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Antwort in : /alt/activism/d Absender : ww@wwpublish.com (Workers World) Betreff : Workfare mother trapped in the system Datum : Mi 15.07.98, 21:13 (erhalten: 16.07.98) Groesse : 2290 Bytes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Ursprung : /misc/activism/progressive
------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 16, 1998 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
ONE CHILD DEAD, OTHERS TAKEN AWAY: WORKFARE MOTHER TRAPPED IN THE SYSTEM
By Leslie Feinberg New York
Two years ago, on Aug. 22, President Bill Clinton signed the bill phasing out welfare. He vowed the move would lead to a better future for those "trapped in the cycle of welfare dependency." Was he right?
Ask Rosie Williams.
In January, Williams--a resident of the Bronx--joined the ranks of 38,000 former welfare recipients in New York City ordered into a forced labor program known as workfare.
These workers are paid pennies an hour for their labor. They have no union. They have no rights.
They have no child care.
Williams, a mother of four, was forced to leave her children with baby-sitters. On July 2, the man watching her children while she was at work reportedly beat her three- year-old daughter Raven to death.
Neighbors describe Williams as "a loving parent." Her next door neighbor said, "She is a wonderful mother." There was no record or sign of any prior child abuse complaints from her home.
Yet the Administration for Children's Services took Williams' other three children away from her and placed them in foster care.
Rosie Williams lives in a city and state with a $4 billion budget surplus. That hasn't stopped politicians like Mayor Rudolph Giuliani from doing the bidding of the Wall Street clique by slashing city jobs and replacing unionized workers with workfare employees like Williams.
As the second anniversary of Clinton's vicious act nears, the New York-based group Workfairness is organizing an Aug. 22 march for jobs and an end to workfare slavery.
It's time to take to the streets to fight workfare.
Ask Rosie Williams.
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Index of Welfare-Workfare-State Archives
Last Modified: October 1998