Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-class 9781442603110

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WORKFARE

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WORKFARE Ideology for a New Under-Class

edited by Eric Shragge School of Social Work, McGill University

Garamond Press

Copyright © 1997 by the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Cover photo ©Andrew McKim/ Masterfile Printed and bound in Canada

Garamond Press Ltd. 67 Mowat Ave., Ste. 144 Toronto, Ontario M6K 3E3

ISBN 1-55193-010-2

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Main entry under title: Workfare : ideology for new under-class Includes bibliographical bibliogra references ISBN 1-55193-011O-2 1. Welfare recipients - Employment - Canada. 2. Welfare recipients - Employment - United States. 3- Public welfare - Canada. 4. Public welfare - United States. 5- Canada - Social policy. 6. United States - Social policy - 1993- - I. Shragge, Eric, 1948HV105.W674 1996

362.5'8'0971

C96-932226-7

Contents

Introduction

13

Workfare: An Overview Eric Shragge Definitions and General Discussion Historical Perspectives Early History: The Roots of Welfare The Universal Welfare State: 1945-1980 Crisis and Redefinition Workfare as Social Struggle A Short Conclusion: Debates on Income and Work

17

The Politics Of Workfare: NB Works Robert Mullaly NB Works as a Social Program Welfare Reform Overview of NB Works Efficacy of NB Works Participants' Views of the Program The NB Works Program as Ideology and Political Opportunism The Political Context Of NB Works Manufacturing and Marketing the Image of NB Works Political Functions Of NB Works Summary and Conclusions

18 20 20 22 24 31 33 35 36 36 37 42 43 46 47 52 54 55

Workfare in Quebec Eric Shragge and Marc-Andre Deniger The Background to Workfare In Quebec The Crisis of Social Assistance in the 1980s Preparing the Ground The Reform Evaluation of the Workfare Programs Rattrapage Scolaire The EXTRA Program The PAIE Program Workfare and Community Organizations The NDG-APG Resto-Pop Recent Developments Summary of Workfare and Community Organizations Conclusion

59

'It's Not a Walk in the Park': Workfare in Ontario Ernie S. Lightman Welfare Reform Under the Liberals and NDP The 1995 Election The Morning After The Emerging Confusion The Announcement Some Comments In Short Notes

85

Alberta and the Workfare Myth Jonathan Murphy The Myth Makers The Carrots The Sticks The Work Imperative Dramatic Success? Personal Stories Back to the Future? Notes

60 60 61 62 67 68 70 71 73 75 76 78 79 79

86 88

94 95 102 102 106 107

109 110 112 116 118 120 122 125 127

Workfare in the U.S.: Empirically-Tested Programs or Ideological Quagmire? Donna Hardina Ideological Origins of Work Programs in the U.S. Alternative Explanations for Welfare Utilization Empirical Evidence of Work Program Effectiveness Caseload Reductions Participation Rates Work Effort Income and Hours of Work Cost-effectiveness Studies Program Implementation Conclusions Notes Resisting Workfare Jean Swanson Resisting the Language that Justifies Workfare Newspeak Lives The End Legislated Poverty (ELP) Dictionary of Social Policy Newspeak Resisting National Legislation that Allows Workfare Ignorance Prevails Getting Workers to Resist Workfare The Real Story on Workfare Programs; Lay-offs for Existing Workers while Welfare Recipients do the Jobs as Cheap Labour Resisting Workfare Before it Happens Resisting Workfare at the United Nations Resisting Workfare Bibliography

737 132 134 135 135 136 137 138 140 142 144 147 149 150 151 152 157 158 160 162 165 168 169 777

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Contributors Marc-Andre Deniger is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education, Laval University. He is also affiliated (Professeur Invite) with the Institut national pour la recherche scientifique, culture etsociete. He works in the following areas: social policy; work, poverty and exclusion; and intergenerational sociology. Donna Hardina is Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, California State University, Fresno. She has completed a number of evaluations of job training and welfare reform initiatives in California, Illinois, and Michigan. Ernie Lightman is an economist and a professor of social policy at the University of Tor onto, Faculty of Social Work. He has written widely in the policy field and has been an avid critic of Ontario's so-called "common sense revolution. " During 1996-97, he is visiting Professor at the Paul Baerwald, School of Social Work at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Bob Mllllttly is a professor of social work and founding director of the department of social work at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. He has written extensively in the area ofworkfare and is a frequent media commentator on various social policy issues. He is the author of Structural Social Work: Ideology, Theory and Practice, McClelland and Stew art, 1993. Jonathan Murphy is director of population research at the University of Alberta. He worked for many years in Edmonton's inner city, and has written and broadcast extensively on social issues. Jonathan is a volunteer director with a number of social service agencies, and represents Alberta on the National Council of Welfare, which advises the federal government on social policy. Eric Shragge teaches and does research in the areas of social policy and community organization at the School of Social Work, McGill University and is active in several community organizations. He is editor and a contributor to the second edition o/Community Economic Development: In Search of Empowerment (Black Rose Books, Montreal), published in 1997.. Jean Swamon is past president ofNAPO, editor of The Long Haul, End Legislated Poverty paper. She lived in poverty for fourteen years as a single parent, and was active in Action Canada. Jean has been an anti-poverty activist for thirty years.

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Acknowledgments Thanks to the contributors to this book. Despite the fact that we have never met as a group, and many of us have not met in person, we share common perspectives and a commitment to challenge Workfare. Garamond Press, in particular Peter Saunders, helped in many ways and as a result the processs was easier and the product far better. A special note of thanks to Melodic Mayson-Richmond and Ted Richmond. They went beyond their role as copy editors and contributed to the clarification of ideas, strengthening the book in many ways. All proceeds and royalties will be donated to the National Anti-Poverty Organization to support their campaigns and struggles.

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Introduction he reform of the welfare state in Canada and the introduction T of workfare measures in several provinces has prompted extensive debate and controversy. This book is intended as a

contribution to that debate. The authors included in this volume reveal the range of meanings attached to the term "workfare, "and provide concrete analysis of these meanings through detailed case studies and thorough political analysis. In each chapter there is also the common thread of the state's transformation of social assistance as an income security program based on financial need, to a program which is conditional on the performance of employment activity in exchange for benefits; sometimes, these expectations are voluntary, but more frequently, the requirement is mandatory. "Requirement" is a critical term in the workfare discourse. Programs of apprenticeship, training, and further education for those receiving social assistance have been available for many years. The fundamental change lies in governments linking the qualification for benefits, or the actual levels of benefits, to participation in programs. The chapters that follow present specific examinations of workfare programs, and the political debates associated with workfare, in several provinces and in the United States. The articles provide evaluations of the programs both from the point of view of the realization of their stated goals, as well as the ideological and structural imperatives invoked to rationalize a workfare policy. Without exception, the articles demonstrate that workfare measures have not been effective in getting people back to work, particularly in the long-term. The question posed by all the authors, and addressed from the perspective of different experiences in workfare applications, is as follows: despite significant evidence available as to the limited success of workfare, why do governments continue to pursue such a policy?

14 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

Several of the essays analyze the fact that training programs have not, in practice, been an effective means of getting people into jobs. The programs have created a large pool of very cheap, subsidized labour that has been utilized by private sector businesses, government institutions, and community organizations. Workfare, it is argued, threatens existing jobs and depresses standards of labour throughout society. Overview of Chapters The book begins with an overview of the history of social assistance and a critique of the fundamental assumptions behind workfare. Chapters on the workfare experience in New Brunswick, Quebec, Alberta and the United States evaluate specific programs that have been put in place. The chapter on Ontario examines the election of the Harris government through the use of the rhetoric of poor bashing and workfare as important components of the conservatives' "common sense revolution, "and Jean Swanson presents the case for popular mobilization against workfare policies. Along with presenting critical analyses of the changes in welfare programs, the contributions also demonstrate that workfare has not been accepted passively . Robert Mullaly's chapter describes and analyzes the highprofile NB Works program in New Brunswick which was intended to get people on welfare back to work. The program failed, the author demonstrates, because of its high drop-out rate and because the cost per participant prohibits a large-scale use of this model. Mullaly argues that the program served the political interests of the Frank McKenna Liberal government more than it helped the poor, while the ideology of the program shifted the blame for the lack of employment opportunities from the wider economic processes to its victims. The chapter on Quebec, by Eric Shragge and Marc-Andre Deniger, examines the welfare reforms introduced in 1988 which brought in a systematic workfare program. Using government evaluations, the authors dispute the notion that these programs were effective in integrating welfare recipients into the labour market. The chapter analyzes the contradictory impact of these programs on community organizations in particu-

Introduction /15

lar and the way that workfare was used to create a cheap pool of labour for particular private-sector employers and as a substitute for public sector employment. Ernie Lightman exposes the critical importance of welfare reform and the attack on the poor to the Conservative Party's successful 1995 election in Ontario. The ideological call for workfare received significant public support and was a basic tenet of the party's so-called Common Sense Revolution. Once in power, the Conservative government quickly cut welfare benefits and moved to initiate workfare programs. Lightman's analysis provides a portrait of punitive government action combined with bureaucratic bungling. Recounting the experiences of those trapped in Alberta's overhaul of social assistance, Jonathan Murphy examines the "carrot and stick" approach to welfare reform. The author underlines the difficulty in evaluating these provincial measures due to the lack of proper project monitoring and government secrecy. Direct cuts in benefits were equally important in driving welfare recipients out of Alberta and effectively reducing the number of beneficiaries. The reduction in the Alberta welfare rolls, Murphy emphasizes, is related more to this displacement of people than to the creation of jobs and effective return-towork strategies. Workfare programs have been implemented for longer period in the U.S. than in Canada, and have provided zealous welfare reformers here with examples of programming. Donna Hardina offers a critical overview of the programs in the U.S., examining their ideological assumptions, the reasons for their implementation, and their effectiveness in putting people back to work. Specifically, Hardina analyzes how programs have targeted single mothers, as neo-conservatives have attributed the breakup of the nuclear family to the existence of programs such as AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children). She concludes that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that income programs have caused the changes to family structure witnessed today, or that the various workfare measures succeed in getting people off of welfare and into good jobs. Finally, the chapter by Jean Swanson looks at ways to resist

16/Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

workfare. The struggle is important, not only because it will not get people out of poverty, but because workfare is a direct threat to jobs and wage levels. Opposition needs to begin with the language we use, Swanson contends, and with developing a counter vocabulary to the dominant workfare ideology. Further, with the abolition of the Canada Assistance Plan, there must be a struggle for basic social rights, previously protected by the federal government, which have now been lost. Swanson proposes a human rights strategy which targets the United Nations. She emphasizes the need for building coalitions with workers, particularly with those in the public sector, and describes the experience of coalition building in British Columbia to resist the anticipated workfare programs. These strategies are all relevant to the struggle to defend the rights and dignity of the poor against the menace of workfare.

Workfare: An Overview Eric Shragge

>T*his book was stimulated by a political agenda. As I watched A the television reports of the Mike Harris election campaign in Ontario in 1995, and his extolling the virtues of hard work for the poor and the damaging consequences of dependence on the welfare system, I wondered why it was that he could get away with such unsubstantiated arguments, and use them to bash the poor. He announced that if elected his government would bring in tough workfare or work-for-welfare reforms supposedly to save money, and reduce the welfare rolls. I knew from the Quebec experience that workfare could not achieve these goals, and that in addition, it was used in other ways to undermine the working conditions in both the public and private sectors, and as an inexpensive substitute for public services. I called around to others who shared this general analysis and invited them to collaborate in a refutation of workfare as it is practised. This book shows that based on the Canadian and U.S. experience, workfare cannot deliver on its promises, and that (as all the authors in this volume argue) it is a program designed to punish the poor. Workfare represents a departure from the post-war welfare state, and is leading us in the direction of a punitive system in which welfare will no longer be a right but instead will become contingent on a type of work that is "paid" at a rate far below the social norms. In addition to demonstrating the failure of workfare programs on their own terms, the content of this book makes us ask why governments continue to implement these programs when it is clear that they will not achieve their stated objectives. This brings us to the more analytic part of the argument, in which

18 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

there are two levels of explanation. The first is rooted in the continuity of welfare policy, with its long tradition of blaming the victim through greater or lesser degrees of punitive policies. The second is related to the current conjuncture, the processes of economic globalization and the general cutbacks and redefinition of the welfare state. In this overview I examine both these levels, and situate workfare within the long traditions of social policy and the current rapid economic and social changes that we face. First, however, we begin with a brief overview of the concept of workfare. Definitions and General Discussion The term "workfare" has been used in a variety of different ways in both public and academic discussion. Evans (1995) argues that workfare represents a shift in the social welfare agenda, and is part of governments stated objectives of getting the poor back to work and reducing the deficit. In order to achieve this end, it is argued, income support programs for those able to work must be "active." Workfare is the means of transforming a "passive" income support program, one in which it is assumed that people remained at home, to an "active" one in which people are "out there" preparing for and searching for work. The underlying assumption behind the notion of workfare is that benefits, paid at the maximum levels, are contingent on an exchange. Evans notes: ...as a condition of income support, the requirement that recipients participate in a wide variety of activities designed to increase their employment prospect. (1995:75) The key word is requirement. Programs of apprenticeship, training, and further education for those receiving social assistance have been available for many years. The change is linking benefits or the levels of benefits to participation in programs. The concept of "workfare" used by the authors of this book generally share this definition. Workfare consists of the demand on individuals receiving social assistance to participate in a program. According to Evans these are "...the use of work experience programs [and] ...individualized employability programs" (1995:84).

Workfare: An Overview /19

This book examines the ways that several provinces in Canada have implemented workfare. So far, with the exception of Ontario, failure to participate in these programs has not led to individuals losing all of their benefits. Usually the benefits are reduced for non-compliance. Thus workfare sets up a situation for welfare recipients in which participation is the key to maximizing benefits. Another component of workfare is the division of recipients into two groups. One group—usually the disabled, single-parents with children younger than school age, and those over 55 years old—are exempt from these programs and are not considered able to work. The other "able-to-work" group must participate in workfare measures to maximize their benefits. This division has historic antecedents with the categories of "deserving" and "undeserving" going back to the earliest days of relief, when those deemed deserving by the administrative authority faced an easier time than the undeserving. The parallels between "able" and "unable to work" are striking when workfare measures are applied. Thus, workfare has been used to divide social assistance recipients: on the one hand, excluding those defined as unable to work from the demands of workfare, and on the other, labeling those able to work as needing the "tough love" of workfare. The contributions to this book examine workfare programs in several Canadian provinces and in the United States to show that their stated goals, even if desirable, have not been obtained. Why then do governments insist that workfare is the way to manage the poor? There are several levels of response to this question. Noel (1995) argues that workfare has been justified in a variety of ways depending on the program content and national social policy traditions. He sets out three explanations: i) control-influencing beneficiaries, ii) laissez-faire-reducing social expenditures, and iii) adjustment-influencing labour markets. He uses the work of Esping-Anderson to describe Canada as a liberal welfare state with a reliance on market logic, and a combination of means-tested and social insurance programs, to protect against unemployment. Noel argues that in liberal wel-

20/Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

fare states the justifications for workfare fall between control and laissez-faire, or "welfare reform without means". He states that "...welfare dependency, deterrence and budget constraints are the key concepts invoked by politicians when discussing workfare..." (1995:58). These themes are repeated by the authors of this book. Workfare is rooted in a punitive ideology: those who physically can work and who end up on welfare need to be pushed off of it through the discipline of workfare measures. The focus on individuals rather than the broader social and economic problems in effect serves to blame recipients for the wider situation. The policies are part of a long legacy of individualizing the causes of poverty and using punitive measures to reduce the rolls and deter others from applying for benefits. Historical Perspectives Early History: The Roots of Welfare

Although current workfare programs are part of a wider shift towards a right-wing political agenda, the connection between work and economic benefits has always been the cornerstone of social assistance. Dating back to the Elizabethan Poor laws of 1601, through the Poor Law Reform Act of 1832, through the workhouse and outdoor relief programs, social policy has dictated the principle that wage labour should always be preferable to "dependency" on public handouts. The swings have been limited to how this principle will be enforced, and elements of irrationality are consistent. Even if there is no work, there must be an appearance that those receiving benefits are doing something useful to qualify. This sounds a lot like contemporary workfare measures, but the tradition is firmly rooted in history. Jack London tells the story of two older men, a carter and a carpenter, walking the streets of London, England in 1902, going from one workhouse to another. Their problem was ".. they were old, and that their children, instead of growing up to take care of them, had died. Their years had told on them, and they had been forced out of the whirl of industry by the younger and stronger competitors who had taken their place" (1979:15). Their choice was the streets, or the workhouse. The workhouse,

Workfare: An Overview/21

in exchange for providing minimum food and bed, demanded work, as described by the carter: Then you've got to do your task, pick four pounds of oakum, or clean an' scrub, or break ten to eleven hundredweight of stones. I don't 'ave to break stones; I'm past sixty, you see. (London, 1979:18-19) Despite their lack of income and their many years of toil, these men had to work for food and shelter. Furthermore, they had to perform labour that was of no value whatsoever, except to deter them from asking for support and to make sure that getting support was not easy. In the hundred years since London recorded these words, we have changed the way we implement these notions, but not their basic underpinnings. Those receiving welfare, particularly the able-bodied, are still viewed as a group who need the discipline of workfare, the contemporary workhouse. With the emergence of capitalist societies, the underlying principles of the welfare state were enunciated, particularly through England's 1834 Poor Law Reform Act. This act consolidated previous principles and became the bedrock of both the North American and the British welfare traditions. First, social assistance should never be more desirable than work. This has been expressed as the doctrine of "less eligibility" which states that "...the situation of the individual relieved shall not be made really or apparently so eligible as the situation of the independent labourer of the lowest class" (cited in George, 1973:12). This principle is with us today as social assistance benefit levels are held to less than what can be earned by an employee working at minimum wage, and the procedures and rules deter applicants from applying for benefits (George, 1973; Piven and Cloward, 1971). Historically, there has been an overriding concern by those who manage the various forms of assistance to deter requests for aid. Institutions such as the almshouse and the workhouse subjected the dependent population to policies of total control. Those receiving assistance were forced into the workhouse where harsh conditions and forced labour were the price exacted for dependency. The workhouse, as an institution, pre-

22 /Work/are: Ideology for a New Under-Class

dated the 1834 Poor Law Reform Act, but was consolidated after it because other forms of relief were believed by the authorities of the time to undermine wage labour and personal responsibility. An example had to be made of the dependent poor, to deter others from asking for assistance. Those who were not expected to work—the old and the infirm—were also treated harshly in asylums, or through systems of "outdoor" relief (Trattner, 1979; Valverde, 1991; Katz, 1986). In this history we see the emergence of two distinctions which are antecedents to the modern welfare state. First, social policies distinguished between those expected to work—the able-bodied —and those not expected to work—the elderly, the disabled, and mothers in charge of dependent children. Second, the poor were divided between those considered deserving and undeserving of support. This division was based on an imposed code of moral behaviour which included notions of appropriate sexual conduct, and whether they lived a life of thrift and humility or instead were seen to squander their meager resources on drink and luxuries (Woodroofe, 1962). The application of moral categories has been and continues to be central in the ways that society attempts to regulate the lives of the poor. The separation of the deserving and the undeserving poor through the use of interviews based on the premises of the social sciences of the early 1900s was the basis of "scientific charity" (Woodroofe, 1962). Money was not to wasted on those not actively seeking work, or on those who were suspected of using the money for alcohol, or on women believed to be promiscuous. Again, a combination of deterrence and the strong moral code of the period determined how the poor and the dependent were defined, regardless of the surrounding economic circumstances that shaped material life. The Universal Welfare State: 1945-1980

The post-war welfare states departed from the harsh treatment of dependent populations, while in subtle ways continuing the practices of separating the deserving from the undeserving. As the system has evolved, these divisions have become more apparent. The most worthy are those who work and contribute to their future benefits. Pension plans and unemployment insur-

Workfare: An Overview/23

ance benefits (UI) are examples, although even with UI, recipients have to prove that they are willing and able to work as part of the qualifying conditions. The principle of universality was developed during this postwar period. Benefits and services to all members of the population, without differentiating between the poor and non-poor. Health care and education were defined as fundamental rights, available to all regardless of social status. The reforms in the post-war period included not only the building of the welfare state, but also Keynesian economic intervention by government to stabilize the business cycles and maintain relatively low levels of unemployment. Together these changes led to an era of social reform, resulting according to Teeple in: ..compromises that allow corporations to ameliorate social unrest and to socialize various "costs" of production, and that prevent the otherwise unprincipled degradation of the working class and nature by capital. (Teeple, 1995:20) With these conditions of relatively low levels of unemployment and expanded unemployment insurance, welfare benefits were restricted mainly to those outside of the labour market: those considered unable to work, and single mothers. The post-war period brought fundamental changes in welfare benefits. The charity model with its arbitrariness and discretion, which was administered by municipalities or by private agencies, was taken over by provincial administrations and administered by bureaucratic structures. Welfare became defined as a right. Furthermore, the federal government through the Canada Assistance Program (CAP) contributed financially to the provincial programs, and also established national standards for social assistance. Finally—and central to the understanding of workfare—CAP did not permit provincial administrations to require welfare recipients to work in order to receive their entitlement. "Need" was the basis of eligibility, and not the reform of the individual through work programs (Moscovitch, 1996). However, other long standing traditions remained stable. Those receiving social assistance were still subject to a needs or

24 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

means tests as well as scrutiny. As well, recipients were still classified into those able to work, and those not expected to work—single mothers with young children, the disabled, etc. The latter group received benefits without the demand of ties to work, while those able to work (a relatively smaller group until the 1980s) were supposed to be in training or looking for work. The proximity to the labour market and the expectations in relation to work became part of an imposed social definition. In addition, for both groups the level of benefits was well below the maximum that could be earned in low-wage employment, so welfare would always have a built-in work incentive. Crisis and Redefinition

The irony of workfare is that governments are implementing these programs in an era in which the future of work as wage labour is uncertain (Rifkin, 1995). With rapid economic change, the compromises of the previous period have been redefined, and previous gains have been lost. Teeple (1995) argues that the form of national economic management—Keynesianism—was in conflict with recent (post-1980) economic circumstances, particularly the state of the global economy. Monetarist economic policies are more consistent with the structural economic changes and were required by international capital in a global economy: ...an arena in which political compromise with national working classes was a declining issue, and in which the costs of production became pre-eminent and the costs of reproduction of the working class completely subordinate. (Teeple, 1995:70) The obsession with reducing state spending is a central manifestation of these changes, with a particular emphasis on cutting social programs. At the same time, corporate restructuring has generated massive unemployment and increased poverty, and with the cutbacks in social programs, left a variety of social needs unmet. Along with the cutbacks and the deterioration of economic life there is also the central element of the reorganization of social programs and the redefinition of social assistance claim-

Workfare: An Overview/25

ants themselves that has become tied to these changes. Let us examine two related approaches to these changing circumstances, both of which have been used to justify workfare policies; the first such approach is a direct attack on those receiving welfare. Social assistance recipients are painted as an undeserving group who require harsh treatment so they can escape from the humiliation of receiving welfare. Governments have attacked the poor by reducing social assistance benefits, increasing restrictions, cutting large numbers off the rolls, and launching media campaigns that can be described as "poor bashing." The second approach is a little more subtle. This variation argues that inadequate training and social preparation is the reason for the able-bodied receiving welfare, and only through linking benefits to training measures can this group take their rightful place as wage workers. With some exceptions Canadian workfare programs, in contrast to the harsher ideological attacks in the U.S., have presented their reforms of social assistance as job training. In the U.S. however, and in Ontario with the changes that came with the 1995 election, the poor face an ideological barrage. Those on social assistance have become an easy target to blame for elevated social expenditures and other related social problems. In the U.S., the concept of the "underclass" has been used as a respectable means of poor bashing. This concept, associated with the political right and with authors such as Charles Murray (1984), describes a portion of the welfaredependent poor in pathological terms. It argues that the causes of their poverty are linked to overly-generous government benefits and the subsequent dependency they create (Kelso, 1994; Reed, 1992). The underclass is defined not only in terms related to economic deprivation and unemployment, but also in a broader social and cultural sense. The major trait of this group is supposed to be "...their willingness to flout the traditional norms of what society generally considers acceptable behavior" (Kelso, 1994:24). These norms are those that relate to work and family. The poor are considered to be responsible for their own situation because of they do not work, and because of their disregard

