Arbeitslosenselbsthilfe O l d e n b u r g
Kaiserstr. 19
D-26122 Oldenburg (Oldenburg)
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:47:50 +1000 (EST) From: Bill Bartlett billbartlett@vision.net.au To: voicers@pop.nydailynews.com Cc: Workfare-Discuss@icomm.ca Subject: Workfare wasn't meant to be fair
The Editor, The Daily News
Workfare wasn't meant to be fair
Dear Editor,
Of course the basic principle of workfare is to humiliate and degrade the unemployed. Once you understand that, as the The Daily News (9/23/98) obviously does, you should be able to see quite clearly why it is that wage justice, equal pay for equal work and a fair day's pay for a fair day's work cannot be permitted to gain a foothold in workfare work-places.
This is what the The Daily News means when it says Judge Solomon's decision, that workfare workers should be paid the going rate of pay for the work they do, "violates common sense".
As the editorial explains, this would mean workfare workers getting an hourly rate greater than some other very low paid workers. And we couldn't have that, could we? I mean to say, what sort of punishment is that? Since the whole point is to publicly humiliate those doing the work, to deter as many people as possible from claiming their welfare rights, workfare workers have to be made an example of, made to suffer the lowest possible wages and conditions.
Workfare is nothing new, it is merely the work-house of 19th century Europe re-visited. What makes it more evil though is that there is less honesty from the advocates of the modern version. In 1835 the English parliament honestly explained that the "reformed" poor laws were designed to make poor relief such a degrading and repugnant experience that none except the most desperate and abject would consider it. I sense that today's proponents of welfare "reform" are not quite so forthright in explaining the rationale of the new regime.
But in as far as our ability to completely eliminate poverty is more obvious at the end of the 20th century than it was in Dickensian England, this sort of policy must be more repugnant to decent people.
What next I wonder? Are our masters even now plotting to send our small children back to work down the coal mines?
Bill Bartlett Tasmanian ROC, Industrial Workers of the World, 27 Emma St, Bracknell Tasmania Aust.
Ph: 03 63 973155
-> Workfare-Discuss, the list for fighting workfare internationally -> To subscribe, send subscribe workfare-discuss to majordomo@icomm.ca -> List web site, http://www.icomm.ca/workfare/
Index of Welfare-Workfare-State Archives
Last Modified: October 1998