-WATCH-L Fw: Miwaukee meeting
The following message was sent to me from ACORN and I promised to forward it to the OW-WATCH list.
---------- From: Campaign Director acorncampgn@igc.apc.org To: andy@welfarewatch.toronto.on.ca Subject: Miwaukee meeting Date: Tuesday, June 30, 1998 3:09 PM ACORN invites you to participate in a National Organizers' Summit on Welfare Reform this summer in Milwaukee, from July 25-27. ACORN, joined by labor unions, religious organizations, and national political leaders, is sponsoring this Summit to call attention to the consequences of welfare reform, and to highlight the work of the many organizations that are mobilizing welfare and workfare recipients to fight back. Over 1000 ACORN members from around the country, along with representatives from scores of other community, church, and labor organizations, will be coming to Milwaukee for this event. We chose Milwaukee because Wisconsin's W-2 program has come to symbolize the worst abuses of so-called welfare reform. WisconsinUs welfare recipients have been forced off the rolls in record numbers, and most have ended up in oppressive sub-minimum wage workfare slots, or have fallen Rthrough the cracksS onto the uncertain charity of soup-kitchens, shelters, and overburdened relatives. A sponsoring committee led by Milwaukee ACORN and other local organizations working with W-2 recipients is hard at work planning this event. The highlight of the Summit will be a Hearing on Sunday, July 26, at which a panel of national leaders will be taking testimony from welfare and workfare recipients from around the country. The composition of the panel is still in formation, but early confirmations have come from Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President of the AFL- CIO; Professor Frances Fox Piven, long-time expert on welfare rights; well-known writer Barbara Ehrenreich; and former Administration official Peter Edelman, who resigned to protest the Clinton welfare legislation. Among those testifying will be workfare workers from New York City who recently voted 17,000 to 200 for form a union; workfare recipients from Los Angeles who just won a precedent-setting grievance procedure; welfare recipients from Boston who just won a commitment from the city to spend welfare-to-work funds to move people into living wage jobs; and many other courageous leaders of an emerging national welfare/workfare rights movement. This gathering will be unique in its focus on the voices and experiences of welfare and workfare recipients themselves: the majority of ACORN members and Summit attendees have first-hand experience with the welfare system, and are involved in local and statewide fights against welfare reform. The Summit will also include workshops and training sessions for welfare and workfare leaders and organizers, on issues such as: how to build effective welfare and workfare rights organizations; how to impact state and federal policy issues; how to combine service delivery, including legal services, with organizing; how to work with community organizations, unions, and other organizations; and much more. This promises to be an important and well-covered event, which will play a significant role in amplifying the voices of welfare and workfare recipients who are struggling first hand with the consequences of this countryUs disastrous experiment in ending welfare. We hope you will join us. We have arranged inexpensive room and board at local colleges. For more information on this event, and to reserve a place, contact: Lisa Donner, at 718-246-7900 ext 243 acorncampgn@acorn.org
Index of Welfare-Workfare-State Archives
Last Modified: July 1998