26 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

for traditional family structures (demonstrated, allegedly, by the large increase in female-headed single parent households). Hardina (1994) argues that welfare reforms in the U.S. and Canada during the 1980s targeted single mothers because the conservatives believed that welfare was contributing to the break-up of the nuclear family: ...social assistance and employment programs... distinguish between the deserving poor — mainly men with previous attachments to the labour force... and the new "undeserving poor": single women with children. (Hardina, 1994:1) As a consequence, women are pushed into training which prepares them for low-wage jobs as one way to get them off the welfare roles. This position, heavily promoted in the U.S., is linked to a general attack on the welfare state. It argues that government programs create dependency, and reinforce deviant behaviors. This outlook gained strength during the Reagan era, and currently has a strong influence on social policy. Currently there are proposals in the U.S. to curtail the number of years that a claimant can receive social assistance, and to cut benefits for young single mothers and single able-bodied men. These policies can legitimately be described as a "war on the poor" because they exclude individuals from society, and at the same time brand them as inherently undeserving of support. The poor remain poor, supposedly, because the state has protected them from the demands of the market, and supported a deviant family structure. In Canada, by contrast, the prevalent definition of the ablebodied poor as in need of training is a more indirect way of shifting the blame for poverty to the individual. It does not have the same dimensions of a heavy-handed ideological attack on the poor as a social group. Here the underlying assumption is that the large increase of able-bodied individuals on provincial welfare programs is related to the claimants' lack of education or inadequate job preparation. Income support, it is argued, should be made contingent on the claimants being enrolled in further education or training programs. These training programs exist; they have been organized

Workfare: An Overview/27

through formal education institutions, private businesses and community organizations. In practice, as several of the articles in this book point out, these training programs have not been an effective means of getting people into jobs. Instead they have created a large pool of very cheap, subsidized labour that have been used by private sector businesses, government institutions, and community organizations. This approach is linked to "Human Capital" theory, a traditional economic theory that focuses on individual characteristics of workers and argues that their income is directly related to their productivity. The basic argument is summarized by David Gordon: ...many human capital analysts seem increasingly inclined to assume that all income is exclusively a return to human capital investment.... Employers demand what workers supply — stocks of "human capital" embodied in individuals. (Gordon, 1972:30-31) The focus of this approach is on the supply side of the labour market, with little regard to the realities of the changes in the demand for labour. This position was more recently restated by the New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna: I have an absolutely dominating belief that in this chicken-andegg conundrum of whether you should have jobs or training first, the answer is that you need the training first. If you have the training the jobs will take care of themselves, (cited in Swift, 1995:131) Thus, if welfare recipients could be better trained or personally prepared for work, then they should be able to find work. The logic of this approach might have some appeal if it were not flawed by the realities of the profound changes in the labour market in recent years. Despite these well-documented changes, however, policy makers continue to focus on individual traits and not on the wider structural issues. The result is that the best these training programs can achieve is to rearrange the order of the ever-growing lineup of unemployed. The critique of the training approach has been developed extensively (Swift, 1995; Osberg et. al, 1995). The shift in employment patterns in recent years has created both a decline

28 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

in traditional blue collar jobs, and a growth in precarious labour. While there is some new demand for particular types of labour linked to the new technologies, it is by no means sufficient to replace the massive job losses faced in other sectors. And in fact much of the training provided to social assistance recipients and other unemployed workers is aimed at eventual placements not in high-tech jobs but rather in the low-pay, precarious service sector. Swift argues that: Much training... is aimed at the flexiworkers of the service proletariat. This training seeks to impart (limited) computer aptitude in which people learn particular programs. But just as important is the ideological training — the sort of attitude adjustment that instructs people to be ready for the chase and not to expect anything more than the chase. Attitude adjustment in the guise of training is largely unrecognized... (Swift, 1995:191) Workfare, wearing the mask of training, is being used to mobilize the unemployed — the reserve army of labour — to work for either the private or the community sectors in conditions far worse than those of the regular workers in those organizations. As a consequence, pressure is exerted on those who are employed through depressed wages and worsening working conditions. This approach to training social assistance recipients keeps participants in these programs economically marginalized, and raises expectations of employment that cannot be delivered under current circumstances. This problem is one that has become particularly acute in the provision of community-based social services. With cutbacks in social service grants, community organizations have begun to use welfare recipients in training programs to provide a variety of services. There are no jobs for the trainees at the end of the process, but there is a renewal of the grants to the community organizations so that a new batch of recipients can go through the process of providing low-cost programs. As time passes and claimants move from one program to another, we witness the emergence of a large group of social assistance recipients who are excluded from mainstream jobs and related income, and who move from training to social benefits and back

Workfare: An Overview / 29

again. This linking of low-cost work with training programs is reminiscent of the workhouse approach to social assistance. Benefits are tied to the claimants' participating in labour, regardless of whether there are real jobs available, or if the work is productive, or produces future employment opportunities. The link between work, unemployment and social assistance is analyzed by Piven and Cloward (1971) who argue that the chief function of social assistance is to regulate labour. This occurs, they maintain, in the following way. Mass unemployment can lead to mass unrest, so that those in power respond with an expansion of assistance in order to restore social peace. Then with order restored, those who should be working are pushed back into the labour market, while those who continue to receive benefits are treated in a way that is so degrading that those who are employed would not want to leave their jobs and apply for benefits. This analysis clarifies a number of important points. First, it clearly spells out the relation between employment and social assistance — that those who are not working are not unattached to the labour market. Second, it shows that those who are not expected to work and who are receiving social benefits are defined in relation to those who are working. Third, we see that the balance of these relations can be changed by periods of social unrest. In a more recent work the same authors argue that: Forced work programs are significant, not because they are likely to be implemented on a large-scale, but because the introduction of a punitive and stigmatizing workfare program will deter people from applying for aid at all, much as the threat of the workhouse deterred people from being supplicants. (Piven and Cloward, 1987:38) Thus the workhouse as an institution is dead, but as a concept has been reincarnated as workfare. These programs act therefore both to regulate labour and to deter claims for social assistance benefits. Similar themes have been developed by Marxist writers. The traditional Marxist concept sees the unemployed as part of the "reserve army of labour" (Marx, 1967; Sweezy, 1970). The unemployed have a clear relation to those who are employed.

30 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

The existence of a pool of unemployed workers creates a downward pressure on wages, and weakens the political and social strength of workers by increasing the competition for jobs. There is a clear connection in other words, between those inside and those outside the labour market. Marx (1967) discussed the "reserve army" in the context of the relative surplus population in the "sphere of pauperism", including those able to work, those unable to work, and children. Thus the most marginal are tied into the labour process, and are potentially pulled into jobs and expelled from them with changes in technology and the demand for labour. The surplus population, although "excluded" from the labour market, is in other ways attached to it. Workfare policies tie this surplus population to the discipline of the labour market, and workfare is the means of marshaling them towards it. Workfare can therefore be understood as the contemporary means of attaching those on welfare to the labour market. The central contradiction is that the number of jobs are scarce relative to the increasing number of people dependent on welfare. Why, then, push people into the labour market? The tradition of work as a form of moral and social regulation still predominates in our society, as it did in the period described in Jack London's story. There is no such thing as a free lunch, particularly for the large group of "able-bodied" (i.e., employable) welfare recipients. Deterrence, therefore, is one of the main objectives of welfare policy. Social assistance should always appear as an option that is less desirable than the worst conditions of wage labour. Further, workfare defined as a program that requires recipients to work in the community or non-profit sector provides a pool of cheap labour during a period in which this sector is facing large-scale cutbacks. Workfare programs, in other words, organize those outside the traditional labour force to carry out public work in a way that is relatively inexpensive, as well as flexible for the employer. People can be drawn in and pushed out of work, without regard to permanent jobs and related employment benefits. Thus, workfare becomes a means of mobilizing a surplus population to undermine the conditions of public sector

Workfare: An Overview /'31

and community employment. A similar argument can be made when workfare programs, under the guise of training, place individuals in the private sector. The pool of cheap labour is then being made available to private employers. Finally workfare measures, when they are linked to government-initiated "poor-bashing", serve to isolate those who are on welfare and divide them from potential allies. Their social assistance benefits are presented as a burden on tax payers, going to a non-contributing group in the population. As a consequence, divisions between social groups are highlighted, and those receiving social assistance find the legitimacy of their claims publicly undermined. Workfare as Social Strugle Workfare and the related attacks on welfare recipients and the unemployed can act to exclude the poor from broader social life and political processes. Historically, however, things have not always worked out this way. Often those on welfare, and others defined as marginal by society at large, have learned to act on their own behalf. For welfare recipients, an important dimension of these patterns of resistance is the way that social assistance victims counter their image as passive victims. There are a number of paths to this kind of resistance, some of which are described in this book by Swanson and in the article by myself and Deniger on workfare in Quebec. Resistance can be expressed both individually and collectively. Jordon (1993), building on the work of Scott (1990), argues that the poor manipulate and use the welfare system to their own ends. He states that: ...although poor people seldom spontaneously organize to frame welfare claims against the rest of society... [but they build] on well-established practices of resistance and discourses of dissatisfaction while formalizing and strengthening social networks. In relation to their role as clients of social agencies, Jordon says they, ... seldom reject professional analyses of their 'problems' openly,

32 /Work/are: Ideology for a New Under-Class

they are nevertheless skilled in subverting agency goals, and in pursuing their own purposes and interests within the roles and rights accorded them... Gordon, 1993: 205) Jordon describes these practices as artful, and resistant to the power and authority encountered by the clients. The implication is that there is a superficial acquiescence to the relations of domination, but with closer examination we see the emergence of practices which subvert the rules of power for the clients' own ends. In the U.S., homeless people are among those most excluded from mainstream society. In his study of homelessness, Wagner (1993) identifies the complexities of the sub-groups and their networks of solidarity and support, including self-help groups. He classifies the homeless as street drunks, street kids, young turks, and politicos. Each group has their own patterns, and degree of commitment to other homeless people. The importance of Wagner's study is to point out that there are levels of organization and social processes, both self-organized and in conjunction with community-based groups, among those considered outside of normal society. Those living on the margins of society are not necessarily isolated; nor are they passive in defining their own situation. When governments define the rules and regulations for social programs, they also define the parameters of conflict. Welfare rights groups act as advocates; they challenge the rules and regulations of the programs and push them to their limits, in order to maximize benefits and minimize pain for claimants. The cultures of these organizations sometimes mesh with the welfare bureaucracy game, but they can also help to counter-define the issues at stake and questions to be posed, and provide a new perspective on the significance of poverty. As Marc-Andre Deniger and this author discuss in the chapter on workfare in Quebec, community organizations and groups of recipients have used government workfare measures to pursue their own political and social interests. These groups recognize the limits and the contradictions of the programs, but try to manipulate them to gain some collective control over aspects of their lives. This is a politically dangerous game, balancing on the divide between

Workfare: An Overview / 33

cooptation and losing the support of the programs; but political and social survival teaches anti-poverty activists important skills. Those on welfare and subject to workfare can act to defend themselves and build solidarity. This may take a variety of forms, including the building of informal associations of mutual aid. This process confronts the state's attempts to manage and control the surplus population, and push it into various forms of very cheap labour. A Short Conclusion: Debates on Income and Work Overall, this book examines workfare as a punitive response to wider changes in the structures of the economy and in work. Other authors cited previously such as Swift, Rifkin, and Gorz have challenged the notion that traditional wage labour can be sustained in advanced capitalist societies. Long-term unemployment, which has driven many to the welfare roles, will not go away; if anything it will get worse. We face a crisis of work, but rather than dealing with this issue, governments single out welfare recipients and force them into workfare, partly in an attempt to prove that work remains a possibility. Policy debates need to focus less on those who are living through the disastrous consequences of these social changes and turn more towards the fundamental issues of the equitable distribution of income and employment. Swift, for example, points out that in the context of rising structural unemployment, many are working far more hours than ever before. This suggests some policy directions related to restricting overtime and shortening the work week. Even reforms such as these, however, are inadequate without broader policies that guarantee a basic level of income for all. This perspective in turn raises the fundamental issue of the redistribution of income and wealth. What kind of future do we face if the government does not begin to deal with this central question? Certainly poverty and unemployment will continue to grow, along with the polarization or "dualization" of those with wealth and jobs in stark contrast to the poverty of those excluded from employment. Managing this situation will become more difficult and dangerous if the cutbacks in social programs continue, and the economic processes motivating the cutbacks keep accelerating.

34 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

Programs like workfare will not resolve these disparities and social tensions, and far more punitive approaches will become necessary to keep the contradictions of wealth and poverty under control. Swift, for example, argues that we need to choose between a caring and a gambling society; Rifkin talks about the choice between a penal society versus one based on a renewed democracy of the third sector; while Castoriadis (1949-1965) sees the alternatives as socialism or barbarism. The stakes are high, and things are changing quickly. The rapid economic and social changes we are now facing could create a world resembling the city of the future portrayed in the film Bladerunner, in which the city was abandoned by all with wealth and left as a decayed environment inhabited by an alienated urban poor.

The Politics Of Workfare: NB Works Robert Mullaly

ew Brunswick has received considerable attention across Canada in the past few years for a number of social reform N experiments designed to move people off welfare into the work

force. The centrepiece of Premier Frank McKenna's reform efforts, however, is a national demonstration project called NB Works. It has received high praise from the national mainstream press, from such prominent politicians as Lloyd Axworthy and Jean Chretien (who called it a model for the rest of Canada), and from neoclassical economists. It has also received attention from labour and social justice groups who are concerned about workfare as a social policy direction. NB Works is a work/learnfare project funded and managed by the governments of Canada and New Brunswick with the province in charge of its delivery. It is targeted at persons with less than grade twelve but at least grade seven education, who have been in receipt of social assistance for a minimum of six months and who have dependent children. The project is designed to accept one thousand participants per year for three years and to provide them with education, training and work experience. In total the project has a six-year time frame. The stated primary goal of NB Works is "to ensure that the participants achieve a level of educational/skill proficiency and obtain relevant work experiences that will allow them the opportunity to achieve permanent labour force attachment" (Departments of Advanced Education and Labour and Income Assistance, NB Works, May, 1992). The purpose of this chapter is to assess NB Works with respect to both the social service and political functions it carries

36 /Work/are: Ideology for a New Under-Class

out. The first section looks at NB Works as a social program, examining its purposes, its funding, its operations and program components, and its impact on participants. This section provides an assessment of the effectiveness of the program in moving people from dependence on social assistance into the labour market. The second section examines the politics of NB Works in terms of the political context, the innovations in funding sources, the political construction and marketing of its public image, and the political goals behind the program. The third section provides a conclusion based on the preceding analysis, arguing that NB Works is motivated more by ideological assumptions and political opportunism than by a desire to improve the economic opportunities and living conditions of its participants. NB Works as as a Social Program Welfare Reform The origin of current welfare reform measures in Canada is by now a matter of historical record. Faced with an economy in recession, escalating interest rates, and rising unemployment in the early 1980s, governments at all levels became preoccupied with ever-growing deficits (Riches, 1990). Although other options were available (Mishra, 1990), the gathering forces of neoconservatism dictated that a private-sector led recovery be adopted (Canada, Department of Finance, 1984). To make Canada more competitive both at home and abroad the deficit had to be reduced, not by increasing taxes or by reforming the income tax system, but by reducing expenditures especially in the area of social spending (Riches, 1990). The most important initiative for carrying out the new welfare reform is the 1985 federal-provincial "Agreement on Enhancement of Employment Opportunities for Social Assistance Recipients." This Agreement has as its overall objective: to promote the self-sufficiency of social assistance recipients and to reduce their dependence upon federal and provincial income support programs by enhancing their employability through the application of appropriate employment and training measures (Employment and Immigration Canada, 1987 cited in ERN, Winter, 1991).

The Politics ofWorkfare: NB Works /37

Clearly the problem was seen not as unemployment but the unemployed. Overview of NB Works Canada and New Brunswick signed their first five year Employability Enhancement Agreement in January, 1987. Commonly referred to as the SAR Agreement (Social Assistance Recipient Agreement), it produced a number of cost-shared employability enhancement projects. A second SAR Agreement was signed in May, 1992 and a number of projects that were waiting for the signed agreement, including NB Works, were immediately implemented. Although there are a number of various definitions and conceptualizations of workfare in the literature (Evans, 1993; Lightman, 1991; McFarland & Mullaly, 1995), for purposes of this paper workfare simply means engaging in work or work-related activities (including training) in exchange for one's welfare. This concept does not differentiate between mandatory and voluntary programs (e.g. NB Works) or between those programs with no service component and those with services and other supports for participants (e.g. NB Works). Structure: NB Works is managed by three joint federalprovincial committees consisting of representatives from Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), Human Resources Development New Brunswick (HRDNB) and the provincial Department of Advanced Education and Labour (DAEL). Major decisions are made by a Management Committee and are referred either to the Coordinating or Operations Committee. The Management Committee monitors the project funding and approves both the annual intake plan and the communications strategy. The committee is also responsible for ensuring that federal and provincial input is reflected in NB Works policy. The Coordinating Committee reports to the Management Committee and ensures that the project is operating efficiently and effectively with all departments working together. It also recommends approval of expenditures from the Training Development Fund. The Operations Committee is responsible for implementing policy and carrying out project activities. It makes all the operational day-to-day decisions and resolves issues and prob-

38 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

lems as they arise in the field. Funding: NB Works is jointly financed by the federal government, through the former Employment and Immigration and Health and Welfare Departments (parts of which are now combined into Human Resources Development Canada), and the New Brunswick government through the Departments of Human Resources Development New Brunswick and Advanced Education and Labour. The funding arrangement is as follows: Province of New Brunswick (wages for job exposure) $ 25,381,812 Canada Assistance Plan (HRDC) (supplementals and top-ups) 5,807,505 Developmental Funds (HRDC) (UI training allowances) 81,243,877 Training and Development Fund (CAP) (purchase of courses) 64,685,946 Total:

$177,119,140

(Source: NB Works, DAEL and Income Assistance, 1992)

A stipulation imposed by the federal government was that no new funds were to be allocated to NB Works but that the money should come from existing programs. Thus all expenditures are diverted from existing social assistance and unemployment insurance funds. Participants: The target population for NB Works are those persons who: • have been in receipt of social assistance for at least six months; • are entitled to higher ranges of income support (i.e. single mothers and two-parent families); • have less than grade twelve education but at least grade seven;

The Politics of Work/are: NB Works / 39

have little or no labour force attachment; and are assessed as having the greatest potential for success in the program.

Table 1 PROFILE OF NB WORKS PARTICIPANTS INTAKE 1

INTAKE 2

INTAKE 3

10%

Age Groups Under 25 25-34 35-44 45-54

60% 27% 3%

13% 51% 34% 2%

21% 42% 33% 4%

Average Age at time of Intake

30yrs

31yrs

32yrs

86% 14%

83% 17%

82% 18%

Grades 1 - 6 Grades 7 - 9 Grades 10, 11, 12 High School Diploma/GED Post Secondary

4% 51% 34% 10% 2%

4% 42% 39% 16% 4%

3% 44% 35% 16% 3%

Number of Children Needing Care Within Household Total One 53-4% Two 33-6% Three 10.2% Four or more 2.7%

50.5% 36.9% 10.8% 1.8%

45.5% 39.2% 12.8% 2.5%

54.2% 30.8% 10.5% 4.5%

Gender Women Men

Education Level Completed at Time of Intake

Source: Data supplied by NB Department of Income Assistance

40 /Work/are: Ideology for a New Under-Class

Programme Stages: Participation in NB Works is advertised as completely voluntary. At the outset potential participants are identified from the social assistance caseloads through the province's data management system and invited to attend information sessions to learn about NB Works. Interested persons are administered an achievement test to assess their level of education. Those persons who are eligible to enter intermediate or senior levels of academic upgrading then attend a pre-employment session where, in addition to job preparation counselling, they are assessed in terms of their motivation and attitude to a longterm commitment to NB Works. Those candidates who are judged to have the greatest potential for success for completing the program are then selected to participate in it. A "case-management" model is utilized whereby participants, following an orientation session and the development of a case plan, are offered a range of training and work experiences as they move through the following continuum of services: • job placement (five months) • extra-mural high school (max. twenty-four months) • skills training (max. nine months) • subsidized private sector job placement (max. eight months) Involvement in the various services is based on each participant's case plan and the supervision and completion of all case plans are the responsibilities of the provincial Department of Human Resources Development. Other than the initial job placement phase of five months, the time to complete each component may be less than the maximum expressed and some components may be repeated or omitted depending on the participant's needs. The orientation session lasts two weeks and consists of group motivational counseling and the development of individual case

The Politics ofWorkfare: NB Works/41

plans. A case manager who is assigned to each person is to be the central point of contact for the participant throughout the project. During this phase the participants receive no funding from NB Works but continue to receive their regular social assistance allotment. Following the orientation session, participants enter the twenty-week job placement phase. During this period they receive a wage from the provincial government departments involved, along with child care, clothing allowances, and a health card paid from Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) funds. All the job placements have been with provincial government departments such as the NB Power Commission, where participants cut brush for power lines. This twenty-week job placement experience qualifies participants for an unemployment insurance training allowance paid to them from the UI Developmental Fund during the upgrading and training phases, along with additional benefits from CAP funds including child care costs, an allowance for travel of more than 48 kilometers, a health card, and a top-up so that they do not fall below basic social assistance rates. The provision of other benefits is at the discretion of the participant's case manager. Following this initial job placement stage, participants move into the twenty-four months academic upgrading phase which provides literacy and academic upgrading intended to lead to a certified Adult High School Diploma. This diploma is necessary for entry into most community college programs and courses which constitute the skills training phase of NB Works. It is in this phase, which has a maximum duration of nine months, that participants are to take courses relevant to their employment goals. The courses are purchased with money from the Training and Development Fund. At the end of the skills development stage it is expected that most participants will exit NB Works and enter the labour force. However, for those unable to find employment there is an optional eight month (maximum) phase whereby a participant may be assisted to find a job where the employer (private sector) is subsidized by NB Works.

