Welfare Rights Committee of Minnesota

Welfare Rights Committee 310 E 38th St #207, Mpls, MN 55409 612-822-8020

Stop Workfare/Slave Labor.

12-5-2006

We are here today to ask you to stop workfare in Hennepin County.

“Workfare” forces welfare recipients to work for no pay. The Welfare Rights Committee is opposed to workfare, and we see it as slave labor.

You may or may not know that workfare is being imposed on poor mothers and fathers in this county. In October of this year, the MN Department of Human Services opened the door for more people to be pushed into slave labor workfare programs. Because the DHS opened the door, however, does not make it right. We would hope that this board would take action to stop workfare in Hennepin County, and join us at the state legislature this year to make Minnesota a workfare-free state.

Here are just a few reasons why workfare is wrong:

If there is a job to be done, make it a real job with a living wage. Then we won’t have to be on welfare in the first place.

Workfare drives down wages for all working people. If bosses know they can go somewhere to get impoverished mothers and fathers to work for free, it undermines any incentive to pay a living wage, or in this case, any wage.

The so-called ‘volunteer work’ is never volunteer if there is threat of sanction over the families. No job counselor or county financial worker should be put in a position to force people into slave labor.

Workfare ignores that the principle reason families are on assistance is because this economy is not providing the jobs needed to raise our families. There is a serious lack of affordable housing, childcare, education and health care. Workfare does not solve these underlying issues.

We are asking you do to the following:
1. Do whatever it takes to put and immediate end to all forced work for no pay in Hennepin County.

2. Compile the statistics on:
a) how many people have been working for no pay in 2006,
b) how many total hours have been worked,
c) which agencies/companies have been using free labor, and
d) what jobs people have been doing.

3. Join us to make Minnesota a non-workfare state.