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POWER Organizes Workfare Workers in California

POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights) organizes workfare workers to win fair and equal treatment for people doing workfare in San Francisco. POWER was initiated in January 1997 as a project of the three-year-old General Assistance Rights Union. POWER is fighting to change workfare into a fair work program, a program which pays workers a prevailing wage for the work they perform and which provides a safety net for those who cannot.

Organizing is the heart of POWER's work. POWER members are at the worksites every day, informing workfare workers of their rights and inviting them into the organization. POWER has already collected authorization cards from more than 2,800 of San Francisco's 3,000 workfare workers, won "employee status" for workfare workers from Cal-OSHA, and pressured the City to create a "workfare ombudsperson" position to field workfare workers' complaints.

In this campaign, POWER has employed direct action on countless occasions to demand accountability from City officials. Over fifty POWER members, dressed in bright orange t-shirts and fedoras (Mayor Willie Brown's trademark) and carrying a 30-foot Will-Lie Brown puppet, "joined" the Mayor's tour of the City when he hosted the U.S. Conference of Mayors, winning extensive media coverage. POWER has also utilized direct action to represent workers whose rights are abused at worksites.

As part of this campaign, POWER is offering San Francisco's non-profit agencies the opportunity to sign the "Pledge for Fair Work." The Pledge proposes a basic set of criteria to be met before anyone else is forced into a workfare placement. Signatory organizations agree to accept workfare placements only if the workers have voluntarily agreed to this placement, the organizations will not displace other workers, and the organization will join in the campaign for equal treatment, equal protections and equal compensation.

POWER is building a collaboration between workfare workers and organized labor. Recognizing that living wages for all workers cannot be won without cooperation between organized labor and workfare workers' organizations, POWER fought for and won equal representation on an influential Labor/Management Welfare Reform Committee which is charged with developing San Francisco's public apprenticeship program. With workfare workers' involvement in this process, POWER plans to stop the development of any two-tier system.

POWER will continue to fight the attack on poor people until everyone who wants to work can find meaningful full-time employment and until everyone receives the same rights, opportunities and respect as everyone else--regardless of economic status. "We reject the notion that poor people have no rights," says POWER Director Steve Williams. "We know that by working together we can make a change for all poor people and for all workers. So we'll keep organizing until everyone in this City understands that slavery is dead, and we're not letting ANYBODY bring it back."

This profile was provided by POWER.

-- from the December 1997 issue of Welfare News