42 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

Efficacy of NB Works The stated goals of NB Works are as follows: 1) To develop the human resource and employment potential of the social assistance recipient caseload, to achieve the goal of a more educated, better trained work force; 2) To begin to change the attitude that may exist that income assistance is an end in itself, to an attitude that people can increase their employability and job ready status; 3) To save social assistance costs through the move (sic) of persons from the caseload to work. (NB Works, May, 1992). NB Works is a very expensive program. With a budget of $ 177 million over six years, the program would cost $59,000 per person for all 3,000 participants to complete the project. This will not happen, however, as the drop-out rate from the program has been very high. As of January, 1995, after 30 months of program activity, only 33 per cent of participants were still involved. Two-thirds of participants therefore had dropped out. It is not known what happened to all the people who left, but it is a reasonable assumption that some found work and decided to take it rather than wait to complete the program with no guarantee of work at the end. Thirty-nine per cent of the original participants returned to social assistance. And, it must be remembered that the 3,000 selected participants were assessed as having the greatest potential for successful completion of NB Works. Thus, it is safe to assume that the drop-out rate would be even higher if the selection criteria were less restrictive. (See Table 2 for detailed drop-out figures). Major reasons for dropping out of the program outlined in the NB Works Process Evaluation Year End Report 0une 23, 1995) included: program too stressful/difficult (21 per cent); found full-time (3 per cent) or part-time (9 per cent) employment; health reasons (12 per cent); administrative termination (10 per cent); personal or family problems (10 per cent); conflicts/problems with program staff (9 per cent); and inadequate financial support (9 per cent). Most drop-outs occurred during

The Politics ofWorkfare: NB Works / 43

the academic upgrading phase. Given the facts that NB Works is a very expensive program and that two out of every three participants of a highly selective group drop out, it is difficult to Table 2

EXIT REPORT AS OF JANUARY, 1995

Began NB Works

Total Exits Remaining In NB Works (%)

INTAKE 1 INTAKE 2 INTAKE 3

1030 959 909

342 539 707

TOTAL

2898

1588 (55%)

(33%) (56%) (78%)

Exited not on SA

Exited & Returned ToSA

688 420 202

276 155 67

1310 (44%)

498(17%) 812 (28%)

412 265 35

39% 26% 15%

Source: Data supplied by HRDNB

see how this program could be extended to the national scene as suggested by Prime Minister Jean Chretien. In addition to the high costs and excessive drop-out rate associated with NB Works, a study by McFarland and Mullaly (1995) casts further doubt on the program's ability to reach its intended goals. Sixteen NB Works participants were interviewed to find out their experiences and views of the program with respect to its case management approach, job exposure, upgrading, skills training, potential for finding a job, and the impact the program had on their lives and those of their families. The following is a summary of the study's findings. Participants' Views of the Program NB Works advertises itself as utilizing a case management approach whereby a case manager would help guide participants through the various phases of the program. However, almost all the participants who were interviewed stated that

44 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

they had no such plan, nor were their workers presented to them as case managers. The participants, in fact, did not see these case managers as being any different than their social assistance workers. Their experiences with the case managers varied considerably, from having very little contact with them to having them act as supporters and advocates. The job exposure phase in the early days of NB Works received much public criticism. Concerns included poor planning, unsuitable and poorly supervised jobs (mainly cutting brush for NB Power), sexual harassment and dangerous working conditions (one NB Works participant drowned while working on a dam). Its real purpose seemed to be to give the participants enough work weeks so that they could qualify for UI funding paid to them during the education and training phases (the job exposure phase lasts twenty weeks which is the minimum time required for UI eligibility). However, the interviewees expressed relative satisfaction with this part of the program. Concern was expressed though with the lack of options regarding the types of jobs available, the fact that the jobs were not related to their career goals and the fact that some took home less money than they had been receiving on social assistance. Although the main objective for most of the participants interviewed was to obtain their grade twelve the most difficult phase of the project for most people was the academic upgrading. It is at this stage that the biggest drop-out rate occurred. Concerns expressed were that the program did not allow enough time for paticipants to get their grade twelve (thus precluding many from taking community college courses), while others believed they were getting too much upgrading (some participants already had the equivalent of grade twelve but their testing showed that they had lower levels of academic competence and, therefore, they were required to do remedial work). The skills training phase of NB Works takes place in the provincial community college system which means that some participants must move, with or without their families to a community college location. This was found to be very disruptive and difficult for both the participants and their families.

The Politics ofWorkfare: NB Works / 45

None of the participants interviewed had secured a job or were ready for the job search. By January 1995 only thirty-nine of the 3,000 participants were at the job search stage and sixteen job-ready. No official figures on employment will be collected until twelve months after graduation, although an internal evaluation report stated that in March 1995 ten subsidized work placements had been developed (NB Works Process Evaluation Year-End Report, June 23, 1995). The interviewed participants were not optimistic about their chances of finding a job at the completion of their program. In a province with the unemployment rate at a perennial double-digit figure, and with many university graduates not able to find employment, it is difficult to imagine that NB Works graduates will find jobs that allow them to become self-sufficient. This, of course, is the "Achilles Heel" of all workfare programs. In a high unemployment economy such programs simply increase the competition for jobs, rather than reducing unemployment or doing anything about the structural causes of unemployment. Although the program promised that no one would be worse off financially if they moved from social assistance to NB Works, this did not turn out to be the case for all participants. Only those persons who had more than one child for whom a child care allowance was received did better financially. This was so because they were allowed to keep any monies not used for child care. If the services of a good daycare centre were used then the parent actually ended up worse off than they were on assistance. Those persons who managed to find inexpensive child care, with a relative for example, and were able to pocket the unused portion of their child care allowances had to claim this extra money on their income tax, which reduced their original allotment. All participants in the study reported that NB Works entailed a significant economic hardship for them. Although the considerable public relations surrounding NB Works paints a glowing picture of family life because of the program—parents and children doing their homework together at the kitchen table; children expressing pleasure that their mothers were going to work in the morning like all other

46 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

parents; etc.—a different version was told to the interviewers for the McFarland and Mullaly (1995) study. The mothers reported that they often felt guilty because they did not have enough time or energy to give to their children and that they often lost their patience and temper in the evenings. If the children became ill and the mother had to stay home with them, they were docked pay without a medical certificate and in a few cases were asked to leave the program because of too many absences. Another selling point of NB Works was that it greatly enhanced the self-image of the participants. However, the study found that self-esteem corresponded inversely to the amount of time spent in the program. Immediately after acceptance there was a dramatic increase in self-esteem as one transferred from "welfare," with all its stigma, to training which has a high value in our society. As the realities of the program began to be felt, however,—academic difficulties, family hardship, irrelevant job exposure, uncertain job prospects—the participants reported a decline in self-esteem. They were not hopeful about getting a job. One participant summed up her feelings when she said that at the end of the program, "we will be a bunch of educated welfare bums." Given the fact that many university graduates have been unable to find work in New Brunswick, finishing the program and not finding a job may be the ultimate self-esteem destroyer. One wonders who will be blamed if this occurs; the program or the participants? Given the high costs of NB Works, its excessive drop-out rate, a high unemployment economy and the experiences of those participants interviewed for one study, it does not appear that the stated goals of NB Works can be achieved. The NB Works Program as Ideology and Political Opportunism The observation that social programs perform both service and political functions is not a new idea. Marx believed that capitalism could not survive very long without a social welfare state because social welfare programs tended to dilute any revolutionary fervour held by the working class. Galper (1975) wrote that social programs contain contradictory functions. On the one

The Politics ofWorkfare: NB Works / 47

hand they provide social care, attending to the immediate and legitimate needs of large numbers of people by delivering minimal services and benefits to them. On the other hand they actually nourish and nurture liberal/neo-conservative capitalism, because the social programs are underfunded and have conditions of eligibility that regulate and control people's behaviour to conform to capitalist requirements. The former function is a service or social care function, whereas the latter is a political or social control function. James O'Connor (1973) presented a similar analysis, in that he argues that social programs are used by capitalist governments to legitimize themselves as acting in the best interests of the non-capitalist class, but that these programs are delivered in such a fashion that they facilitate the accumulation of capital for the dominant class. Consistent with this tradition of critical analysis of social programs, this section identifies and discusses the political functions carried out by NB Works. The Political Context Of NB Works To fully understand NB Works requires an awareness of its political context. The person largely responsible for this context is Premier Frank McKenna. Soon after his overwhelming victory at the polls in October, 1987, he commissioned an American image consultant firm (which includes Coca Cola Co. among its clients) to carry out a study of attitudes in Canada and the border states towards New Brunswick, Canada's third poorest province after Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. The results were predictably disheartening. The province had an image in Canada as a poor, depressed and stagnant province and in the United States it was seen as a sort of backwoods Appalachia region. Even New Brunswickers saw themselves living in a 'drive-through' province with few possibilities and without a strong identity. In two terms as premier, McKenna, by all accounts, has made a dent in the negative image of New Brunswick. Following the advice of his American image consultant the McKenna government developed a strategy to make potential investors look at New Brunswick's strengths—quality of life, bilingual work force, European and eastern seaboard access, low taxes, low wage and telecommunication costs. Part of the image-building included

48 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

McKenna himself. He is presented as a no-nonsense, hands-on, hard-working and business-friendly premier who is obsessed with economic development. Through his cross country tours and frequent news releases he preaches the gospel of selfsufficiency, deficit-reduction and the need to get the province's financial house in order. He has been the subject of many feature articles in national magazines and newspapers across the country in which he is sometimes hailed as the likely successor to Jean Chretien. But is this a realistic portrayal of McKenna or is it a manufactured and managed image? Many would argue that the McKenna magic is more illusion than substance and what is occurring is a carefully orchestrated campaign guided by neo-conservative principles. There are three rules which McKenna has attached to this campaign (Gherson,1992). First, the McKenna government and senior civil servants! must always present an unwavering upbeat tone never whining about reduced federal transfers or lost contracts. The message must always be that the government is in control; it has a plan. Second, relations with the federal government must be cultivated as the federal government must be onside if certain economic efforts and social reforms are to be successful. And third, sell, sell, sell the province as a good place to do business whenever and wherever possible as evidenced by numerous advertisements in key metropolitan newspapers urging corporate executives to call McKenna directly about business possibilities in New Brunswick. Carrying out this image-building and public relations strategy is an army of communications officers, (i.e. "spin doctors") mostly hired soon after McKenna took office. This group churns out a continuous flow of news releases, faxes, brochures, news letters and feature stories which boast about the efforts and successes of the McKenna government and put a positive spin on setbacks or disappointing news. The well-publicized business trips of McKenna not only enhance his image as the province's top salesperson, but polish his national profile as well. At one time the media in New Brunswick had ready access to cabinet ministers and senior civil servants, but now find themselves dealing with communication officers who receive many of their

The Politics ofWorkfare: NB Works / 49

marching orders directly from the premier's office. Upon closer scrutiny, the so-called economic turn-around in New Brunswick is less impressive than that portrayed by the spin doctors. The unemployment rate remains high (between 1013 per cent) with as many jobs lost as gained. Many jobs brought to New Brunswick have been low wage, non-union with minimal fringe benefits. Questionable methods have been used to bring jobs to the province, including; bribing companies such as United Postal Services to leave British Columbia and relocate to New Brunswick; reducing Workers' Compensation premiums (along with reduced benefits to workers) and advertising New Brunswick as possessing the lowest Workers' Compensation costs in Canada. McKenna's economic policies also involve an attempt to upgrade the educational level of welfare recipients as a means to attract business. But what success can we expect from this strategy when, as previously noted, the province already contains many unemployed and underemployed university graduates? McKenna's social reform efforts are consistent with his efforts to develop a positive economic picture of New Brunswick. The image presented is that of a premier cleaning up the welfare "mess." Along with tightening-up eligibility criteria and maintaining the lowest welfare rates in Canada, McKenna has argued that an educated and job-ready work force is necessary to meet the demands of a global economy and to reduce the public debt. Thus he has rationalized work programs such as NB Works as the means to promote self-sufficiency among welfare recipients. However, when the rhetoric of employability enhancement, self-sufficiency and work disincentives is removed, it can be seen that conservative ideas and assumptions dating back to the dreaded Elizabethan Poor Laws guide much of the Province's social reform activities (Mullaly & Weinman, 1993). The following statement by McKenna is especially telling with respect to his attitude toward social welfare and poor people when he referred to income assistance and other social programs as "... programs which foster dependency, which make it comfortable for people to do nothing and learn nothing," (Frank McKenna, quoted in The Daily Gleaner, June 15, 1993). He has also questioned free

50 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

universal health care and has stated he is not against the idea of compulsory workfare or people being obliged to move to other areas to find work, (Spears, Toronto Star, Feb. 26, 1993). Other poverty policies and practices in New Brunswick that indicate the government's disdain and punitive attitude toward the poor include: • the lowest rates of social assistance in Canada • forcing welfare recipients to line-up at welfare offices in the cold of winter to pick-up their meagre welfare cheques (those who do not show up are cut-off) • removal of a daycare subsidy from single parents on assistance attending university • employing an army of university students every summer to act as "welfare snoops" • the most underdeveloped legal aid system in Canada • proposing legislation that requires people in need to approach their families and/or that families be obligated to contribute to the assistance of a family member (no matter that relationships within the family may be negative or nonexistent). Clearly, in the context of the above, any claim that NB Works is a progressive program must be viewed with considerable skepticism. In this writer's view, the program reflects neoconservative ideology as well as a large dose of political opportunism. Premier McKenna took full advantage of the fact that while NB Works was being sold to the federal government, the federal Minister of Employment and Immigration was a New Brunswick MP, Bernard Valcourt. According to a former NB Works official, (who became so disillusioned with the politics of the program that he subsequently resigned), the driving force behind NB Works came from the Premier's office. The decision to divert federal UI funds into a provincial program was made at the political level, as was the decision to go beyond the usual one year time limit of programs for social assistance recipients. Initially, the Premier wanted NB Works to be compulsory, but the federal government would not agree as mandatory

The Politics ofWorkfare: NB Works/51

programs were a violation of the Canada Assistance Plan which is a major source of funding for NB Works. The federal government also insisted that no new monies be directed to the program, but that existing funds such as UI be diverted to NB Works. The provincial government benefited from this diversion, however, as 3,000 people who would normally be receiving social assistance with the province paying one-half the costs were transferred to UI for the upgrading and training phases of NB Works. In total this amounted to $81.2 million which unemployed people who paid into the UI Fund did not have access to as it went to NB Works participants who only paid into the fund during their twenty week job exposure phase (long enough to qualify them for UI training funds). The province was also able to tap into some of the CAP funds directed at the program for the development and upgrading of its Income Assistance management information system, (which means that these monies did not go to social assistance recipients). Another benefit to the Premier was that NB Works painted him as someone who was cleaning-up the welfare mess which endeared him to a largely uninformed public. A question to be asked about NB Works is that if it is a national demonstration project what does it demonstrate? Part of the answer seems to be that it has demonstrated Frank McKenna's ability to get some federal dollars and some positive publicity. With respect to the ideological underpinnings of NB Works the following series of quotes by officials and literature associated with NB works demonstrate that the attitudes and beliefs about poverty and poor people are steeped in neo-conservatism and Poor Law mentality. Two revealing quotes can be found in the provincial government's social reform discussion paper, Creating New Options (December 1993), The greatest barrier to self-sufficiency met by most income assistance recipients is inadequate education and training (8). The transformation of income security programs ... must address the popular perception, that a person is better off on income support than working (9).

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Especially telling is the introductory quote found in the first piece of NB Works literature, NB Works (Departments of Advanced Education and Labour and Income Assistance, May 1992); " The best way to kill a man is to pay him to do nothing" (Felix LeClerc, nd). In addition, the 1992-93 NB WORKS: Annual Report explains the high dropout rate from the program in the following way, Some left during the 20-week job phase, unable to cope with the transition from home to the workplace after being dependent on income assistance (15). The person who oversees NB Works described the first obstacle that the program had to deal with: We're dealing first with a lifestyle change—getting them up, and going to work (Canadian Business, December 1992: 69). And yet another quote from a NB Works document attributes the high dropout rate to ... illness, substance addiction or abuse, little or no self-esteem, history of failure in school (concluding that ) self-sufficiency is not necessarily something they are ready for (NB Works Update, September 1994: 4). Clearly, by perpetuating such socially pernicious myths that people on income assistance are lazy and will work only when forced to do so, NB Works states that the problem is not high unemployment, but the unemployed. Manufacturing and Marketing the Image of NB Works Consistent with Premier McKenna's "public-relations" approach to portray the province as a good place to invest, the image of NB Works as an innovative, progressive and effective social reform experiment has been carefully manufactured and marketed. A communications committee for NB Works has been established and has developed a communications strategy that, according to its own documents has as its purpose, "to identify central messages which should come out of NB Works" (NB

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Works: Annual Report, 1992-93:12). A full-time communications officer has been assigned to NB Works, a newsletter entitled NB Works Update is published quarterly and a NB Works video has been produced for distribution. The message is always the same: NB Works is an innovative program containing substantial opportunities for its participants to become self-sufficient, is efficient in its delivery and is a model of cooperation between two levels of government. The method used to get its messages out is also always the same: to publicize glowing testimonials from program staff and from "selected" participants as to how NB Works has turned their lives and those of their families around. A few examples demonstrate this point. NB Works was recently featured on the CBC radio program Sunday Morning. The fifteen minute segment looked at the project's success to date from participants, administration, and academic perspectives (emphasis added). (NB Works Update, November 1993:4) No mention is made of the criticisms of NB Works that were made on the same program. The following quote is typical of those elicited from selected participants; I don't like to even think about what would have happened with my life and with my family's life without NB Works. So many positive things have happened to us because of NB Works. I'm going to get my grade twelve, my wife's back in school to do with NB Works — everything's coming together. It's been a long time coming. We've had hard times. I don't like to think about where my life would be right now without NB Works because I know it wouldn't be nice. (David Nye, NB Works participant and father of two. NB Works: Annual Report 1992-93'-16) A quote by a NB Works official paints a rosy picture of happy single-parent families who all come together over homework because of NB Works.

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After years of not even talking about school, single parents are now doing homework with their children at the kitchen table. It becomes a family goal that they all get their education. (Karen Mann, a senior official in HRD-NB, quoted in the Globe and Mail, Dec. 17, 1993:A1) This communications strategy of NB Works is misleading. While it publicizes anecdotal successes, it does not tell of any problems or failures. As well, the information gathered for a study by McFarland and Mullaly (1995) on the impact that the program has on its participants and their families contrasts sharply with the publicized image of NB Works coming from the Communications Committee. It is also impossible to obtain certain kinds of information from program officials (e.g. job placement outcomes) because of an apparent "gag order" placed on the release of such data. Political Functions Of NB Works

The real value of NB Works, in the view of this writer, would seem to lie in its political functions. In addition to bringing in extra federal money, NB Works diverts attention away from the larger structural problem of unemployment by focusing on the victims of a high unemployment economy and blaming them for their situation. NB Works initially emphasized the importance of instilling the work ethic among social assistance recipients in New Brunswick. Both Bernard Valcourt and Frank McKenna made numerous statements to this effect when the NB Works Agreement was signed, although as the program continued this kind of rhetoric was considerably toned down. As long as the public is led to believe that unemployment is caused by the absence of a work ethic among the poor, governments are let "off the hook" with respect to job creation or restructuring a sick economy. Along with its political function in diverting public attention away from structural economic problems, NB Works also provides the provincial government with a means to control the poor and reduce the costs of social assistance. The latter is, in

The Politics ofWorkfare: NB Works / 55

fact, one of the stated goals of the program. When people are transferred from welfare to NB Works, the number of people on social assistance is reduced, and provincial welfare costs are also cut back, since most of the program's funding comes from the federal government. In 1994 the Minster of HRDNB announced a decrease of approximately 3,000 people from the social assistance caseload. This was about the same as the number of people who had been transferred from social assistance to NB Works (Llewellyn, 1995). The perception is, of course, that the government is cleaning up the welfare mess. To ensure that NB Works and other similar programs do not lose sight of their cost-cutting function, top civil servants from the Board of Management (which develops cost-cutting strategies for the government) have been strategically placed as administrative heads (deputy ministers) of the provincial departments involved with NB Works. Of course, reduced spending serves the politicians better than it does welfare recipients. Another political function served by NB Works is to provide business with the benefits of drawing on a larger pool of trained workers. A surplus of labour, of course, tends to increase competition for jobs and decrease wages. Furthermore, some employers get free labour by hiring NB Works participants whose wages are paid by the program. As well, workers who already have paid jobs are afraid of being replaced by program participants. Recently, a school board in New Brunswick terminated two teaching assistant positions at one of its schools. When asked what would happen to the children who were served by the two teaching assistants, one of the trustees suggested approaching NB Works to request that two participants be used as teaching assistants during their job exposure phase. Whether it is low-cost or no-cost workers, clearly the business community benefits from NB Works. Summary and Conclusions This chapter has examined New Brunswick's experience with a workfare program along two dimensions: its service functions and its political functions. With respect to its service functions, NB Works appears to be of questionable utility. Although it may be possible to deliver such a program in a small province such as

56 /Work/are: Ideology for a New Under-Class

New Brunswick, it is clearly cost-prohibitive to operate it on a national scale. Not only is it a very expensive program, it has an excessive dropout rate (approximately 70 per cent of the first intake has exited from the program within a population that was selected on the basis of having the greatest potential for completing the program). This suggests, of course, that the retention rates would even be lower if the program was extended to include all employable persons in receipt of social assistance. In addition to the cost factor, there is no guarantee that persons completing NB Works will obtain a job. And even those who obtain jobs likely do so at the expense of another person, because the unemployment rates in New Brunswick remain very high. What really takes place is a kind of shuffling of the deck for the unemployed. Every day in New Brunswick some people get jobs while others lose their employment, but the provincial unemployment rate remains the same, and NB Works does nothing to improve it. The program makes some people more competitive in the job market, but without an increase in the overall demand for labour, their success in gaining employment can only come at the cost of others losing their jobs. Some participants in NB Works have succeeded in obtaining their grade twelve equivalency along with additional training, but contrary to the vision promoted by the program's spin-doctors, many others have had very negative experiences with respect to broken expectations, increased family hardships and reduced self-esteem. The primary function of NB Works appears to be a political one. The program has reduced short-term welfare costs for the province and brought in new federal funds. Furthermore, NB Works has given the province and its Premier a public image of being innovative and progressive with respect to social assistance reform. The image of a government cleaning up the welfare mess, of course, diverts attention away from the larger and unsolved structural problems of unemployment and underemployment. It appears that NB Works has served the politicians and the business community much better than it has its participants. To date, NB Works has repeated the outcomes of the American experiences with workfare programs, dating back to 1967 (Evans, 1993; Hardina,1994):

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To date, NB Works has repeated the outcomes of the American experiences with workfare programs, dating back to 1967 (Evans, 1993; Hardina, 1994): • not one new job has been created (except for those who deliver, manage and evaluate the program). • there is no reduction in the poverty rates or unemployment levels. • participants often go back on social assistance (including graduates) because there are no jobs. • if a graduate gets a job, it is usually low wage with minimal fringe benefits and dead-end, often displacing someone else from the labour market. • stigmatizes people on social assistance by perpetuating the myth that the poor are lazy and will work only when forced to do so. • punishes women most (over 80 per cent of participants are women) by not recognizing or valuing the crucial work of childrearing unless someone comes into another's home to perform this task. • is a low-cost strategy compared to education, real job training and job creation. To conclude, workfare can only be successful as part of a broader strategy that includes macro factors such as meaningful tax reform, universal day care, higher minimum wage rates and a policy of full employment. Unless these larger issues are dealt with, workfare only contributes to blaming the unemployed for their own fate through stereotyping, stigmatizing and scapegoating. Surely the victims of poverty, prejudice and discrimination trapped in our contemporary high unemployment/ underemployment economy deserve something better than this. I wish to thank my colleague Joan McFarland who collaborated with me on a previous study of NB Works.Many of her ideas and suggestions helped to shape this chapter. Also, the work of Jeananne Knox of transforming my illegible material into acceptable form and format is greatly appreciated.

