FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 7, 1995
FORCED LABOUR NO ANSWER, SAY UNIONISTS AND POOR
OTTAWA -- Canada's anti-poverty organization is joining forces with
the country's largest labour union to highlight the bleak future of
a "workfare" state.
"We want people to understand that workfare will hurt both
people on welfare and working people - it's basically a cheap
labour strategy," says Jean Swanson of Vancouver, president of the
National Anti-Poverty Organization. Swanson will participate in a
"Workfare Won't Work" day in Saint John, New Brunswick on February
9 with Judy Darcy, president of the Canadian Union of Public
Employees. Local unionists and poverty activists plan a mock
funeral for UI, a free lunch and a register of unemployed New
Brunswickers. Provincial Premier Frank McKenna is considered the
standard bearer for workfare.
"The N.B. model that the federal Liberals are so fond of just
encourages employers to lay off existing workers and rehire others
at poverty wages," according to Darcy. Already in N.B. and Alberta
public employees with good unionized jobs are being squeezed out
and replaced by UI claimants who are forced to accept minimum wage
jobs to hold onto their benefits. Darcy says if the federal
government moves to "block funding" for social services it will
give the provinces even more flexibility to implement compulsory
work programs.
Swanson and Darcy say lowering or refusing welfare benefits to
those who won't participate in so-called employment/training
programs is simply a cheap labour strategy masquerading as welfare
reform. In New Brunswick, 75% of participants in a recent program
of parks work for welfare recipients were single parent females.
Most of them dropped out because they couldn't afford
transportation and child care costs while working for their
welfare.
Darcy says research in Quebec and the U.S., where workfare-
type programs have been tried, indicates they don't move people off
welfare and they don't save governments much money. Employment
programs can be voluntary, pay decently and be unionized (there is
such a program in Winnipeg). But workfare "violates every principle
that a caring society stands for and will eventually suck both
public and private workers into a downward cycle of poverty.".
For further information: Tracy Morey (613) 237-1590 (w)
or 730-0140 (h)
Feb. 7 & 8 (506) 642-2622
TM/lfl
opeiu 491