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Workfare in Quebec Eric Shragge and Marc-Andre Deniger

T

he Quebec government introduced workfare measures in 1988 as part of a general reform of its Social Aid (social assistance) program. The programs were not presented as "workfare" but rather as measures designed to help recipients integrate into the labour market. The structure and design of the programs, however, along with the use of incentives for participation and punishment for refusals to participate (carrots and sticks), indicate that the approach is one of workfare. The 1988 social assistance reforms in Quebec transformed the orientation and the rules of the Social Aid program by matching income security with the obligation to work, and by structuring this arrangement to manage those excluded from work. The logic of the training programs, the sharp distinction drawn between those defined as "able" and "unable" to work, and the selective aspects of this income security policy constitute policy changes that moved Quebec's Social Aid program away from "welfare" and towards "workfare". The program has been running for several years, and has included some government evaluation, so the experience helps us understand the uses and consequences of a workfare approach to social assistance. This chapter begins with the context behind and events leading up to the reform of Social Aid in Quebec. Next we describe the programs designed to reduce the numbers of recipients on the welfare rolls and help them integrate into the labour market. In addition, we review what the government evaluations of these programs have to say about their effectiveness in relation to their stated goals. We also review two case studies to examine the contradictory impacts of one of the programs which provides welfare recipients with work placements in commu-

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nity organizations. Finally we conclude with an analysis of the motivations behind the transition to workfare in Quebec. There are three inter-related questions that we address in this article. First, what is the intent of the policy — what is the Quebec government trying to achieve? Second, what do the evaluations of the programs reveal about their results? Third and most important, what are the general consequences of this reform of social assistance? Whose interests are served by these new policies? The Background to Workfare In Quebec The Crisis of Social Assistance in the 1980s The economic downturn of the early 1980s, as well as structural changes in the labour market in Quebec, created a situation in which unemployment and irregular work became a fact of life for a growing number of people. In 1983, the official rate of unemployment was 13.9 per cent. This dropped to 9.3 per cent by 1989, but climbed back up to 13.1 per cent in 1993. These figures underestimate the degree of unemployment, since many discouraged workers withdrew from the labour market, not believing that employment was possible, and were not counted in the unemployment statistics. Along with a general increase in unemployment have come important changes in the patterns of employment and unemployment. The duration of unemployment has increased, with the average number of weeks in Quebec rising from 20.4 in 1986 to 26.1 in 1990 (Sylvestre, 1994). Those with low levels of education (less than high school) were most likely to be without work, with their levels of unemployment at 15.6 per cent in the recession of the 1980s and 17 per cent in the 1990s. As well, parttime work has more than doubled in the past fifteen years, and the situation of youth and women in particular is characterized increasingly by precarious employment. All of these factors created important changes in the numbers and types of persons dependent on government income security programs. Social Aid in Quebec was traditionally viewed as a program for those who were not able to work. However between 1971 and 1987 there was a dramatic increase in the portion of recipients considered employable, from 36.4 per cent

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to 73.4 per cent. As well there was a marked increase in the number of single people on welfare, a drop in the average age of recipients, and an increase in the length of time that benefits were received. Overall in this period the cost of Social Aid quadrupled (Government of Quebec, 1987). The group most effected was young people, particularly those without a high school diploma, who ended up on Social Aid in unprecedented numbers. Prior to the reforms introduced in 1987, Quebec Social Aid had dual benefit scales, with those between 18 and 30 years of age not supporting children receiving $150 per month less in benefits. Protests against this policy were organized by young recipients and their supporters, and the government responded with experimental work readiness and return to school programs. Participation in these programs was rewarded with higher benefit rates (Savage, 1993), and these programs acted as a pilot project for the upcoming general reform of Social Aid. These changes in the types of people dependent on social assistance and the resulting rapid rise in the costs of the Social Aid program sounded alarms in government circles. The situation was perceived as a crisis, and the Quebec government began preparing a neo-conservative reform of the welfare system. Preparing the Ground

As a first step in the reform process, an attack on recipients was unleashed. The formal goal of the campaign was to detect welfare fraud and abuse. In practice, however, this became a high profile media event designed to portray welfare recipients as undeserving of their benefits, and unwilling to be independent of government support. In 1986 agents, popularly known as "Bou-Bou Macouttes," were appointed and given powers to investigate welfare recipients through visiting their home and interviewing their neighbours. Through this campaign, the Quebec government expected to save $68 million in one year. One hundred and fifty agents were expected to visit 12,000 homes, at a cost of $9 million. Shortly after this strategy was implemented, the government tried to win public sympathy for the campaign by using the media to report a number of cases of fraud. Three months after the

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campaign began, the government announced 19.4 per cent of the homes visited had their benefits cutoff or reduced, or their request for assistance refused. After a year the minister responsible reported that of the 122,752 homes visited, 17.1 per cent received changes to their benefits as a result. This included 8.2 per cent of recipients who had been cut off assistance, 4.4 per cent whose requests were refused, 3.1 per cent whose benefits were reduced, and 1.4 per cent who had their rates increased. The savings were reported to be $150 million (Gow, Noel, Villeneuve, 1993). Gow, Noel and Villeneuve (1993) challenged the accuracy of these calculations. They reviewed several methods of calculating the savings and concluded that over-payments were found by taking the total sum of Social Aid paid out, and then subtracting amount of money recovered that was identified by the home visits. For 1992-93, the amount of overpayment was $3,011,183, an average of $30 for each visit carried out, and the equivalent of 0.09 per cent of the annual Social Aid budget. In addition, these authors noted, within three months one-third of those who had their benefits cut off were back on Social Aid. Despite the government's rhetoric and the support for the campaign from a relatively uncritical media, very little was actually saved. But the public campaign did succeed in putting strong pressures on social assistance recipients. The general public got the impression that those on welfare could not be trusted, and that their behaviour had to be strongly regulated to reduce their dependency on public assistance. The Reform

The reform of Social Aid in Quebec was presented in the government document Towards an Income Security Policy: Position Paper 1987. This set out the government's perceptions of the problems faced by the Social Aid system, the values underlying the proposed changes, and the proposals for reform. Both the general orientation of the document and most of the specific proposals for reform contained within it were subsequently implemented. The underlying ideology of this text gave priority to the family and the economic marketplace as the main sources of

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economic support. The state therefore was to be used for income assistance only as a last resort. The document argued that: Social Aid must take into consideration the ties of solidarity and responsibility existing between the members of a family and must not replace such contributions and forms of assistance as already exist within the family. In fact, Social Aid should not act as a substitute for parental responsibilities and children's obligations, [and] ...financial independence depends on work.... Social Aid is intended to be the last resort.... The government supposes that everyone is employable and available for work unless their inability to work or their unavailability can be demonstrated. (Government of Quebec, 1987:17) This orientation became the basis for a program of workfare. It assumed that the people were showing up on the welfare rolls because of individual problems that could be remedied with appropriate training, incentive to participate in the programs, and a strong push back into the labour market. The reform process paid little attention to the realities of unemployment — the lack of jobs—as a possible factor in the increase in the number of Social Aid recipients. The reform also separated those deemed unable to work from those defined as able to work. It therefore created a hierarchy of marginalized social groups: the working poor, unemployed workers, Social Aid recipients deemed able to work and Social Aid recipients considered unable to work. Those who had been excluded from wage labour were now to be placed in a kind of "waiting room" for entrance into the labour market. Medical criteria were used to distinguish between those deemed able to work and those considered unable. The latter received a small increase in benefits; they were not subjected to the pressures of regular monitoring by welfare agents; nor were they required to participate in workfare programs. In keeping with the traditions of the welfare state, these people would be treated as "deserving poor," while the remaining social assistance recipients would be considered to be "undeserving." One consequence of this approach was that persons with disabilities

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became even more marginalized in relation to employment opportunities, because it was assumed that their dependence on social assistance was long term. The remaining Social Aid recipients — those classified as able to work — were further sub-divided between those unavailable and those available for workfare programs. The category of unavailable included those who would normally participate in such programs, but were excused due to temporary illness, or because they were responsible for pre-school children, or because they were over 55 years of age. Those considered to be available for workfare programs were further classified, either as participants, (those in a program or waiting for one), or non-participants. Benefit rates were set according to these classifications, with the lowest rates for non-participants, (those refusing to join a workfare program). Thus, there were direct economic penalties for non-participation in the program, and corresponding economic benefits for participation. In 1991, 78.5 per cent of social assistance recipients in Quebec were classified as able to work. Of this group, 52 per cent were female. Forty per cent were between the ages of 30 and 44, 33 per cent between 18 and 29, and 27 per cent 45 years of age or older. Sixty per cent of this group were single, and 25 per cent were single parents; the latter figure is a much higher portion than in the general population. Seventy-three per cent in this group had finished high school, while 23 per cent had 12 years or more of schooling. Thirty-one per cent of the group had been on welfare for less than two years, while 36 per cent had lived on social assistance for six years or more (Reynolds, 1995). Osberg, Wien, and Grude (1995) point out that the current high levels of unemployment, and the demand by employers for extensive education regardless of the actual academic requirements of the position, place the people in this group in a very difficult situation in today's job market. Of these social assistance recipients who were considered able to work, 33-4 per cent were classified as temporarily unavailable for workfare programs. There were 11.2 per cent who were in the sub-category of available and waiting for a place

Workfare in Quebec / 65

in a program, including 85 per cent who lived alone, 60 per cent who had been on welfare for two years, and 60 per cent aged 30 years or older. The sub-category of participants in workfare programs made up 11.3 per cent of the group, including 67 per cent who lived alone, 28 per cent from single parent households, 40 per cent who had been on welfare for less than two years, and 48 per cent aged 30 years or more. The sub-category of nonparticipants in workfare programs made up 44.1 per cent of those considered able to work, and was largely male. In fact almost one-half of the men deemed able to work were classified as non-participants; of this group 74 per cent were single adults, one-third had been on welfare less than 2 years, and a high percentage were less than 30 years of age (Reynolds, 1995). The rate of actual participation in the workfare programs has been very low. From the start of the process, there have not been enough openings for those who wanted to participate in workfare. In 1993, for example, only 47 per cent of those willing to participate could find a place in a program (Normand, 1994). According to government figures this trend is continuing; in July, 1995 for example of those eligible for workfare only 7.4 per eligible were in programs and only 8.3 per cent were waiting for programs. There has also been a lot of resistance to participation in workfare. Government statistics again from July, 1995 reveal that 37.5 per cent of those eligible for workfare were refusing to participate. In other words, many were willing to take a penalty of $100 per month rather than joining a program or even being placed on the official waiting lists. Perhaps for these people it was seen as more desirable to earn what was allowed, or to work "under the table," than to participate in workfare programs that might produce very little in terms of eventual pay-offs. From these figures we can see the two patterns — a lack of availability of programs, and a low level of participation in the programs. It would appear that the Quebec government has failed to live up to its side of the workfare bargain by delivering the programs, while recipients are resisting the programs by refusing to participate.

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With the reform of social assistance and the introduction of workfare came a number of punitive rules and regulations. Those who shared accommodation had their benefits reduced. Parents who were not actively participating in job readiness programs faced restricted access to subsidies for child care. The policy of "parental responsibility" introduced the practice of reducing or completely eliminating social assistance benefits for those between 18 and 29 years of age, if their parents are judged to have sufficient income to support them. The level of earnings above social assistance rates allowed without penalties is too low to really encourage people to work. A recent ruling which obliges younger recipients to report to the welfare office to pick up their check demonstrates the level of petty harassment being introduced to deter people from relying on social assistance. The effect of these and other regulations of the welfare reform is to penalize and further marginalize welfare recipients from society as a whole and the labour market in particular. The policy of "parental responsibility" represents a clear shift in policy, away from the premise that adults are responsible for their own actions and their own relationship to government, and towards blaming families for the economic fate of their younger adult offspring. Generally the new policies demonstrate a punitive attitude towards welfare recipients and their families, and constitute barriers rather than incentives to re-enter the labour market. At the same time, the very nature of the low-wage labour market, which pays wages worth less than the combined benefits (including prescription drugs) available from social assistance, discourages people from seeking employment. Until conditions at the bottom of the job market improve, people have little incentive in looking for work. But the current reform of social assistance is structured on the reverse premise that the welfare system must be designed to protect the low-wage sector of the job market and oblige recipients to participate in this type of employment. As the Quebec government evaluates its reformed programs and reviews its social assistance policies, it seems to be moving towards an approach that targets particular groups of recipi-

Workfare in Quebec / 67

ents for special programs or treatment (Dechene, 1994). Instead of pushing new claimants into workfare programs, for example, intense group job search preparations are now required as soon as assistance is granted. Those who miss these sessions face drastic cuts in benefits. The goal appears to be to discourage applications for welfare, or to force claimants to leave the system quickly. The underlying belief is that the jobs are out there, and proper preparation of recipients is the prerequisite for the clients to access employment. As well, these measures are expected to eliminate unmotivated and bogus recipients. Again, behind the use of such punitive methods is the assumption that the crisis of employment can be blamed on those who are forced to turn to Social Aid for economic survival. Evaluation of the Workfare Programs This section examines the three largest of the programs or measures brought in as part of the reform of social assistance in Quebec. These programs were piloted with younger welfare recipients prior to the reform, and later enlarged to incorporate all of the recipients (Savage, 1993). The first, Rattrapage Scolaire, involves a return to school or other forms of education. In the second program, EXTRA (Experience de travail), community organizations provide the training. The program PAIE (Programme d'aide a 1'integration en emploi) provides work placements for job training, mainly in the private sector. There has not been a comprehensive evaluation of the success of these programs relative to their stated goal of getting people off Social Aid and integrating them into the labour market. A number of internal studies by the government of Quebec have been carried out, however, and we have drawn on these. Unless otherwise cited the data below is drawn from Celine Sylvestre (1994) Synthese des Resultats des Etudes D'Evaluation en Matiere de Developpement de L}employ abilite et D'Integration en Emploi. These evaluations of the workfare programs compare social assistance recipients who participated and those who did not participate, with respect to peoples' success in getting off assistance and in finding jobs.

68 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

When we discuss the evaluations, we will present a very low rate of success. The context of this discussion has to be situated within the bi-lateral agreement between the federal and the provincial governments. The federal government has fixed 27 per cent as a target which defines success for moving those on social assistance into the labour market (Government of Canada, 1990). A failure rate of 73 per cent, in other words, was considered acceptable. Why then, is so much effort being put into setting up these programs, and why is so much pressure being put on recipients? Our analysis suggests that the explanation lies more in the ways that those excluded from work are being managed by the state than in an attempt to find real solutions for those on Social Aid. Rattrapage Scolaire

This is the largest of the three programs, and includes between 44 and 45 per cent of all participants. Those in the program are younger recipients, women, people born outside of Canada, and single parents. Initially this program was designed to help young welfare recipients to finish high school. With the reform of the late 1980s, the program was expanded to include basic literacy, pre-secondary courses, preparation for professional training, preparation for higher education, an introduction to a return to education, and French language training for non-francophones. The assumption underlying this program is that more education will lead to greater prospects for employment. For many participants this program is a first step, seen as pre-employability preparation that leads later to further training as part of a transition from welfare to work. The evaluations of this program looked at three aspects: gains in relation to employability, completion of a high school diploma, and integration into a job after participation in the program. According to the studies, about half the participants made gains in relation to employability, and 27 per cent were able to complete their high school diplomas. There were two studies which evaluated the impact of this program on employment. The first found that non-partici-

Workfare in Quebec / 69

pants performed better than participants; however, this study was deemed to be inaccurate because the control group was not comparable. A follow-up study conducted between 1987 and 1991 revealed that the rate of exit from social assistance was lower for participants than non-participants. This study also showed that in terms of labour market integration there was no significant difference either in the short term (after 7 months) or in the longer term (after 19 months). The drop-out rate for this program was about 60 per cent. One of the negative aspects noted was that program participants who were studied remained on social assistance for an average of approximately seven months more than the control group. This program is a long-term measure in which individuals can participate, withdraw, and then participate again. One study which asked participants why they were in the program found a general agreement with the goals: specifically the completion of high school. There were 42 per cent however who dropped out of the program and expressed dissatisfaction with the educational content. One third of the participants believed the program would improve their job prospects, while about onehalf thought the program contributed little to their knowledge and skills. Another study in 1993 showed that of those participants who had succeeded in integrating into the labour market, 52 per cent believed that the program had helped them to find jobs. However program providers who were interviewed were critical of the program, questioning its quality and the lack of links between the general programs and more professionally-oriented training. This is a quick fix program — education at a discount. As well, it lacks the necessary linkages or continuum between basic education and the diverse programs that would lead to more qualified professional training (Deniger and Provost, 1993). Given the large proportion of those receiving Social Aid who have not completed secondary education, an opportunity to do so is desirable. In the current economic conditions, however, there is little evidence that this alone will make much of difference in terms of job placements. Furthermore, the demand for

70 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

very particular skills in the current labour market necessitates a systematic planning of programs. Neither this kind of planning, nor the necessary financial resources, have been forthcoming. The EXTRA Program

Twenty-four per cent of the participants in workfare ended up in the EXTRA program, where they were integrated into the activities of a sponsoring community organization. EXTRA'S objectives, related to improving the employment prospects of participants, including building up individual capacities, developing and maintaining good work habits, helping people contribute to the life of the sponsoring community organization, and reducing social isolation through participation in community projects. The maximum time for participation in a project, with some exceptions, is less than one year. The sponsoring organization receives $100 per month for each participant, while the recipient gets $100 per month more than their previous benefit level. When the project is over, the recipient receives the lowest benefit level, and is not eligible for another program for six months. The introduction of these projects generated a lot of controversy. Many community organizations, particularly those which had campaigned against the welfare reforms, refused to implement the program. However other community organizations joined in, either because they believed this was a way to help those on Social Aid, or there were few funding alternatives available to their groups. Later in this article we will look at the ways two community organizations tried to make use of this program. The retention rate in this program was 61 per cent. In terms of labour market integration, after 7 months 23 per cent of participants had a job of some sort, compared to 13 per cent in the control group. This difference of 10 per cent difference seemed to be confirmed by a follow-up study which showed a 9 per cent difference after 18 months. Those who participated in the EXTRA program were more likely to get off social assistance than those who did not participate—three-quarters compared to

Workfare in Quebec / 71

60 per cent. That rate of finding permanent work (defined as employment for at least 16 out of 18 months) was also higher for participants, 12 per cent compared to 6 per cent. These modest but positive results were tempered by the fact that those in EXTRA programs stayed longer on Social Aid than non-participants. A qualitative study of the EXTRA program was less positive, suggesting that community organizations were participating because the subsidized positions were key to their survival in a situation where cutbacks have left them unable to meet their personnel requirements. Interviews drew out another criticism: that EXTRA programs were being used to take care of Social Aid recipients for whom other programs like PAIE were not available. Another criticism raised of the EXTRA programs was that they served the goals of the community organizations with little consideration for the needs of participants. There is no doubt that these programs provided a source of cheap labour; 15 per cent of the organizations used these grants for their own survival and 25 per cent participated because of the cheap labour available. The PAIE Program This program, introduced in May, 1990, lasts for six months. To be eligible, social assistance recipients must have been on welfare for six of the last 12 months. The employer "hires" the recipient into a private business or organization or municipal services for 35 hours per week for a period of 18 to 26 weeks. The subsidy for the recipient's salary goes directly to the employer. Private sector companies receive two-thirds of the salary as subsidy, while municipalities and other organizations receive the full amount At the end of the program, participants can qualify for Unemployment Insurance. Examples of companies that used PAIE include Zellers, Canadian Tire, and Pizza Hut. Between March 1990 and March 1993, 33,703 people participated in PAIE, with 1,100 new participants every month in the period 1992-1993. The Quebec government announced in November 1993 that it wanted to expand PAIE by 17,000 places, but could not accommodate this number because

72 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

of budget shortages. Participants in the program tended to be single men 30 years or older, born in Canada, who had been on Social Aid for between two and ten years (Reynolds, 1995). Sixty-seven per cent of the PAIE participants had no dependents, and 16 per cent were single parents. Eighty-five per cent were under 45 years of age, and one-half were between 30 and 44 years of age. PAIE participants were relatively well educated. Thirty-six per cent had been on welfare for less than two years, and 30 per cent for six years or more. The majority of PAIE participants (58 per cent) were men. Sixty per cent of the "employers" favoured men because they were not responsible for children (Deniger and Provost, 1993). Most of the participants in PAIE (59 per cent) worked in the private sector, while 33 per cent were in other organizations, and four per cent with municipalities. The salaries provided were around the level of the minimum wage. One-half did not complete the program, with the dropout rate higher in the private sector. Within three months of leaving the program, 42 per cent of participants were on Unemployment Insurance, 37 per cent were working (mainly in marginal employment), and 17 per cent were back on social assistance. Although 37 per cent found jobs within three months of leaving the program, there was no significant variation in this rate between those who completed the program and those who dropped out. After seven months, 27 per cent of participants were still with the job they had found, and 40 per cent (14 per cent more than the control group) had some kind of employment. After nineteen months, there was a difference of 22 per cent (85 per cent to 63 per cent) between participants and non-participants in terms of exiting from the welfare system. On average, those in the control group earned about one dollar per hour more than PAIE participants ($9.35 versus $8.30). In order to evaluate this program, we have to consider the possibility of a substitution effect — to what degree would employers have hired people who were not welfare recipients, if PAIE did not exist? In the private sector, about one-half of the jobs (51 per cent) would have been filled directly from the ranks of the unemployed. This figure seems particularly high when we

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consider that employers are not allowed to terminate workers and then replace them with PAIE participants. Interviews with employers revealed different reasons behind their involvement with the program. The primary motivation was financial, namely access to cheap labour which allowed companies to remain competitive. One in five, however, said they had wanted to give a Social Aid recipient a chance to work, and one in four stated that they hired through PAIE because the individual had adequate qualifications and/or experience for the job (Reynolds, 1995). One criticism of the program is that, paradoxically, it provided the most advantages to those who faced the least barriers to entering the labour market. Programs such as PAIE seem to have worked best for males who had no children to care for, who had been on social assistance for a relatively short period of time, and who had relatively more education than other recipients (Tremblay and Tremblay, 1991). Heads of households, and the illiterate, were less likely to get the training they needed. This criticism, and the previously-mentioned substitution effect, suggest that the PAIE program produced few gains in terms of labour market integration. The programs clearly acts as a pool of cheap, publically-subsidized labour for the private sector. Workfare and Community Organizations What has been the impact of workfare on the community sector? Are community organizations becoming the new managers of the poor? Or have these organizations managed to promote their own agendas within the policy confines of workfare programs? The community sector is not a passive player in the social policy process. Community organizations play the game, accepting the context of the policy while also pushing the policies to their limits. Some have opted to boycott all workfare programs. Others, like those discussed in this section, have tried to manipulate the programs to their own ends. Too many others again have become a direct arm of policy implementation. Normand (1994) points out that the non-profit or community sector was active in employment training long before there was large-scale government involvement. Community groups devel-

7 4/Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class

oped training programs for specific sectors such as women and youth, and fought for their access to employment opportunities. With the reform of Social Aid in Quebec, however, employment training became a common activity throughout the community sector. At the time that welfare reform was introduced in Quebec, many community organizations no longer had sufficient funding to carry out their mission. They had little choice therefore except to accept the workfare programs, which represented one of the few sources of funds still available. Furthermore, the lack of job placements available to welfare recipients, and their vulnerable position in society, made many community activists feel that participation in the workfare programs was a form of social solidarity. Participation in the workfare programs by community organizations has revealed a number of important tensions. First, groups that had fought on behalf of their marginalized clients were now running programs which made them managers of poverty and the poor (White, 1994). Second, the community sector was developing into a new kind of labour market but one without employment standards and minimum wages. Work in the community sector became a kind of social and economic experiment, a "carrousel de L'employabilite," where social assistance recipients picked up short-term jobs without regular wages and then went back again on to welfare (Normand, 1994). This latter argument is a powerful one. The cases described below, however, are ones in which the community organizations have succeeded, (at least partially), in avoiding these traps. The analysis of these experiences comes from case studies of two community organizations that participated in the EXTRA program (Shragge, 1994a; Fontan and Shragge, 1996), and have used these grants to develop innovative services and methods of working with people on Social Aid. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that the impact of the EXTRA program is contradictory. For the community organizations, the pressures of government rules and regulations are substantial, but there is also among some groups a creativity and spirit of imagination that allows them to open up new fields of

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action. Even while they are taking advantage of these programs for their own purposes, however, these community organizations are also obliged to control people on social assistance through the mechanism of training. Community organizations, in other words, become managers of the poor. The effects of programs like EXTRA are also contradictory for welfare recipients, who are under considerable pressure from their case workers to participate. Although the prospects are minimal for a decent job at the end of the line, these programs at least provide opportunities for community participation and a spirit of social solidarity. The NDG-APG

One group involved with the EXTRA program was the NotreDame de Grace Anti-Poverty Group (NDG-APG), formed by welfare recipients as a protest group against the Bou-Bou Macouttes and Bill 37, the 1988 welfare reforms in Quebec. Shortly after the passage of that bill, they decided that sponsoring an EXTRA project would provide some funds as well as a way of working closely with social assistance recipients. Over the next four years, they had up to fifteen recipients at a time in their projects, for which the formal goals were computer-based skills training and general pre-employment readiness. Project participants interviewed said that they were not likely to succeed in terms of the formal program goals, but that the program played other important roles for them. The benefits they described included training as advocates for those on Social Aid, providing a political critique and building a counter-culture of poor people through the creation of a literary magazine, and maintaining active involvement in the ongoing struggle against Bill 37 (Shragge, 1994a). The NDG-APG has created social solidarity, breaking the social isolation experienced by those receiving Social Aid. Cooperative lunch programs and a collaborative writing program have contributed to this process. These programs have had an important positive impact on the self-esteem of participants, as demonstrated by the following quotes:

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The positive aspect of the group has been to meet many committed [people]... I have also met many interesting people... and brother and sister groups. The ideological connections that have been made have been most valuable. Salvation of my sanity. I am away from home doing something constructive, and can have adult conversations sometimes.... Now I am doing something for myself. I have learned a lot about computers... and [made] contact with a lot of lovely people. I am getting... .the experience and knowledge acquired through training.... I feel that through this experience I have become a respected member of my community. I have political and business affiliations which I believe will be invaluable to myself in the future. Although participants saw the combination of employment readiness and computer skills training as useful, it did not pay off in later job hunting. However, the group used the EXTRA program to establish two businesses which specialized in recycling furniture and clothing. Both of these have received grants to train welfare recipients. In 1995 this anti-poverty group lost its EXTRA grant due to internal problems and program cutbacks. As a consequence, the group has been reduced to a few active members who answer the phone and provide information. The EXTRA program provided the group with a "captive" membership without permanent funding or a solid volunteer base of participation. Consequently, the loss of the EXTRA grants has left the organization barely functional. Resto-Pop A second community organization which tried to take advantage of the EXTRA grants is the community restaurant enterprise Resto-Pop, established in 1984 by twelve welfare recipients. It started with two purposes: to create jobs for the founding members and for the poor in the community, and to provide quality, hot, and inexpensive meals.

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These goals have been accomplished, and the organization has grown in size and broadened its activities. It has introduced a mobile kitchen to provide meals to local schools, and in the summer to day camps. Resto-Pop serves three meals a day, five days a week. In 1984 Resto-Pop had 50 clients; in 1990 there were 250 and by 1995 it was serving 800 needy persons. Resto-Pop is a non-profit organization registered as a charity. Management is provided by the seven-member Board of Directors, which is roughly half women and half men. A little less than half of the 1994 operating budget of $800,000 came from the federal, provincial and municipal governments, and the remaining revenues were raised by selling meals, through Bingos, and from donations. There are 19 full-time employees, supervised by the director, including four in administration, two who coordinate the restaurant, and 15 others in general duties. Job development and employment training are central to the mission of Resto-Pop. The organization takes in 93 trainees annually, with the training period varying from six to 15 months. All the trainees are participants in the EXTRA program. When Resto-Pop undertook a study of its EXTRA trainees, the organization found a high number of dropouts from the program. This could be attributed to the fact that trainees come into the program through the welfare system in a somewhat coercive method of referral, so that they do not necessarily participate on the basis of shared goals. Once involved with Resto-Pop, however, participants receive training in much more than the basics of restaurant management. Topics include social rights and basic literacy skills. In addition, the community restaurant is a gathering place for different social groups who have been marginalized and excluded from participation in the current process of economic restructuring (Fontan and Shragge, 1996). Although Resto-Pop is not completely dependent on the EXTRA program, the organization experiences many of the same contradictions as other community groups involved in managing large numbers of trainees. It has succeeded in using the EXTRA program in innovative ways to broaden its range of activities.

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The training program has been lengthened, through a negotiated arrangement with the provincial government, and involves a high school level program taught at Resto Pop. Trainees also benefit from the fact that they receive, as a bonus, most of the per capita allowance granted to the organization. Furthermore, they are treated by permanent staff as employees rather than welfare recipients, so they benefit from the sense of responsibility and autonomy that comes with normal workplace relationships. In November, 1995, Resto-Pop organized a conference on poverty and current economic conditions for the local community. The focus of the conference was to challenge dominant economic wisdom, prepare progressive demands reflecting the real needs of poor people in the local area. Following the conference, 300 people participated in a demonstration which delivered a series of demands to a government minister. So a community organization which is heavily involved with the EXTRA program has been able to use this program to provide a community service, and has at the same time been in the forefront of advocacy for the rights of poor people. Recent Developments

The Quebec government has recently moved beyond the short-term approach of programs like EXTRA and established the Corporations intermediares de travail (GIT) which take community workfare programs to a new level. These corporations are non-profit, and the services they provide would be considered non-profitable. There is no competition, in other words, with the private sector. The jobs involve relatively permanent training positions, and individual recipients can only participate for a limited period of time. One example of this new enterprise is home care services for various groups. So there is no competition with the private sector, but there is direct lowwage competition with unionized public services carrying out similar functions. The community sector is being used to promote privatization and reduce secure public employment through quasi-coercion of social assistance recipients (Normand, 1994). Social Aid becomes a substitute for public sector employment in a period of cutbacks, and the disparities in work conditions

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between social assistance recipients and regular government employees can only become more pronounced as the government continues down this divisive road. Summary of workfare and community organizations

Workfare measures aimed at the community sector have drawn these groups into managing the lives of the poor. Under the guise of training, those who are excluded from the labour market can be pulled and pushed through programs that take up time and provide few payoffs in terms of employment. These programs are growing in scope, and provide a pool of insecure workers competing directly with public sector employees. Groups like Resto-Pop, on the other hand, have used these programs creatively and challenged their original assumptions. They have tried to push the scope of the programs beyond the boundaries established by the Quebec government. In this process they have created innovative service delivery models, which give a voice to those who have traditionally been excluded from the labour market. Conclusion The reform of Social Aid in Quebec can be characterized by four themes: a shift from welfare to workfare, a reduction in social spending, an increase in the complexity and bureaucracy of the social assistance program, and the erosion of collective rights and freedoms. The new system of Social Aid, founded on the logic of workfare, has established and institutionalized a hierarchy of those excluded from the labour market. It has created a trajectory in which individuals oscillate between training and education programs, attempts at work that may or may not be successful, and additional programs providing professional skills such as PAIE or EXTRA. The reform of social assistance in Quebec has not succeeded in saving money. The introduction of workfare programs has created complex benefit scales, and increased the variety of administrative controls. The emphasis on policing recipients along with the costs of the new programs described in this article mean that budget expenditures will not be reduced. Rather than a method of controlling expenditures, the reform of Social Aid

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has become a means of creating tighter control over the lives of welfare recipients. In any case, current economic conditions are such that cuts in social assistance cannot solve the fiscal problems of the state. High levels of unemployment are chronic, and we are witnessing a fundamental crisis involving the redefinition and disappearance of traditional forms of employment. The new Social Aid system, with its reliance on labour market insertion programs, will not prevent increasing numbers of persons from turning to social assistance during periods of economic recession and restructuring. Economic conditions today are such that the use of workfare programs cannot halt the growth in the numbers of social assistance recipients and in the length of time they require assistance. What is the overall impact of these new programs? Their stated goal is to reduce the number of people on welfare, and get them into jobs. The evaluations of these programs, however, make it clear that the rate of success, judged by these goals, is marginal at best. It would be more accurate to view the results as a way of rearranging the order in the lineups of the unemployed. However some people who have passed through these programs have made some gains in terms of advancing their education, or connecting with other recipients through community organizations. Despite the new workfare programs and the attempts to reward participation and punish non-participation, the welfare rolls continue to grow. In March 1993 there were 741,000 individuals receiving Social Aid in Quebec. In March 1994 there were 787,000 and by March 1995 there were 808,000 (Gazette, 1995). Some of the growth in the welfare rolls, of course, is connected to reductions in Unemployment Insurance benefits. But as long as the level of unemployment does not drop and job creation policy is ignored, there will continue to be huge numbers of people lined up for welfare. So, why does the government even bother with workfare programs? We argue that even though workfare has not succeeded in terms of its stated goals, there are four reasons why it continues. First, workfare programs create an additional supply of labour

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that is flexible and cheap. Groups of welfare recipients can be pulled into the labour market for limited periods of time, as either unpaid or highly-subsidized labour. Furthermore, the employer has no obligation to these workers once the program is finished. At a time when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has forced Canada to compete for investment with lower wage economies, workfare programs produce a pool of cheap labour with very short-term ties to the employer. In addition, as the numbers in these program grow, the regular labour market becomes vulnerable to downward pressures on wages and working conditions. Workfare therefore functions in the short term as a form of direct subsidy to private employers and in the long term as a weapon to reduce labour costs, degrade working conditions and weaken trade unions. Whether or not these programs were designed with these goals in mind is not really relevant. That fact is that they provide these functions very effectively by mobilizing (in marxist terms) the reserve army of labour. The involvement of community organizations in workfare programs is a second reason why workfare continues. Traditionally underfunded and threatened by recent public service cutbacks, community organizations have turned to workfare training programs like EXTRA and CIT's as a means of maintaining sufficient staff and funding for short term survival. But these organizations, especially the ones that work with welfare recipients, are in a very contradictory position. It can be argued that recipients who participate in workfare programs sponsored by community groups benefit by improving their material conditions and reducing their social isolation, and that the community organization benefits by continuing to survive. But this is a very limited vision, fraught with long term danger. Workfare programs are operating as a cheap alternative to properly funded community-based services and programs. As workfare programs grow and social service cutbacks continue, more and more government services will be eliminated. During the 1970s, the trade union movement in Quebec struggled to improve the conditions of lower paid workers in the health and social service sectors. Unionizing these workers, and

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insisting that they make larger gains relative to higher paid employees, was an important step forward. Later there were also gains in the struggle for pay equity for women. But if CITs are used to provide direct public services through community agencies, these gains will be lost. The lower ranks of public service workers will be replaced by welfare recipients in training positions with a very high rate of turnover. And the recipients, whose training positions only last six months, will benefit very little. Even if these training positions are extended to a duration of two years, as is currently under discussion, the end result will still be the provision of inexpensive social services on the backs of welfare recipients, and the undermining of public social services. The third reason that workfare continues is that it provides a means of control of the poor. The growing numbers of individuals on Social Aid has created a crisis in the management of those who live outside the discipline of work. Young people who have difficulties entering the labour market are particularly vulnerable in this process. The role of Social Aid is to find ways to keep this large group tied to the economic pressures of the labour market, and the new programs that have been established are the means used to accomplish this. One half of the participants in PAIE, and 30 per cent of participants in workfare programs less than 30 years of age, for example, have already participated in other labour market integration programs (Deniger, 1993). These programs have been described as a "circuit of exclusion", because of the way in which the state draws those outside of the labour market into it, and then pushes them out of it again. The fourth reason workfare continues is that it acts as a means of social definition of those who live in poverty, thus contributing to the dominant ideological explanations of the nature of work and poverty. The blame for unemployment is shifted away from macro-economic causes such as the introduction of new technologies and the associated restructuring and downsizing, and placed on the shoulders of the victims of these changes. Personal characteristics, such as lack of adequate training or education, become the causes of the problem. The way to rectify the situation is to make sure that those excluded

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from the labour market are properly disciplined and seen to be trained. But the very magnitude of this operation raises fundamental questions. Given the numbers of people involved, at what point will it become apparent that "the Emperor has no clothes"? For small numbers such measures might succeed in marginalizing people and keeping them occupied; some might even get shortterm employment. But at a certain point, which is not too distant, the numbers in these programs will be so large that the means used to discipline them will no longer be effective. Workfare is part of a wider shift in social policy in Quebec. The social policy orientation defined in the 1960s during the "Quiet Revolution" was based on the premise of collective social provision through a welfare state based on universal access and individual rights (Lesemann, 1984). The reform of Social Aid breaks with this tradition, and introduces the basic notions of selective benefits, coercion, and individual responsibility. The reform closes all discussion of the broader issues arising from labour market changes and defines the problems of unemployment and poverty in terms of individual deficit and pathology. The individual becomes responsible for his or her inability to overcome wider social and economic changes. The philosophy behind workfare is one which shatters the notion that the State should play an active and positive role in collective provision of basic services and social solidarity, and enshrines the ideology of individualism. The transition to workfare has coincided with an important social and economic change — the exclusion of growing parts of the population from participation in stable, paid employment. In a capitalist society, however, wage labour remains the principal mechanism of economic survival and distribution of income. If workfare in various forms continues to expand in terms of numbers of participants and the scope of services provided, the very nature of the society will be transformed. A large surplus population will be put at the disposal of the state, the community, and the private sector as very cheap labour. The change from welfare to workfare may be heralding an era of profound social change and inequality.

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'It's Not a Walk in the Park': Workfare in Ontario Ernie S. Lightman

uring the televised leaders' debate that preceded the 1995 Ontario provincial election, Conservative party leader Mike D Harris promised to give people on social assistance "a hand-up

rather than a hand-out." In her presentation, Liberal leader Lyn McLeod made the same promise, using the identical words. Undoubtedly NDP Premier Bob Rae would have joined in with the same phrase as well, except that voters might have construed his words as constituting a campaign promise — and campaign promises were singularly absent from the government's reelection strategy. That single phrase —"a hand-up rather than a hand-out" — represented perhaps the ideal slogan in an era of televised election campaigns and thirty second media 'bites'. Essentially devoid of any particular meaning, the phrase could be all things to all voters — positive, nurturing and supportive to those of liberal inclination, but at the same time, forceful and assertive to those of a more authoritarian bent. A bit like "tough love," perhaps. This chapter explores how the issue of workfare came to dominate the 1995 provincial election in Ontario, and how it snatched victory from the jaws of almost certain defeat for the Conservative party. It will then trace some of the inordinate difficulties experienced by the Tories after the election as they attempted to carry through on their central campaign promise. More like clowns in a circus than an informed team with a rational process of policy development, the government stumbled from option to option in its attempts to produce a viable program. 'Workfare' as promised, they quickly discovered, was

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fundamentally at odds with the even greater political imperative of cutting short-term government spending. Before examining workfare under the Conservatives, however, earlier attempts at welfare reform in Ontario will be briefly considered. Welfare Reform Under the Liberals and NDP Undoubtedly the landmark document dealing with welfare reform in Ontario, if not in Canada as a whole, was Transitions, the 1988 Report of the Social Assistance Review Committee (SARC). Initiated under the Liberal government of David Peterson, and strongly supported by the Minister of Community and Social Services, John Sweeney, Transitions was a massive 600 page document containing 274 recommendations, the first-ever comprehensive review of social assistance in Ontario. The tone of the Report was positive, stressing the need to assist people "in the transition from lives of dependence to lives of autonomy." On this general direction, there was unanimity among the twelve lay members appointed by the government, who actually constituted the review committee itself: among the very few troubling issues, interestingly, was the question of a work requirement for able-bodied recipients. SARC ultimately skirted the issue by talking of work "expectations" rather than work "requirements," and by asserting that the vast majority of recipients would respond to positive incentives and opportunities without the need for coercion. When the research for SARC was begun, there was a sense of optimism surrounding the project, as the economy was still thought to be in good shape. By the time the report was tabled however (1988), dark clouds were on the economic horizon. The thrust of the Report, particularly its focus on assisting people to escape from lives on welfare, nevertheless commanded wide support in the community. Investment in people on social assistance today, it was believed, would lead to returns and cost savings in the future. A decision was made by a number of individuals and groups in the community to concentrate on implementation of the Phase I recommendations. Central among these was the call for a substantial increase in social assistance rates.

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A community-based campaign was launched, funded in large part by the Laidlaw Foundation and endorsed by community leaders, including many in the business world (Wharf, 1992; Tuohy, 1992). The provincial treasurer, Robert Nixon, was reportedly opposed to moving on the welfare increase, viewing welfare as a 'black hole' into which money was poured with no likelihood of a return. However, the community campaign and the support of others in the Cabinet, including the Premier, ultimately triumphed, and welfare rates were substantially increased in the 1989 budget. This rise later provided fodder for Mike Harris in the campaign of 1995. Under the New Democratic Party, there was tremendous process around the issue of welfare reform, but little substance. An implementation working group, originally appointed by the Liberals, was continued under the NDP, and issued two reports (Ontario, 1991; Ontario, 1992). The second of these was entitled Time for Action, which essentially summarized the group's perspective. There was wide consultation of a sort under the NDP, but also a sense that no one in government — either political or senior bureaucratic — was really listening. After the first mildly expansionary budget of 1991, the NDP embraced fiscal conservatism for the remainder of its term (Walkom, 1995). The welfare caseload also steadily rose, reaching 12 per cent of the provincial population in 1993. (Brown: 60). The unemployment rate remained troublingly high, above 9 per cent, throughout this period. Many members of the government, and even more among their political staff, were aware of the realities of the life on welfare: they knew, often from their own prior work experience in social services, that investment was necessary to facilitate peoples' independence from welfare, that incentives were preferable to and more effective than coercion, and that children were the ultimate victims of life on welfare. Nevertheless, they were even more concerned with the increasing public perception of the government as being 'soft' on idlers, of the political unacceptability of increased government expenditure—even as short-term investment—and of the growing backlash against spiralling welfare costs. These costs rose in

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response to growing unemployment resulting from global economic restructuring and the loss of jobs under free trade, as well as tightened eligibility for unemployment insurance (which forced people onto welfare more quickly). The opposition parties, however, were able to argue effectively that the real culprit was welfare rates that were too high (and hence served as a disincentive to work). But it was not simply a question of a well-meaning NDP government whose hands were tied by forces beyond their control, by the ogres of Wall Street capitalism. Some on the inside of the NDP personally believed that too many people were unnecessarily using and abusing welfare, and that toughening of the system was required and appropriate. As the 1995 election approached and the defeat of the government became increasingly probable, the tensions within the NDP became exacerbated. An earlier government promise to "scrap the welfare system as we know it" came to naught. A proposal was put before the Cabinet to cut welfare rates by 10 per cent, but was not acted upon. Some advisors called on the government to do something—anything—to take the political heat off the welfare issue, while others were unwilling to subscribe to what they saw as the agenda of the right. No one was arguing for expansion of the system by this time, but merely whether to stand pat or cut back. The fundamental internal inconsistency of the NDP's approach is perhaps epitomized by a flyer circulated by the Minister of Community and Social Services within his own largely immigrant constituency announcing a public meeting to discuss the problem of illegal immigrants claiming welfare. The backlash was becoming mainstream. The 1995 Election In the spring of 1995, the opposition parties staked out their turf as the fight for political succession began in earnest. The Ontario Liberal party, far ahead in the polls and cognizant of the success of Jean Chretien's Red Book in the last federal election, came out with their own 'Red Book' for the provincial campaign (Ontario Liberal Party, 1995). It was, however, heavy, turgid, and convoluted. The Conservatives' Common Sense Revolution (Ontario

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PC Party, 1995) was clear, simple, and, some might even argue, simple-minded. The cover had a photograph of a smiling Mike Harris in a leather jacket, looking more like a model touting cheap clothing than a Premier-in-waiting. But, it was the ideal document for the times: no complexity and utterly indifferent to its own internal contradictions. It was a clear play for the substantial Ontario vote that had gone to the federal Reform party, and, in March, was even endorsed by Preston Manning himself (Papp, 1995). The NDP said little of substance before the campaign (or during it, for that matter), afraid of reminding the public of the government's record of broken promises, and preferring instead to stress good management and competent administration. The Red Book made the rather unsurprising promise (16) that, "A Liberal government will focus welfare reform on getting people back to work." The discussion stressed the need to give people choices and emphasized the belief that "people who are unemployed will almost always choose to upgrade their skills and to work, if given a chance and the proper support" (16). People who are able but refuse to participate in work or training programs were to be given only a "basic allowance that reflects the national average and is less than the current allowance" (16). The entire discussion occupied less than two pages in the 82page Liberal election manifesto and was undoubtedly intended as a non-controversial element in the platform. The tone was highly reminiscent of Transitions, using virtually the same language, and the ideas on welfare reform in the Red Book appeared to have been lifted from the earlier report without much thought or updating: there was little that was new. Indeed the Liberal proposals appeared to reflect the overconfident posturings of a party seemingly assured of victory, that felt no need to set out a specific agenda for the voters. The Common Sense Revolution, by contrast, was only 21 pages in total length, with far less text, and a focus restricted to a few, manageable issues. The Tories promised (9) that their overall plan "will generate hundreds of thousands of (real jobs)," but, in the interim, "we must move to control costs and help people return to the workforce." Welfare rates, except for

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seniors and disabled persons, would be cut by about 25 per cent, to a level 10 per cent above the national average. There was a commitment to invest $500 million in "new and innovative programs"—'workfare' and 'learnfare'—to link welfare with work and education. They then took the plunge (9) and called for classic workfare: We should prepare welfare recipients to return to the workforce by requiring all able-bodied recipients—with the exception of single parents with young children— either to work, or to be retrained in return for their benefits, (emphasis in the original) There was then a reference to asking "charitable groups and other community organizations" to help explore how "this vision could be realized." Finally, they asserted that "(p)lacement opportunities would match employment interests as much as possible." In retrospect, it is not difficult to interpret the differences in the platforms: the Tories, tough and straightforward, talking of "requirements" for "welfare" and "workfare (that) only works if it's mandatory" (Walker, 1995a) in contrast to the Liberals, soft and somewhat vague, focused on "expectations," choices and opportunities in "social assistance."1 Indeed, the Conservatives quickly went further than their manifesto (which was silent on the issue) when Harris announced that those who failed to participate in approved activities would be cut off assistance outright (Wright, 1995). But it was not simply a question of lean mean 1990s Tory politics versus some laid back Liberal remnant from the sixties (or the eighties). Harris was quickly able to paint the Liberals as mean and uncaring while he was the epitome of concern and family values: The Common Sense Revolution contained an explicit exemption from workfare for single parents with children three years of age or less, while the authors of the Liberal Red Book had not considered the issue: rather than match the Conservatives, Liberal leader McLeod was put in the position of defending work expectations for single mothers with tiny chil-

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dren. ("They can bring them along to their volunteer jobs:" Toughill, 1995a.) Harris repeatedly emphasized his party's compassion and concern for vulnerable single mothers in contrast to the heartlessness of the Liberals. Indeed, most of the language in the Conservative manifesto was sufficiently vague that, when desired, Harris could portray himself as caring and not merely tough: the reference to a "hand up, not a hand-out" actually first appeared in the Common Sense Revolution, and was later copied by the Liberals as they tried to move their platform to the right. The two parties' approach to cost was also rather interesting. A costing of the election promises at the end of the Red Book identified year one savings of $ 150 million due to the elimination of welfare fraud and more in subsequent years, supplemented by the savings that would follow from the return of 35,000 welfare recipients to the paid workforce. Fraud was not discussed in the text of the Red Book, and the number 35,000 was seemingly drawn ex nihilo. The Common Sense Revolution, by contrast, did not directly cost its workfare proposals. It did discuss welfare fraud, however, and argued (11) that, "improved management techniques, stricter eligibility requirements and fraud reduction" would save $500 million over two years. However, having referred to the need to directly control welfare costs, the document did recognize "there are no short-term cost savings" in workfare, but did claim that savings would accrue in the future. The Tories did correctly note that it was the reduction in welfare rates and in welfare caseload that would save the money, and not workfare per se. To the extent that workfare requirements would reduce caseloads by shaking out the supposedly ineligible who were so central to Conservative mythology, overall costs would decrease. In any case, by lumping all welfare issues together, the Tories hoped to leave the impression in the minds of not-too-careful voters that workfare itself would lower costs. As the election campaign progressed, the Tories were both more explicit and simultaneously more vague—tougher and more caring—in their workfare agenda. In a party press release dated May 10, (PC Party, Press Release, May 10, 1995) Harris stated, "the test of a compassionate government is how it treats its citizens most in need." He announced a "First Step" plan for

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children which was to include community nutrition programs and 'homework assistance centres;' for seniors and the disabled there was to be a Guaranteed Support Program (GSP) to protect their benefits "at current levels with no participatory requirements." Clearly, the Conservatives were intending to reaffirm the old Poor Law distinction between deserving and undeserving poor, with this document disposing of the former group; interestingly, single parents with children of any age were not included. The next day another press release (PC Party, press release, May 11, 1995) was entitled "The Harris Program Is Mandatory Workfare." Named Ontario WORKS, the eight-point plan was tough and comprehensive: • mandatory participation; • re-orientation of welfare centres towards connecting recipients with work or training placements; • participation by business in sponsoring placements; • participation by municipalities, volunteer and service groups, unions and non-profit organizations in sponsoring placements; • matching people with skills,...basic literacy,... counselling, resume development,...academic upgrading, and marketable skills delivered at the community level; •creating a province-wide placement database; • expanded child-care availability; • ...support for additional innovative programs. These eight points provide a useful checklist against which to assess the government's ultimate policy, along with a background document which stated that, "care will be taken to ensure workfare will not eliminate existing jobs." But the double message was clearly having its effect. At a round-table discussion at the YWCA in Hamilton, the Toronto Star reported that, "a group of unemployed single mothers...was impressed with his campaign focus on getting people back to

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work" (Wright, 1995a). Harris continued his travels around Ontario, highlighting various parts of the workfare agenda (Wright, 1995b, Lakey, 1995a). By this point, the Conservative position was that welfare recipients would be required to plant trees and patrol school yards and parks (Wright, 1995a) or work as seasonal labourers on farms (Lakey, 1995b). A couple of days later in Kincardine, Harris noted that many people on assistance had specific skills, and promised that the workfare placements for many recipients would consist of providing instruction or training for other recipients' learnfare programs (Lakey, 1995b). To prepare claimants to serve as childcare workers, Harris talked of counselling, training, upgrading and aptitudes — one of the very few occasions on which he used this type of language. It was here in Kincardine that Harris presented perhaps the single most graphic visual image of the campaign. An official road sign on the outskirts of town was altered to read "Welfare, Ontario, population 1,337,617" reflecting the total number of Ontarians on assistance (40 per cent of whom were children). A Harris government will ensure that those good people who are trapped in Welfare, Ontario, will be given an opportunity to make the move to Opportunity, Ontario....(Lakey, 1995b) This photograph was used repeatedly in succeeding days as the media zeroed in on welfare reform, the central and, by now, perhaps the single issue of the campaign. Though Harris always paid lip service to the basic humanity of his plan to help people dependent on the state, the subtext of his message was far more insidious. The image of a welfare mother (by now defined as part of the undeserving poor) idly sitting home, drinking beer and watching television all day—an image first introduced into the political discourse by Prime Minister Chretien in the last federal election—had clearly caught on in Ontario. The working class voters of the suburbs, tired of duplicitous politicians, embraced Harris' simple and straightforward message; weary of high tax levels and declining services, they welcomed his promise to 'clean up' the system; insecure about their own future prospects, and those of their children, in an economic 'recovery' devoid of employment growth, they looked for scapegoats—and who

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could be more culpable than the indolent welfare mother down the street. Everyone claimed to know someone who knew someone who was cheating on welfare — though few could name names — but the high levels of welfare use became prima facie evidence, not of a deteriorating economy, but rather of welfare abuse. As the prospect of a Tory victory became more real, Harris came under increasing media pressure to explain his ambiguous workfare plans. At Toronto's Skydome (Wright, 1995b), he admitted the workfare program might require more bureaucrats ("We're in uncharted waters here..."), and backtracked on a previous position that he would require women on welfare to babysit the children of other women on welfare, instead asserting they should have access to formal child-care training. It was not only Harris who played the workfare card. Cam Jackson, MPP for the wealthy community of Burlington South, Tory critic for the social services ministry, and one of the authors of the workfare plan, also spoke out on the issue. On a radio phone-in show on May 25 (CFRB, 1995), Jackson added a new dimension to the workfare strategy when he assured a caller that all workplace protections — including minimum wage — would be provided to workfare recipients. At this point the other guest on the radio show, who was opposed to workfare, asserted that if Jackson meant what he said, everyone could just go home. By June 3, Jackson had upped the potential savings from fraud reduction to the $800 million to $1 billion level (Walker, 1995b); the sky, it seemed, was the limit when an election victory was in the offing. The Morning After Immediately after the election, Harris' principal secretary David Lindsay announced that the cut in welfare rates would be the new government's first priority. The premier-elect indicated that it was necessary to "achieve savings before we can make workfare truly meaningful." (Brennan, 1995) From that point onwards, the focus of the new government was on cutting assistance levels and tightening eligibility: workfare was always on the table, as the centrepiece of the successful election strategy, but little of substance emerged. On

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June 12, Harris announced that "full-fledged workfare" (now defined as participation in manual labour or training programs under penalty of 100 per cent benefit loss) "was still some time off." (Walker, 1995c) The transition team, and later the cabinet, retreated into their bunkers, unable or unwilling to discuss workfare. On June 26, the day the Cabinet was announced, the CBC national television news had a debate on workfare, but announced that neither Harris, nor his advisors, nor any politicians were prepared to appear. Jackson made it into the Cabinet, barely, but was denied the Community and Social Services portfolio; Harris, it seemed, was choosing his ministers on the basis of their unquestioning personal loyalty to him and their readiness to do as they were told. Competence, as later events showed in a variety of ministries, was apparently not a criterion for elevation to the Cabinet. The political policy staff were few in number, apparently because the answers were all set out in the Common Sense Revolution and the need was to implement policy rather than to develop it; these staff were also seemingly chosen because of their prior ignorance of the substantive areas of responsibility. Too much knowledge, as Harris was reported to have said, will only complicate the mission. The new minister of Community and Social Services, David Tsubouchi, a lawyer and former councillor in the town of Markham, had no particular prior familiarity with social services, but promised to revise welfare "in a sympathetic way" (Toughill, 1995b). The Emerging Confusion On July 21, 1995, the Premier and finance minister announced a 21.6 per cent cut in welfare rates, for a total of $1.9 billion in projected annualized savings (Ontario Government, 1995). Presented as an emergency response to a fiscal crisis, the statement also cut a variety of other initiatives and promised new measures to tighten welfare eligibility and reduce fraud for projected savings of up to $15 million, a far cry from the pre-election promises of both parties. Perhaps significantly, no mention was made of workfare, even in the general introductory and closing comments.

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Through the summer of 1995, the minister and his staff were not accessible to either the press or the public. Relations between the political staff and bureaucracy within the ministry were more tense than would be normal with a new government. Public service staff familiar with welfare were shifted aside, on the assumption that they would likely be too soft and too 'proclient'; new bureaucratic staff were brought in. The political staff were profoundly ignorant of the workings of the ministry and, not trusting the bureaucracy, had little means (or perhaps little inclination) to learn. The government was slowly recognizing that the politically popular perception that welfare would be intuitively easy to reform was quite incompatible with a very complex reality; had welfare been easy to reform, both the NDP and the Liberals before them, would have acted. Finally, in mid-September, Tsubouchi emerged to give an exclusive interview on workfare to the Toronto Star (Toughill, 1995c): This was the new government's (or perhaps merely the minister's) first elaboration of its plans for workfare. He said that workfare would involve an intensive form of training and might not include any menial labour at all: I'm a lot more sympathetic to people on social assistance than I was when I started, ...It's not a walk in the park on a nice day.... I haven't been talking a lot about sweeping the streets or raking the leaves.... When I refer to the dignity of a job, that's what I mean, the dignity of a real job. The reporter noted that Tsubouchi referred twice to Prime Minister Chretien's remarks about the "dignity of a job," but did not refer once to the Common Sense Revolution. Four specific types of 'workfare' were envisaged by the minister: • a program to help recipients become entrepreneurs (estimated as suitable for 10 per cent of probable workfare participants); • "job clubs" offering support, counselling and placement for those needing little help to re-enter the workforce (30 per cent of participants); • more structured programs, including aids in resume writing,

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handling an interview, and training for specific types of employment (another 30 per cent of participants); • intensive programs with special training for the remaining 30 per cent who are almost unemployable. At a cabinet retreat in Kitchener a couple of days later, both Harris and Tsubouchi insisted the government was not backing away from its promise to require work from welfare recipients, but agreed that education or training may replace menial labour (Toughill, 1995d). Tsubouchi's interview with the Toronto Star evoked much short-term reaction, both in the community and within the government. Welfare advocates cautiously hoped that perhaps reality had entered the minister's office, that the demands of actually governing might be moving the Tories back a bit towards the political centre, and that in fact there was much to commend in the minister's ideas. Word got around, however, that political staff within government and their more ideologically committed supporters outside of government were appalled and profoundly outraged at the prospect of Tsubouchi going 'soft.' People in this camp saw workfare as inherently punitive; for them one of its essential functions was to punish persons for being dependent on the state. Tsubouchi's supportive proposals were fundamentally incompatible with this stance, and although the minister never formally disowned this interview, he never again made public statements of this nature. Through the autumn and winter 1995-96, there was much speculation, but little hard information, about the government's workfare plans. Many organizations, ranging from the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association (OMSSA, 1995) to the Ontario Association of Social Workers (OASW, 1995) prepared their own position papers on workfare assuming that, as in previous times, these could serve as input into the overall decision-making process. Many of the documents prepared were thoughtful, and clearly indicated a readiness to lend professional expertise and work with the new government on its own terms, to help develop the best program possible. From the government's perspective, however, these groups were seen as "special interests" and thus to be marginalized and excluded. In some

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cases, receipt of materials was not even acknowledged with the perfunctory form letters which ministers traditionally send out to the public. Both the press and the government itself looked elsewhere to see the experience in other parts of Canada and in the United States. The NB Works program, which had been praised before the election, was quickly dropped as a model both because of its high cost and because it was in fact a voluntary program. Reporters were sent to the U.S.—to California, Wisconsin, and Detroit among others—to see what they could learn (Goar, 1995). A Town Hall Forum in Toronto brought in speakers from Quebec and from the Manpower Development Research Corporation (MDRC), the U.S. agency that was evaluating most of the American workfare experiments. A secret full-day workshop was held within the Ministry, attended by the minister, and addressed by another representative of the MDRC and also by Professor Lawrence Mead, a welfare economist from Princeton who was known for his sympathies to coercive welfare. Community agencies and municipalities sought a public forum for presently-existing voluntary initiatives that they argued were more successful and less costly than what the government apparently sought (Small, 1995; Monsebraaten, 1995a; Philp, 1995a). Academic work looked at other experiences (Evans, 1995; CD Howe, 1995). There were perhaps four general conclusions of relevance to Ontario that could be drawn from the experience elsewhere: • The definition of "success" in a workfare program is highly problematic. "Success" can range from completed training and/or permanent employment through to short-term cost savings resulting from reduced caseloads (viewing workfare as a screening mechanism, a form of tightened eligibility). • There were a vast array of programs packaged under the label of "workfare." Many, including virtually all the successful ones, were voluntary and non-coercive. • The likelihood of "success" was considerably higher in areas of rapid economic growth and low unemployment (such as southern California or Massachusetts). Programs in areas of

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economic stagnation and high unemployment, such as West Virginia, were inevitably failures. • Programs that had any chance of success were inevitably costly. The American initiatives in particular recognized that spending on child care,2 transportation, and intensive training (both of the substantive and the job-readiness varieties) were essential. The visitors from the United States emphasized that programs in that country were directed towards equipping recipients for lives independent of welfare, and that unless money was spent, workfare programs would be ineffective and irrelevant. During this period, the minister, backed by his political staff, was preoccupied with the bad marketing of the earlier welfare cuts. Approximately 100,000 people with disabilities were completely cut off welfare, whether by error or deliberately, but the minister, who claimed to know nothing of the regulation he had signed himself, reversed the decision when it became public, before anyone was actually terminated. Ridicule of the minister reached its high point when he released a sample budget, apparently drawn up by a volunteer in his constituency office, which purported to show how a single person could survive on $92 a month for food and all other essentials. The minister and his staff did not know when to cut their losses and aggravated the derision he faced by suggesting welfare recipients bargain at their local supermarkets and shop around for cans of dented tuna. The image of the minister, surrounded by dented cans of tuna, was a serious blow to his already tenuous credibility, certain to follow him for the rest of his political career. The government was aggressively seeking a way out of the corner into which it had painted itself. Secret and public (Philp, 1996) meetings were held with business leaders to seek their support in implementing workfare: while there was some modest readiness by business to accept voluntary 'trainees' to aid the government in its grand struggle, unwilling participants were not particularly welcome. Concerns were expressed about supervision/policing, adverse public reaction, and legal liability (including workers' compensation). It began to appear that the

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business sector would not have a central role in the workfare agenda. By now the term "workfare" was no longer being used by the government, but instead the initiative was called "work-forwelfare." The change was intended to reflect the new goal, which was now merely the avoidance of idleness on the part of welfare recipients. As most training programs across Ontario had either been terminated, or were at risk, and education cuts were resulting in program closures, the government was no longer talking of "learnfare" or anything else that might sound like investment in people. A key speech was scheduled for the minister to deliver to the London Chamber of Commerce, though his staff at Queen's Park claimed not to know where he was. Though the speech itself was not delivered as planned, its contents were leaked to the press (Philp, 1995b) and not subsequently denied. The government was intending to set up a new agency to provide welfare recipients for service clubs and others who might want their free labour—for example, to build a hockey rink or baseball field. A Kiwanis or Rotary club might buy the materials and then the workfare team would do the construction. The names apparently were to be drawn off a list at random and if the recipients did not show up they would be thrown off welfare. The government was very concerned that these placement offices not be seen as comparable to federal manpower offices, as no assistance, support or training was to be provided: the sole function would be to assign names to tasks. The Conservatives had pulled back a long way from their earlier promises of offering hand-ups to people on assistance. Not surprisingly, service clubs were not interested in the role envisaged for them by the province. No one seemed to believe that service clubs, under any scenario, could make more than a modest dent in the overall workfare caseload. Some clubs indicated they would be happy to provide funds for community projects, but had no interest in supervising unwilling workers. Issues of legal liability and coverage under workers' compensation were also raised, but the fundamental objections appeared to be philosophical rather than financial, ("...the proposal may not be in the best interest of the service-club movement and...volunteerism

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in general," said one press release) (Mittelstadt, 1995). The premier indicated that a number of service clubs had expressed readiness to participate, but he was unwilling to give names. "If... every service club says no, then the answer from them will be no," Harris said (Toughill and Monsebraaten, 1995). A follow-up story in January in the Globe and Mail (Philp, 1996) reported that none of the service clubs originally interviewed had heard further from the province on the matter; indeed, one service club administrator even said that neither the premier's office nor that of the minister had deigned to return phone calls for over two months. In December 1995, Tsubouchi spoke at a workfare conference in Kitchener. At this point, he said workfare would entail one of two options: training, though there would be no money for this; and community work. His focus now seemed to have shifted from service agencies to social housing projects and community agencies who received money from government and thus could be required to participate in workfare as a condition of continued funding (Monsebraaten, 1995b). A meeting with a variety of community agencies was held by ministry bureaucratic staff on December 1. They sought "informal feedback regarding the challenges and opportunities related to design issues and the implementation" of work-for-welfare. The meeting, according to one person present, was less than amicable. Many of the agencies present wanted a role in the policy development process, while the civil servants were simply looking for volunteers. There was further contact with voluntary agencies, service clubs and municipalities through the winter months as the government tried to bring them onside. A leaked report in January (Ontario Ministry of Housing, 1996) confirmed the new focus, as Ministry of Housing staff presented a range of workfare options for Ontario Housing Corporation (low income housing) residents. The report, prepared at the request of the Chair of OHC, was decidedly negative about the prospects for successful workfare implementation. Issues of staff resources and supervision, legal liability, access to child care, the need for lifeskills training for many, and the reluctance of numerous residents "to engage in what are seen as

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deadend activities" (9) were all cited. A list of possible activities was part of the report and included safety patrols, providing day care or supervision of children (apparently without any checks as to suitability of the potential supervisors), assisting physically or mentally challenged tenants (again without apparent concern about suitability), grounds maintenance, painting, and clerical work. The attraction of this approach to the government was obvious: not only are the likely participants doubly damned in the eyes of the radical right, because they are both on welfare and living in public housing, but also few of the Conservatives' supporters will particularly care what happens to them or their children. Additionally, the model facilitates the laying off of permanent OHC staff and a probable serious blow to the union. The Announcement On June 12, the government finally announced its workfare plan (Toughill, 1996b; Mittelstadt, 1996); there were no surprises as full details had previously been leaked in a Toronto Star frontpage story in April (Toughill, 1996a). Twenty municipalities were chosen to run pilot programs for able-bodied employables without children and under the age of 65 (i.e., single parents with small children were to be exempt initially). Participants would be required to work on "community improvement" projects to be run by the municipalities, with failure to participate resulting in the termination of welfare benefits. Maximum hours in workfare would be 17 per week, a figure reached by dividing the maximum welfare cheque by the Ontario minimum wage rate; though many recipients receive far smaller amounts of support, they might still be expected to work the 17 hours. For those not in the community projects, local employment agencies could be utilized to find paying jobs with the agencies' compensation contingent on the work lasting a given period of time. Coverage of the rest of the welfare population, including single parents with small children, would be phased in gradually. Some Comments Typically it is difficult to interpret government policy-making, as many different forces—political, economic, bureaucratic—come into play. But the Common Sense Revolution is different: at the

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grand policy level, the agenda, as stated by Salutin (1996), "consists of eliminating most of what's been constructed since the Second World War, and replacing it with nothing." At the program level, there is a single operational agenda which is to cut government spending, and a primary means to this end, which is to punish vulnerable persons in Ontario. Though the Common Sense Revolution itself asserted there would be no short-term cost savings from workfare—a point repeated emphatically even by people otherwise sympathetic to the government's agenda—the prospect of cost savings over time is not sufficient. The political imperative to cut spending immediately, to pay for a reduction in provincial taxation and ostensibly balance the budget in five years, takes pre-eminence over all other goals. At a time of widespread cutbacks to the services and programs valued by Ontario's middle class, it would be politically difficult for this government to defend spending, for whatever purpose, on welfare recipients when there is no immediate offsetting savings. Compounding the government's dilemmas are its increasingly strained relations with the bureaucracy. It is currently neither expected nor desired that public servants express their views on government policy, or its probable impact, a situation which explains in part the minister's continued stumbling and image of incompetence. Fearful for their own jobs, bureaucratic staff were known to "hang a low profile" and "speak only when spoken to." The political staff have been described as "a cross between moonies and scientologists," the point being their narrowness of vision, their readiness to carry out instructions without question, and their unwillingness or inability to master the complexities associated with the ministry of community and social services. Across the government, the bureaucrats blame the political staff for their heavy-handed and simplistic approach to policy-making, the political staff blame the bureaucrats for undermining the government's agenda and each other. One political staff person specifically brought in to implement the workfare program was removed in January (Philp, 1996) for failure to deliver. All the ministry seemed capable of doing was to hire an image consultant whose job it would be to sell the

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workfare program (Philp, 1996). When paranoia sets in to a minister's office, paralysis in decision-making is rarely far behind. The government continues to believe in a large "phantom" caseload that has not previously been "shaken out" of the system by other changes in eligibility conditions, such as the requirement to pick up cheques in person, or by the so-called "snitch hot-line" which never seemed to catch anyone. Many difficult issues remain to be resolved as the workfare initiative evolves in practice: • Are the participants to be viewed as employees or volunteers? The government was quite concerned to not use terms such as "work" or "employee," lest the participants be seen as employees with all the associated rights, including coverage for workers' compensation and potentially the right to unionize. Nevertheless, labour boards tend to examine what people do and not how they are labelled, and there is compelling evidence that the participants will be "working" rather than "volunteering" or "participating." This issue will undoubtedly be resolved before the Ontario Labour Relations Board or through the courts. • What are the expectations to be placed on participants in a program? The government, in effect, is privatizing access to welfare as persons not accountable to the Ontario government will decide whether individuals are performing their tasks adequately (and remain on welfare) or whether they are not up-to-standard (and hence should be terminated). The opportunities for coercion are massive: a supervisor, for example, could demand sexual favours from a participant under threat, in effect, of terminating access to welfare. Although the provincial government has drafted guidelines for the application of Ontario Works which include references to both internal and Social Assistance Review Board (SARB) appeals, there has been no attention to procedures (such as longitudinal studies) for evaluating the program or assessing its results. Furthermore SARB, the appeal body for welfare recipients, has been weakened by the recent appointments of common-sense revolutionaries.

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• What is to be the actual extent and quality of involvement by voluntary groups, municipalities and business? Several municipalities including Kingston and Windsor voted against participation in workfare, and large municipalities such as Metro Toronto and Ottawa-Carleton were not included in the pilot project phase. The Globe and Mail (Mittelstadt, 1996) cited one source describing the coverage: "it sounds like Peel and cow-pasture Ontario." The largest portion of the welfare caseload in Ontario was excluded from the first phase of the initiative and it remains totally unclear how the micro level projects envisaged for small communities could be blown up to cover Metro Toronto with its huge and difficult caseload. Furthermore, though the province offered a funding formula to cover 80 per cent of municipal overhead costs, there was little faith that the money would be forthcoming on a continuing basis: the government's record of offloading to the municipalities in other areas was likely to be repeated. There was no identified role for business in the first phase and much controversy over the voluntary sector. The 175,000 member Ontario chapter of CUPE (the Canadian Union of Public Employees) sought to punish agencies that participated in workfare by denying them access to United Way funding: CUPE threatened to boycott any United Way campaign that continued to fund any recipient agency participating in workfare, and the initial responses from the various United Ways were mixed (Toughill, 1996c). Most voluntary agencies, in any case, would be reluctant to participate in a mandatory program that contained no training component. • What would be the impact on people currently with jobs3 (both possible job losses and the readiness of paid employees to work alongside conscripted labour)? In an April interview (Toughill, 1996a) the minister stressed that the purpose of workfare was not to take real jobs away from people currently working. "That would be silly," he said. Yet, as the program evolved, it is clear that a central goal is the replacement of paid employees (both current and potential future) with free labour (Walkom, 1996). The absence of training,

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skills development and job counselling (though promised in the April news leak: Toughill, 1996a) make clear that workfare is not a way back into paid employment, a step to something better, but rather is only a dead-end avenue in which manual labour will be provided on an ongoing basis in exchange for the welfare cheque. (The minister talked of opportunities to "network" [Mittelstadt, 1996a] while on workfare but it's hard to envisage with whom one would network while clearing brush in the forest....) • How is the public to be protected? The government has talked at different times of using workfare participants in child care centres, in seniors' homes or to assist persons with disabilities. There has been no recognition of the need to protect these vulnerable persons against strangers who may pose a potential threat to them. • The current provincial government has not resolved the critical issue of child care, either in general or for the particular purposes of workfare. The vital issues of training support required by much of the caseload, and who will pay for training, have also been completely neglected. In Short

Whatever the final form of workfare in Ontario, it is not likely to succeed in doing more than creating obligatory tasks for a small number of those dependent on social assistance. The recipients' needs for training and job search supports are excluded from the current plans. But if workfare in Ontario does succeed in reducing the welfare caseload, no matter what the reasons or consequences, the Conservatives will deem the initiative a success within their own terms of reference. Gone are the promises from The Common Sense Revolution to offer a "handup rather than a hand-out"; to match placements with employment interests (9); to ensure child care; to provide "learnfare," skills development and other training opportunities that might lead ultimately to real and lasting independence from welfare. The plans for workfare in Ontario have been shaped entirely by a right-wing ideological agenda, in which even the formal

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commitment to deficit reduction is contradicted by the plans for tax cuts for the rich. In this political scenario workfare is simply one part of a broader political strategy to dismantle government, resulting in the elimination of public responsibility for social services, relentless downward pressure on the wages and employment rights of those still working for wages, and victimization of those sectors of society unfortunate enough to depend on social assistance for economic survival. Any concept of the public obligation to assist those dependent on welfare in making the transition to socially useful and economically beneficial employment has simply disappeared from the Conservative agenda. The approach is reminiscent of nothing so much as the work-relief programs of the 1930s, an era to which the Conservative government so enthusiastically seeks to return Ontario. Notes 1

Note that the Conservatives referred to "welfare" while the Liberals preferred the more correct, but also gentler, label "social assistance." 2 In contrast to Ontario, single mothers with children under the age of six years were exempt in the American programs. 3 "This amounts to a strategy for intimidating everyone who currently has a job," says Salutin (1996).

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Alberta and the Workfare Myth Jonathan Murphy

*TT*he world, according to prevalent Alberta mythology, is like A the famous Marlboro Man commercial. A simple, bold place with boundless horizons. One rugged, tanned, white man with a pack of smokes and a horse. No-one to stand in his way. And noone to pick him up if he falls. In the province's early years, there was some truth in the myth. Until the end of the 1960s, Alberta spent considerably less on social programs than its neighbours. What welfare programs existed were delivered by local municipalities, many of whose elected representatives harbored deep resentment against the poor. In 1966, Edmonton alderman Julia Kiniski told an audience of her peers that welfare families, "multiply like flies," and warned that, "we have to be rude to be kind."1 As the affluent post-war years wore on, Alberta forgot about rugged individualism. Oil spilled out of the ground and money spilled into the pockets of Albertans. Easy money. It was hard to feel like the Marlboro Man when you sat all day pushing paper in a Calgary office tower, knocked off at lunchtime on a Friday to play golf, and pulled down 80 G's a year. It was even hard to be hard-hearted towards the poor. A good chunk of the oil money ended up in the hands of the provincial treasurer. Enough revenue that the province could simultaneously remain free of sales tax, offer the lowest overall corporate and individual taxes in the country, pave roads leading to brand new hospitals in every little town, and build glorious theatres and concert halls in Calgary and Edmonton. Some of the money splashing around seeped into the most unlikely of places. A provincial welfare program was developed,

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albeit half financed with matching federal dollars. Counselling services, low-income housing, programs to combat domestic violence and addictions, and plenty of seniors' drop-in centres. Nothing extravagant; at their peak, welfare benefits were about average for the ten Canadian provinces. But, nonetheless, by the early 1980s Alberta had the beginnings of a modern welfare state. In 1982, the price of oil dropped like a stone, and knocked the bottom out of the Alberta economy. Real estate values plummeted and thousands of families just walked away from their homes. Lots of them didn't stop walking until they'd made it back home to Ontario or Newfoundland. Of the people who stayed, a good number ended up on social assistance. The welfare rolls rose throughout the rest of the 1980s and into the 1990s. In March 1982, 91,700 Albertans were receiving social assistance. Nine years later, there were 156,600.2 Those people came with a price tag. In 1981-1982, the welfare program cost about $260 million. By 1990-1991 that had risen to $700 million. The myth makers It's hard to picture Ralph Klein out on a horse, fending for himself on the short grass prairie. In earlier years he was more famous for soaking in the grubby conviviality of a small barroom on the fraying edge of downtown Calgary. But that's exactly the kind of place where the greatest yarns are told. In December 1992, after a successful run as Calgary mayor and a brief apprenticeship as Environment Minister, Klein was elected leader of Alberta's Conservatives and thus premier. He faced enormous political difficulties. His party was tired and unpopular, the opposition Liberals well-organized and hungry for power. Oil wealth had been squandered on a series of dubious investments, and the annual provincial deficit was running at three billion dollars. Few commentators believed the government could be re-elected. But it was, and by late 1995, several books and countless newspaper and magazine articles had already been written about the Klein phenomenon. Alberta's successes were trumpeted as an example on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. Yet no-one has been able to define the philosophy or

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principles motivating the premier. He just tells the predominant myths of the day in the form of intoxicatingly persuasive yarns. And a prominent thread in these yarns is the old myth of rugged individualism. Klein appointed Mike Cardinal his minister of social services. Cardinal, an Indian from the northern bush, is someone whose life perfectly captured the myth that anyone can succeed with enough hard work and determination. He started with nothing, and to his credit, has become a "success." Cardinal bucked welfare dependency in his home village of Calling Lake, worked for several years in a sawmill (where he lost two of his fingers), and scrambled his way into a series of minor functionary positions with the Alberta government. Eventually, he was elected a councillor in the northern town of Slave Lake, and shortly afterwards won a Tory nomination in the Athabasca constituency and was elected to the provincial legislature.3 Cardinal was the ideal person to implement a "tough love" policy towards welfare recipients. Not only did he have the moral authority borne of personal experience, he also firmly believed that welfare had damaged the way of life and selfrespect of his fellow Native people: "Back before 1955, northern Native communities were completely self-sufficient. The standard of living was low but people were happy. There was no welfare system, alcoholism was almost unheard of and not a single woman in my community even smoked. Then welfare was introduced into those communities, and within 18 to 20 years people became dependent on welfare—it was devastating."4 In Cardinal's mind, a carrot and a stick approach was needed to break the cycle of welfare dependency. The carrot was employment and training opportunities, the stick was lower welfare rates and harsher application of the rules. Even before the federal government signalled its intention to end the Canada Assistance Plan Act and permit mandatory workfare schemes, Cardinal warned, "If they don't take part in the [works] program, unless there is a better alternative or good reason why they're not, then people should lose their benefits."5

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The Carrots Cardinal launched his first round of reforms in April 1993, two months before the provincial election. Their timing and content reflected the Klein government's confidence that no matter how controversial their overall plans to balance the budget might be, putting work into the welfare programs would be popular. The new employment programs were neither particularly punitive, nor especially innovative. Grant programs allowing government departments and non-profit organizations to hire unemployed workers on short term projects had been around for many years. While some of Cardinal's programs had new acronyms, the basic model was unchanged. And despite the frequently harsh words of Alberta government officials and politicians, by late 1995, none of the programs fit a classic definition of "workfare."6 The largest of the work initiatives, called Alberta Community Employment (ACE) offers short-term, largely minimum-wage jobs with municipalities, social agencies and Indian bands. In 1993-1994, $4.3 million was allocated to ACE, rising to $10 million the next year, and a projected $16.8 million in 19951996. Between July 1993 and August 1995, 6,194 positions were created.7 The Employment Skills Program (ESP) pays participants $6 per hour to work within the provincial government and its agencies. It has been in operation for a number of years, and between April 1993 and August 1995, 2,710 positions were created at a cost of $14 million, with $6.2 million planned for 1995-1996. The Alberta Job Corps was originally developed for disadvantaged communities in northern Alberta. Job Corps participants spend several days each week in programs learning life skills and work skills upgrading. During the remainder of the week they are placed in labouring jobs, ranging from brush clearing and tree planting, to painting community facilities. The program is a favourite of the minister, who helped to design it during his days as a bureaucrat. It is less popular with participants, community agency hosts, and employment training professionals. Managed by social services ministry staff rather than career develop-

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ment specialists, the program has been criticized even within government as inefficient and poorly planned, with job placements often of little value in developing useful work skills. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1995, the program was expanded to Edmonton, with a branch scheduled to open later in the year in Calgary. Between March 1993 and August 1995, 1,400 people had been part of the program, at a cost of $7.5 million. The budget for 1995-1996 alone is $8.5 million, suggesting significant expansion. The government claims extraordinarily high rates of success for its job training programs, far higher than achieved in any other job training programs in North America. For example, 73 per cent of Alberta Community Employment participants "no longer depend on welfare one year after completing" the program.8 The Job Corps program did even better, claiming 85 per cent were no longer on welfare a year after completing the program, with an additional 5 per cent working but receiving a supplement. The provincial government has commissioned many evaluations of its work and training programs, but has refused to fully disclose the results of those evaluations. In contrast, American jurisdictions have been experimenting with works programs for a number of years, and have conducted and published extensive evaluation. If success is measured as integrating recipients into the workforce, the best American programs have managed significant, but quite small increases in the proportion of working recipients. Washington D.C.'s non-partisan Urban Institute studied numerous workfare experiments and discovered that: The largest impacts took place in Riverside, California [and] San Diego, which used a similar strategy, ... the best evidence suggests that where cities or counties are willing to implement rigorous programs emphasizing job search and enforcing work requirements, about 5 to 8 percent more recipients will be working and the average earnings of welfare recipients will rise by $500 to $1,000 a year." [author's emphasis]9 The difference, of course, is that Alberta judges its reforms "successful" as long as program recipients do not return to

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welfare. It is very much a moot point whether recipients remain off assistance because of the skills and contacts gained through these programs, or simply because the welfare department makes it very hard to requalify for assistance after going through a program. Despite the claims of success and the high profile given the works programs, they are dwarfed in size by education and training initiatives. In the two years between September 1993 and August 1995, the government boasted that $110.7 million was transferred from the social services ministry to the department of advanced education and career development to cover the costs of welfare recipients' "pre-employment, education, and job training initiatives. More than 22,500 welfare clients have been through the various programs offered by this partnership." Such programs range from one-day seminars with positive thinking guru Tony Robbins to several years of upgrading education to the high school diploma level. Once selected to take part in the programs, recipients must attend, and those dropping out without adequate explanation are struck from the rolls. Students are funded by grants through the Students' Finance Board. These grants are more generous than welfare benefits, which provides an added incentive. However, once additional costs for child care, prescriptions and other medical costs not covered by student grants as well as the purchase of school supplies are taken into account, the incentive can easily shrink to nothing. Recipients taking post-secondary courses, even two-year community college diplomas, are considerably worse off. They were cut off social assistance and had to take out loans to continue their education. Again, few evaluations of the education and training programs have been released. The province decided not to renew Tony Robbins' contract after an external evaluator criticized his program, in which participants chanted slogans including "anything is possible" and "I am responsible for my actions." Of 23 welfare clients who took that course, only "three of them found jobs and got off welfare ...."10 All in all, the department's estimates show that by August 1995, 10,304 adults had participated in the works programs, and 22,500 in the training courses and educational upgrading. It

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is not known how many have been enrolled in more than one program. Thus at most, 32,804 adults have taken part in the programs. If we extend the government's controversial claims of success rates in its works programs to the training and educational upgrading programs, assuming therefore that three-quarters of participating adults no longer required welfare, the rolls could theoretically have been reduced by almost 25,000 adults between 1993 and 1995. However, the adult caseload actually dropped by more than 60,000 over that period. What happened to the other 35,000 men, women, and their children? Poverty activists weren't the only people to ask that question. Two University of Calgary economists, funded by the Donner Canadian Foundation to review the impact of Alberta's expenditure cuts, cited the failure to track the circumstances of former welfare recipients as the major weakness in Alberta government policy.11 Even the province's auditor general, while lauding all the money saved, criticized the absence of a system to monitor the impact and effectiveness of the program to reduce welfare rolls: "no clear link has been established between caseload reductions and the various reforms and initiatives introduced." The department half-heartedly promised to try to do a better job of tracking former recipients, though spokesman Bob Scott warned that, "we don't have the manpower to be doing those elaborate follow-ups."12 Research in Michigan provides a hint as to the fate of people cut off assistance. In 1991, the state went further than Alberta, completely eliminating its "General Assistance" program which aided singles and childless families. With the co-operation of government officials, attempts were made to track former recipients in several counties. Even among those who could be located, a significant proportion were in dire straits: ... only 20 percent of them were employed in formal jobs. On average, they earned $5.50 an hour and worked 34 hours a week in the survey month; more than half of this group reported wanting to work longer hours. One-sixth of the sample had earnings from odd jobs or casual labor. More than a fourth of respondents relied on disability benefits, and about

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a tenth relied on AFDC, workers' compensation, unemployment compensation, or pensions. The state of Michigan had expected many recipients to receive financial assistance from family and friends (including private charities). In the year prior to the second post-GA interview, about one-fifth received some cash assistance from friends and about one-third from relatives. The amounts received were quite small because their families and friends also tended to have low incomes. In the month before the second post-GA survey, less than a tenth relied primarily on such help. Another 7 percent relied primarily on a spouse's earnings or benefits. More than one in eight had no cash income from any source listed."13 The Alberta government's reluctance to track what happens to former recipients may be connected to a fear that such a study might reveal how many families have been stranded with absolutely no source of income.

The Sticks

During 1993 three separate initiatives made the Alberta welfare program much less financially generous, more difficult to access, and easier to exit unwillingly. The April changes implemented two strands of reform strategy. The first was the series of works initiatives detailed above. The other was a significant tightening of eligibility requirements, making the system less flexible. The earnings exemption, the amount recipients can earn without losing benefits, was changed in a move heralded by the government as encouraging recipients to work. In fact, most recipients were worse off under the new rules, which taxed back all earnings over $115 per month at a 75 per cent rate, meaning a minimum wage worker was receiving a marginal salary of $1.25 per hour, before deductions. Benefits paid to working recipients declined from $129 million to $107 million between 1992-1993 and 19931994.14 Single parents with children over the age of six months were now required to look for work. In the past they had been exempted until their youngest child was two years old.15 About 2,600 welfare recipients between the ages of sixty and sixty-five were forced to take their Canada Pension Plan benefits early, which resulted in a permanent 30 per cent loss in the value of

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their pension. Special food allowances for diabetics and pregnant women were reduced, and restrictions placed on dental and prescription drug benefits for most recipients. Families frequently turn up at the doors of welfare offices without any financial resources or a place to live. Recognizing this reality, previous policy had insisted that clients be able to see an intake worker within forty-eight hours. The April 1993 reforms eliminated that provision.16 Clients would also no longer be entitled to thirty-days notice that they were being cut off assistance. In the aftermath of that change, community advocates were frequently faced with frantic clients, who had simply not been sent their cheque at the end of the month. By the time they could get through to their financial benefits worker, their rent was already late and penalties frequently applied. If the problem could not be sorted out with the worker and an appeal had to be filed, the client was often evicted, because another program cut meant benefits would no longer be assured pending the appeal hearing. Typically, several weeks would pass before the appeal was heard, by which time many families pulled up roots and relocated. Perhaps the least defensible reform was a so-called minor administrative change which advised departmental staff that "clients are only issued benefits other than standard if they request them."17 The new policy coincided with a lengthy period during which the official manual of program rules and regulations was out of print. A long-standing contract with an advocacy group to produce a users' guide to the welfare system was also abandoned, as was an internal program to provide information for clients. Four months later, in August 1993, a smaller series of program restrictions was implemented. Most controversially, payments for school supplies and school transportation were slashed. Alberta schools, especially at the junior high school and high school level, frequently require students to pay a fee of up to $200 to cover items such as the use of textbooks. School transportation fees of up to $30 per month are also charged. Both these items were previously covered by a special benefits program. Henceforth, the department announced it would only pay $25 for school fees and $ 10 per month for school transportation.

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One single mother challenged the department to look after her children, "I've told them I'm not going to send them to school. If they want to apprehend them, they can go ahead. That's the only way they're going to get an education." In a rare retreat, six months later the department restored part of the school supplies allowance. In a self-laudatory media release, the department failed to mention that it had previously cut the benefit by 87 per cent, only to restore it to a maximum $100, or half of its original value.18 Minister Cardinal also announced a "get tough" policy towards homeless youth. From now on, 16 and 17 year olds were to be refused help at welfare offices. In "exceptional" cases, a child protection worker at a different office could carry out an assessment and recommend assistance, sending the youth back to reapply, but even then the welfare office was entitled to continue refusing benefits. The few who did hit the bullseye for help were faced with reduced maximum social assistance of $336 per month. In October 1993, having established work and training programs and made it more difficult for most recipients to qualify for and remain eligible for assistance, the department took the axe to welfare rates.19 Assistance levels were reduced by between 7 and 17 per cent. For a single employable adult, that meant the maximum monthly benefit dropped from $470 per month to $394. A single mother with one child lost $76 for a new maximum benefit of $766. In Alberta, damage deposits are required to rent all but the most wretched accommodations. Now, they would no longer be available to recipients, except to women escaping domestic abuse, saving $10 million per year. Allowances for furniture and appliances were also eliminated. Lost and stolen cheques would no longer be replaced. The Work Imperative The government of Alberta has continually emphasized its desire to get social assistance recipients back to work, a goal with which most recipients would agree. However, the two barriers identified by government both relate to "weaknesses" of recipients. One is a lack of skills and work experience, to be remedied

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by work and training programs; the other is the supposed apathy of welfare clients, who stay on welfare because rates are supposedly higher than the wages of working people. Never does the government recognize factors such as the availability of work or the lack of adequate child care. Indeed, government cuts have added thousands to the unemployment rolls, especially in the province's capital city, and the child care system has been deprived of government support to the extent that Edmonton's entire subsidized after-school care program is in danger of folding. At times the passion to push people into the work force reached ludicrous extremes. Departmental spokesman Bob Scott defended cutting a blind epileptic man off a provincial disability pension: "People who are visually impaired are not unemployable. Visually disabled groups would be upset to hear that ... They can take training."20 The next month controversy over a similar departmental measure drew his comment that, "there are some quadriplegics that may be employable."21 In order to defend the forced work programs, recipients were portrayed as a lazy and shiftless mob. Announcing an expansion to the Job Corps program, Scott noted, "this move will result in a huge lifestyle change for some people. They'll have to shave, shower, and go to work like everyone else."22 In his announcement of benefit reductions, Cardinal reiterated a key element of the strategy to secure public support for the hard line on welfare, "Albertans can no longer afford social service programs which provide welfare recipients with a higher standard of living than that of working Albertans."23 That perspective has been repeated on numerous occasions by departmental spokespeople and cabinet colleagues. It is, however, patently inaccurate. The design of the welfare program in Alberta, and indeed in other provinces, guarantees that poor people are better off working. Even though Alberta's $5 an hour minimum wage is the second lowest in the country, a single person working 35 hours a week at minimum wage earns $750 per month, 60 per cent more than the welfare benefit provided before the cuts and 90 per cent more than the current maximum. For families, the earnings exemption program built into the welfare system also means it pays to work. A single

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parent with one child, working full-time at minimum wage, is $213-75 per month better off after paying for child care, and is also entitled to a larger federal child benefit. Another negative impact of the welfare works programs was to force down wages, especially, ironically, in the "helping" professions. Simultaneous cuts to health and social support programs made workfare employees an attractive alternative to high-priced regular staff. A hospital in Red Deer laid off nursing assistants and replaced them with workfare employees,24 and numerous social agencies came to rely on workfare workers as receptionists and administrative support staff. Dramatic Success? If the role of welfare administration is to get people off assistance and save taxpayers money,25 then welfare reform has indeed been a huge success. The month Cardinal was appointed to cabinet, December 1992, caseloads had reached an all-time high of 98,642. With the average case accounting for around two people, that meant about 200,000 Albertans were dependent on welfare. By October 1995, 22 months later, there were only 47,372 open files, a decline of 52 per cent, accounting for less than 100,000 adults and children.26 In November and December 1993 alone, the months following the largest program cuts, the number of cases fell by 13,283, or 16 per cent. Provincial government bean counters were also happy. In three years, the welfare budget declined more than $350 million, from $839.9 million in 1992-1993 to $487.3 million in 19951996. The reduction was proportionately more than twice as great as in health care and education, the other high expenditure departments. Numerous opinion polls showed that while Albertans were critical of cuts in health and education, the great majority approved of the disproportionate share of deficit reduction achieved through welfare cutbacks. Alberta's welfare reforms were not as popular in the treasury departments of the surrounding provinces, where welfare rolls swelled. While Alberta was shedding 29 per cent of its cases in the year up to March 1994, in Saskatchewan the number on assistance rose by 18.8 per cent.27 Saskatchewan Social Services kept quiet to avoid a public backlash and pressure to reduce

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social assistance rates, but the flood of welfare migrants caused a furor in British Columbia. Premier Mike Harcourt wondered whether Alberta had a policy to "give people tickets and point on the road map to British Columbia."28 After his complaints failed to change Alberta government policy, or stem the westward flow of 700 Alberta welfare families a month, the B.C. NDP government introduced a residency requirement starting in December 1995, which prohibited new residents from receiving welfare assistance for three months after their arrival. Outcry over B.C.'s move included a threat by then federal human resources minister Lloyd Axworthy to take action against the province for violating welfare law (the Canada Assistance Plan) and the Charter of Rights. Even the conservative C.D. Howe Institute warned against building a welfare wall at the Alberta/B.C. border.29 But most commentators failed to connect B.C.'s action with the gradual federal withdrawal from enforcing national standards for welfare programs, increased migration of the poor in search of help, and Alberta's welfare cuts. Along with the new right-wing Ontario government's 21.6 per cent cuts in welfare benefits,30 a "race for the bottom" in provincial welfare standards had truly begun. Junior levels of government also felt the strain. In December 1993, Edmonton's municipal social services department reported to City Council on eighteen cases of hardship its counsellors had encountered amongst clients who were also on welfare. In March the next year, the department informed Council that a man had committed suicide after he was denied benefits and thus unable to support his family.31 City Council unanimously passed two motions. The first requested that the provincial government consider immediate changes to the welfare regulations to provide improved benefits for children's medication, transportation, and child care. The second motion requested provincial consultations with the community about social assistance benefits, in much the same way as the government had consulted about health and education services.32 The requests were ignored. Questions were also raised about the health impact of the cuts. In May 1994, Dr. Joan Horton, president of the Alberta College of Family Physicians, appeared before the provincial

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legislature's standing committee on community services. She reported that Alberta's poorest people were suffering from malnutrition and that the social assistance cuts were causing health problems for recipients.33 Usage of Edmonton's food bank rose 129 per cent in the two years following the cuts.34 Even the child welfare branch of the provincial department of social services was concerned about an influx of children coming into care because of welfare cuts. In regards to children in families without electricity, or food, or a permanent address due to welfare cutbacks, an internal memo notified child welfare workers that "Children who come to our attention due to S.F.I, cutbacks are not necessarily 'endangered' as they can be referred elsewhere to have these needs met."35 In Calling Lake, Minister Cardinal's hometown, Corinne Nipshank and two of her children drowned when their car went through thin lake ice on the way to a fishing hole. They were living in the car after being cut off assistance because Nipshank's common-law husband dropped out of a training program.36 Personal Stories Countless other families lost their social assistance for a plethora of minor transgressions. Being late for an appointment, not filing pay stubs from part-time jobs on the appointed day each month, missing a training program to deal with a child's problems at school, all were sufficient grounds to deny a whole family help. Almost always, their trials went unnoticed by the public. Dorothy McAllister37 is one such victim of Mike Cardinal's welfare stick. She's in her late 40s and divorced. Her ex-husband, a construction electrician, was a victim of the economic downturn in the early 1980s. At that time, the disintegration of their marriage under the weight of their financial worries had been the subject of an National Film Board documentary. With four children and only a high school diploma, Dorothy had been on assistance ever since. Wherever she goes, Dorothy leaves the faint but distinctive fragrance of Tiger Balm, and she dresses in the flowing cotton dresses popular in her youth. She's an excellent singer and has performed at countless weddings, sung country in local bars, and led closing anthems at feminist festivals. Her dream is to be

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a music therapist, and when the department told her it was time to get off assistance, she decided to try to start a business working with disturbed kids. The social worker gave her a year to succeed and get off welfare. Like the majority of new small enterprises, Dorothy's business wasn't a success. Having been outside the workforce for many years, she didn't have enough referral contacts in senior positions in the education, health and social service fields. She also admits she wasn't very good at hustling. When her year was up she had hardly made any money at all. But her two teenage daughters, still at home, were doing well. Both of them, keen on the arts like their mother, are attending a special high school program where they are learning acting and stage management. As well, both have part-time jobs. Because of the failure of her business, Dorothy was cut off social assistance. Her impassioned pleas, and those of three advocates, weren't enough to melt the hearts of the governmentappointed panelists at an appeal hearing. Income from her children's part-time jobs, and the one day a week Dorothy works in a grocery store, is all the family has had to live on for a number of months. Maria Sinclair has very little in common with Dorothy, except that she too failed to measure up to Alberta's new standards for the exercise of generosity. Maria is thirty-five years old, and the single mom of a twelveyear-old son. Like Mike Cardinal, Maria comes from a poor reserve in the northern bush. She, too, wanted to escape the poverty and lack of opportunity of her home community. Unlike Mike, Maria never did strike it lucky. Although she's bright, she left residential school at fourteen with grade eight and a deep resentment of nuns. She moved to Edmonton and eventually became involved with Laurent, a successful house painter from Labrador. Her pregnancy was difficult, and when her son Tommy was born in a northern hospital, she was given a hysterectomy without being consulted. That ended her dream of raising a large family, and when the boom turned to bust, Laurent started to drink too much, they argued all the time, and eventually she kicked him out. After that, she went into a downward spiral of increasingly abusive relationships with mainly non-Native men.

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The spiral reached its nadir with John, a charismatic demolition expert whose work brought in $5,000 a month. She met him the day he was released from jail on a manslaughter charge. She told me that his sob story was so convincing, she was crying and stroking his hair by the end of the evening. Within a few weeks they were living together. Soon, most of John's wages were going into his arm and their spotless apartment was marred with large holes in the walls, souvenirs of his increasingly frequent uncontrolled explosions. During one drunken binge, he beat up an elderly bootlegger so badly the old man nearly died. Maria was there, and although there was no evidence she'd touched anyone, she too was charged. Despite never having been issued even a jaywalking ticket, when John skipped bail, she shouldered all the blame for the crime, and was sentenced to a four year prison term. Her behaviour in jail was predictably impeccable, and when she was released on parole, she followed through on her resolution to upgrade her education, get a job, and become independent of men. It seemed like her timing was perfect, because Mike Cardinal had just been appointed minister, and there was lots of money for upgrading. Within a couple of months she was enrolled at college, and doing well. For six months, things went smoothly. She was at the top of the class and loving her independence. But Tommy was sullen and resentful, complaining that his mom had abandoned him "again." When the police brought him home one day after catching him thieving in a mall, she found out that he'd regularly been skipping school. She felt she had to stay home so she could take him to school, be there at lunchtime, and pick him up at the end of the day. Only three days' absence each semester were allowed in her program, but because she was doing so well she was told she could suspend her attendance and come back when things had settled down. She lined up early at the welfare office, expecting to go through the formality of getting back on assistance. She was refused help. With no money and nowhere to live, she had to give Tommy to her ex-husband. Laurent had long been living with a new partner, Evelyn. She didn't really want to be bothered with

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Tommy, but if she had to put up with him, she certainly wasn't going to have Laurent's 'ex' calling up all the time. Every time Maria called, she would hang up. The last time I saw Maria, I took her around to see Tommy. He was standing on the sagging balcony at his dad and stepmom's low rental apartment, crying. He'd been forbidden to go out with his mom. Disconsolate, Maria took the Greyhound back to her home reserve in Saskatchewan the next week. She'd been living in Alberta seventeen years. Back to the Future? By any normal standard, welfare reform has been an unmitigated disaster for both Maria and Dorothy. But to the Alberta government, they're success stories. Two fewer welfare cases. Their stories underline that the outcome of an appraisal of Alberta's welfare reform depends very much upon one's perspective. To the politicians, welfare bureaucrats, and the business elite, the reforms have reduced an unhealthy dependency. On the other hand, the muffled voices of the poor which have occasionally intruded upon the rosy mythology tell a very different tale. In spite of criticism from many quarters including its own supporters, the Alberta government has not monitored the outcomes of its welfare reforms. This fact suggests that the motivation behind the changes comes more from ideological opposition to the welfare state than any commitment to improve the lives of families dependent on social assistance. Nor have the federal government or the other provincial governments across Canada looked for any evidence to justify the claims of success from the Alberta reforms they are so eager to imitate. Even if we were to believe the Alberta Family and Social Services when it says that its works programs have been considerably more successful than the best in the United States, fewer than one in ten former recipients has been part of any of these programs. Did all the rest simply go out and get themselves jobs? Some, of course, did. But thousands more have simply been recycled from training to upgrading to work placement and back again. As long as they're in a program, they're considered off welfare. Others were cut off or couldn't live on the reduced

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rates, and went back to live with their families across the country, or joined the stream of Canadians headed west. With B.C.'s new discriminatory eligibility rules, and Ontario's copycat welfare reforms, that safety valve has been sealed. One does not have to accept either the theory or the practice of the Alberta welfare reforms to recognize that the welfare state has provided recipients with a subsistence income at the cost of spiritual humiliation. In a society whose raison d'etre is participation in paid work, welfare condemns the recipient not only to an inadequate income, but also social isolation and diminished self-worth. Most opinion leaders and the majority of Canadians believe that those who can work have an obligation to do so. Yet even with continual downward revisions in economists' definition of full employment, rarely in the past generation has the free market come even close to providing everyone who wants to work with the chance to do so. If society is to restrict welfare support for "employable" people, then it has a moral obligation to ensure that there is enough work for all. Given the apparent incapacity of the private sector, government must assure full employment through a comprehensive program of public works projects. These projects should provide useful work experience, offer reasonable rates of pay and provide participants with the same rights as any other workers. In addition, significant new public investment in subsidized child care programs is needed, which would be repaid through reduced demand for social programs and increased tax revenues. At the same time, we must recognize that many who are currently characterized as "employable" have physical, psychological and/or social barriers to employment which mean that they may never succeed in the regular job market. A progressive income security policy would establish realistic criteria for employability, and provide a nationally portable pension for those who cannot work. Such a system would replace the current complex web of provincial programs which frequently stigmatize disabled people by setting different benefit levels according to the degree of disability. Instead of making positive changes to the income security system, the governing elites seem determined to continue propa-

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gating the hoary myth of self-reliance38 as justification for destroying the last vestiges of a national social safety net. They obviously haven't been reading their history books. Welfare was developed not as part of some communist plot, but rather as a system which could assure the social stability necessary for production. As the ties are cut which bind the poor to the rest of the population in a common society, any incentive they have to follow society's rules is also eliminated. The prospect of a vicious circle of inchoate resistance and state repression, which inevitably springs from such circumstances,39 gives little cause for comfort. Notes 1. L. Bella, The Origins of Alberta's Preventive Social Services Program (Edmonton: University of Alberta Department of Recreational Administration, 1978), 170. 2. Health and Welfare Canada, Canada Assistance Plan Annual Report, 1981-1982 and 1990-1991. 3. Edmonton Sun, 2 May 1993, C4. EdmontonJournal, 2 October 1993, Gl andG2. 4. Edmonton Sun, 2 May 1993, ibid. ^.Edmonton Journal, l6April 1993,Al. 6. Ernie S. Lightman, "You can lead a horse to water, but... The case against workfare in Canada," in Social Policy Challenge 5, [C.D. Howe Institute] 1995, 154-155. 7. Alberta Family and Social Services, Reform Highlights, September 1995. Many of the statistics in this chapter are drawn from this document. 8. Government of Alberta, Reform Highlights, 39- Robert Lerman, "Increasing the Employment and Earnings of Welfare Recipients" in Isabel V. Sawhill (ed.) Welfare Reform: An Analysis of the Issues (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1995) Chapter Four. 10. Edmonton Journal, 1 October 1995, A8. 11. Donner Canadian Foundation, Alberta Transitions, conference held in Banff, Alberta, November 4 and 5, 1995.

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12. Edmonton Journal, 26 October 1995, A10. 13. Sandra K. Danziger and Sheldon Danziger, "Will Welfare Recipients Find Work When Welfare Ends?" inlsabelV. Sawhill(ed.) Welfare Reform: An Analysis of tbe Issues (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1995) Chapter Nine. 14. Alberta Family and Social Services, Today's Welfare Program, August 31 1994. 15. Calgary Herald, 7 May 1993, A6. 16. Alberta Family and Social Services, Supports for Independence Employment Initiatives: Building on Strengths and Focussing on Success, April 1993, Edmonton: Government of Alberta. 17. Quoted in Jonathan Murphy, "Welfare reforms have promise, pitfalls," First Reading, 11:2,8. 18. Alberta Family and Social Services, Reform Highlights 1993-1995, 1. 19. Government of Alberta, News Release, 19 August 199320. Edmonton Journal, 28 August 1993, Cl. 21. Edmonton Journal, 22 September 1993, Al. 22. Edmonton Sun, 11 March 1995, 7. 23- Government of Alberta, News Release, 19 August 199324. Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects, Singing for our Supper: A Review of Workfare Programs, July 1995, 8. 25. C. Lindblom, Inquiry and Change: The Troubled Attempt to Shape Society. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. 26. Edmonton Journal, 2 November 1995, B6. 27. Regina Leader Post, 20 October 1995, A4. Part of the increase was due to transfer of responsibility for welfare programs for some First Nations people from the federal government to the province. 28. Edmonton Journal, 25 November 1993, A9. 29. VancouverSun, 10 November 1995, h.4. Edmonton Jo urnal, 7 November 1995, A6.

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30. Globe and Mail, 11 November 1995, All. 31. Edmonton Community and Family Services, Recent Cuts to Social Assistance Benefits, reports to City Council, 21 December 1993 and 1 March 1994. 32. Edmonton City Council, Minutes, 25 January 1994. 33- Edmonton Journal, "Poor said getting sicker," 1 June 1994. 34. Gleanings [Edmonton Gleaners Association newsletter], August 1995. 35. Edmonton Journal, 16 December 1993, Bll. 36. Edmonton Journal, 8 December 1993, A8. 37. Both Dorothy and Maria are real people. Their names have been changed to protect their children. 38. Ironically, while the Klein government has made self-reliance a priority for welfare recipients, it has at the same time attracted critical attention for encouraging the intertwining of business and political leadership into a seamless and mutually beneficial corporatist web. See Mark Lisac, The Klein Revolution. Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1995. Pp. 140-15939. For an elegant discussion of this phenomenon, see John Kenneth Galbraith, The Culture of Contentment, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.

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Workfare in the U.S. Empirically-Tested Programs or Ideological Quagmire? Donna Hardina

A

central component of President Clinton's campaign in 1992 was to "end welfare as we know it" (Nightingale & Haveman, 1995:2). In 1996, Congress passed legislation (the Personal Responsibility Act) to terminate welfare benefits for all welfare households after five years and require adults to participate in work or job training after two years on welfare. This proposal and other recent welfare reform plans in the United States (U.S.) have been derived from "culture of poverty" arguments about welfare recipients; there is no sound empirical research that confirms that mandatory work and job training programs are effective in helping people leave the welfare system. On the contrary, most evaluations of state welfare reform projects have not produced statistically significant differences in job acquisition, earnings, or decreases in welfare benefits. Ideology alone has guided recent welfare reform efforts (Handler & Hasenfeld, 1991; Rank, 1994). Workfare programs are those in which welfare recipients are required to work for government or private employers in exchange for welfare benefits. "Workfare" is also used in the U.S. as a generic term to describe mandatory work and job training programs for welfare recipients. Much of what we know about the effectiveness of these programs in the U.S. comes from evaluations of state operated JOBS programs. The JOBS program provided Federal funding under the Family Support Act of 1988 to the states for mandatory workfare, job search, education, and job training programs for welfare recipients.1 Development of workfare oriented policies in Canadian provinces is heavily influenced by welfare reform efforts in the U.S. In order to assess the impact of recent Canadian proposals to

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implement workfare programs, the outcomes associated with these programs in the U.S. must be examined. This chapter describes the ideological assumptions behind new welfare reform proposals, an alternative theoretical framework for looking at reasons for workfare utilization, and recent research evidence that questions whether welfare reform efforts are effective in putting people to work. As used in this paper, the term ideology refers to "a system of beliefs that explains and justifies a preferred political order" (Parris & Reynolds, 1983:52). Ideologies differ from scientific theories because they are not based on facts, cannot be tested empirically, and are derived from moral and ethical values. Ideological beliefs proscribe the behaviours and attitudes of individuals in an ideal society.

Ideological Origins of Work Programs in the U.S.

Much of the political rhetoric generated in the current welfare debate is based on the assumption that most welfare recipients are teenage mothers, primarily African Americans, who do not value work (Mead, 1994; Murray, 1984). Welfare recipients are often perceived to be unmotivated and as having cultural values and attitudes which preclude a commitment to work (Rank, 1994). Policy analysts such as Charles Murray (1984) and Lawrence Mead (1986) have used the culture of poverty argument to call for either mandatory work programs for all adult welfare recipients or, at the extreme, the total elimination of all government welfare programs.2 Mead (1986) has also argued that all non-working recipients should forfeit all citizenship rights including the right to vote because they receive government benefits without making a contribution to society. Mead also has argued that mandatory workfare restores reciprocity to the relationship between welfare recipients and the state. Conservatives expanded on traditional poverty arguments during the 1990s by blaming single mothers for both the Federal deficit and moral decay. According to George Gilder (1993): America's cities discovered that patriarchy is not some optional outdated feature of human life but an indispensable bulwark of civilization itself. If men do not rule as husbands and providers for their families, they rule the streets in gangs and terrorize the society with their violence (37).

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Attacks on single welfare mothers with "illegitimate children" have been used to justify Congressional proposals for the elimination of welfare benefits for teenage mothers, mandatory work for the mothers of small children, and "welfare caps" that prohibit increases in assistance when women on welfare give birth to additional children (Tanner, 1995). There is no empirical evidence to support the "myth" that pregnant teenagers or unwed mothers of any age constitute an urgent social problem that must be addressed legislatively. Teenage mothers were only 3-8 per cent of the total Aid to Families with Dependant Children (AFDC) caseload in 1989; only one in three teenagers with children ends up on welfare (Funicello, 1993).3 Over 60 per cent of single mothers on welfare are either separated or divorced (Rank, 1994). Single mothers may well be the target of welfare reform efforts simply because they are one of the most powerless groups in a patriarchal society (Abramowitz, 1988). Many of these attacks have been based on the idea developed by Rotter (1966) that people either attribute their personal situations to their own abilities and initiative (internal locus of control) or to societal forces or fate (external control). Welfare recipients and members of minority groups are often assumed to have high levels of external locus of control, while people who work and non-minority group members are assumed to have high levels of internal control. "Culture of poverty" ideology has also been used to justify social engineering programs that provide a system of benefits and sanctions designed to enforce low wage work; there is no empirical evidence that supports the notion that most welfare recipients do not wish to work. Researchers have not found differences between welfare recipients and non-recipients in attitudes toward work (Dolinsky, Caputo, & Kane, 1989; Corcoran Duncan, Gurin, & Gurin, 1985; Downey & Moen, 1987; Duncan & Hoffman, 1988) nor have major differences in attitudes toward work been found among members of diverse ethnic groups (Benjamin & Stewart, 1989; Caputo, 1993; Harris, 1993; Kimenyi, 1991).

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Alternative Explanations for Welfare Utilization The acceptance of culture of poverty and welfare-as-dependency explanations for people needing social assistance has precluded public debate about societal rather than individual factors associated with welfare utilization. Seldom are structural (labour market segmentation; gender and racial discrimination, and the cyclical nature of low income employment), or personal barriers to work (disability, lack of child care or transportation, illiteracy) discussed (Handler & Hasenfeld, 1991). Nor is there any examination of the fact that most welfare recipients need alternative sources of income to survive: "off the book" or illegal work; money from friends, relatives, or boyfriends (Oliker, 1995). A number of recent studies (Edin & Jencks, 1992; Oliker, 1995; Rank, 1994) indicate that not only do welfare recipients want to work, they often combine temporary or seasonal work with periodic episodes of welfare utilization. Many welfare recipients have limited choices or opportunities to break completely out of the welfare system. Dual labour market theory suggests that there are two distinct labour markets (Rank, 1994). The primary labour market is control led by large corporations. Jobs tend to be stable and well-paying; entry is restricted to those with a high level of skills and education. The secondary labour market contains jobs that are low wage and physically demanding. Firms are small and labour intensive; jobs may include service and retail sales work. Women and members of minority groups are often trapped within the secondary labour market; these jobs are usually unstable. Workers may combine welfare with work as they lose and then gain temporary or seasonal jobs. Piven and Cloward (1971) have argued that mandatory work requirements for welfare recipients are intentionally designed to force people into the secondary labour market, perpetuate the work-to-welfare-to-work cycle, and force wage rates down. In effect, welfare programs serve as subsidy programs for employers. The availability of welfare benefits restricts political unrest; reductions in benefits or the number of people receiving welfare allows corporations to hire from a large group of unemployed workers and offer the lowest wages possible.

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Empirical Evidence of Work Program Effectiveness Welfare reform initiatives in the U.S. during the 1980s and early 1990s included such components as mandatory job placement (workfare), job search, job training, and education. Some programs also involved changes in financial incentives such as increases in the amount of income that could be earned or the number of hours the recipient could work while retaining a portion of one's welfare check. A number of outcome measures have been utilized to assess whether these programs are effective. Welfare administrators are often concerned about whether caseloads are reduced, the number of mandatory clients who successfully complete job program components, increases in work effort and income, and the cost-effectiveness of job training services. In addition, researchers have also examined variations in program implementation across different locations and the provision of support services (such as child care) necessary for successful program operation. Caseload Reductions

Brasher (1994) examined caseload trends for mandatory work programs (workfare) in eight Ohio counties between 1981 and 1990. Workfare programs require that a participant's work hours be determined by dividing the minimum wage into that participant's monthly grant. Most of the jobs assigned included such work as picking up trash, janitorial and clerical work, and computer operations. Recipients in two-parent AFDC families could lose all of their monthly grant for non-compliance; single mothers could lose only the mother's portion of the grant. While the program was effective in reducing caseloads, results differed by type of case. Two-parent AFDC caseloads were more likely to be reduced than single parent caseloads. Over 50 per cent of single parents were excused from participation because they had children under the age of six. Programs in counties with lower unemployment rates and smaller populations were more effective at reducing caseloads than programs in counties with higher unemployment rates and larger populations. While Brasher's findings appear to make a case for the effectiveness of mandatory work programs, he did not assess the actual reasons that the number of cases were reduced. Caseload

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reductions may be due to one of three factors: 1) participants find a jobs and leave welfare 2) requirements discourage applications from some participants 3) the imposition of sanctions for non-cooperation (Gueron & Pauly, 1991; Lipsky, 1984). Brasher did find that the rate of caseload reduction diminished over time; recipients who found work or who lost benefits due to sanctions may have returned to welfare. Workfare alone rather than job training or education may be ineffective in placing people in jobs that will keep them off the welfare system permanently (Friedlander & Burtless, 1995). Participation Rates

One of the problems with welfare reform projects is that they may not reach their target population. The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), conducted a participant tracking study for the State of California's Greater Avenues for Independence Program (GAIN). Recipients in California are required to participate for at least 70 per cent of the days in which they are registered for this jobs program. MDRC found that 29 per cent of those registered for GAIN did not attend the orientation session and that 37 per cent attended orientation but did not participate in mandatory work or job training, and that 23 per cent were registered for a program component but did not participate at least 70 per cent of the required days. Only 11 per cent of registered recipients participated in work assignments or job training or education for the required amount of time (Nathan, 1993). Some of the recipients who did not participate had health problems, family crises, or found part-time work; some were waiting for a particular program component to begin, and others simply refused to co-operate with program requirements despite possible loss of benefits. Two studies (Hardina, 1990; Whitman, 1995a) that examined job training programs in Detroit, Michigan, also document low participation rates. Mandatory participants often do not enroll in job training programs; at least some of the people referred by their caseworkers for participation are disabled or lack basic literacy skills. When job training programs are contracted out to private organizations, financial incentives (organizations are not reimbursed unless the participate attends class and is success-

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fully placed in a job) often result in the organization screening out only the most motivated, well-educated applicants (Hardina, 1990). Consequently, few eligible recipients actually participate in job training programs or find employment. Work Effort

Some welfare-to-work programs are designed to increase hours of work among welfare recipients. Federal regulations allow some recipients to combine welfare with part-time employment. The State of Michigan currently operates a welfare reform plan, the Social Contract Initiative, that is intended to increase welfare recipient participation in work-related activities with minimal state investment in job training. This initiative requires that all adult welfare beneficiaries develop plans to either work, volunteer, or attend school or job training classes per week (Kohl, 1995). In October, 1994, the Social Contract was revised to place emphasis on work. All welfare recipients in Work First are to find employment for at least 20 hours per week. Only recipients with children under one month are exempt. Participants in both the Social Contract Initiative and Work First are required to submit monthly activity forms to verify participation. Those recipients who do not return forms are to be referred for participation in the state's mandatory work and job training program. State evaluators tracked participation over ten quarters and found that 48 per cent of participants engaged in 20 or more hours of work per month and that 33 per cent engaged in some type of volunteer work. Although Governor John Engler reported to Congress that 26 per cent of parents in Michigan AFDC households worked at least part-time in comparison to a national average of 8 per cent, there is reason to question program effectiveness (Whitman, 1995b). A statewide study conducted by Abt Associates Inc. found that the number of adults who both worked and received AFDC increased by just 1.7 per cent. One reason for this may be that recipients started to report "off the book" income from odd jobs (Whitman, 1995a). Welfare recipients often engage in reciprocal exchange of goods and services with friends and relatives (Oliker, 1995). It is likely that the state evaluation also failed to take into account "volun-

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teer activity" such as babysitting or caring for a sick relative that would have been a routine part of the lives of most welfare recipients prior to the Social Contract. Income and Hours of Work

Many state governments have implemented welfare reforms oriented at increasing financial incentives to work.4 The basic assumption that guides these programs is that people stay on welfare because it pays better than work. People who combine work with welfare face high marginal tax rates (loss of welfarerelated benefits) of up to 100 per cent (Greenberg, Michalopoulos, Robins, & Wood, 1995). In addition, hours of work for twoparent AFDC recipients are limited to 100 per month. Both marginal tax rates and the "100-hour rule" are felt to limit work participation and therefore increase welfare utilization. Many states including Ohio, Michigan, California, and Arizona have received Federal waivers to eliminate the 100-hour rule for two-parent AFDC families. The impact of the rule change is currently undergoing assessment. One study that has been completed was conducted in a five-county area of Central California. Five hundred primary wage earners in these households were interviewed in order to examine the effect of the rule change on work effort (Hardina, Carley, & Thompson, 1995). Respondents had been assigned to either experimental or control groups when they first applied for welfare benefits. Members of the experimental group were told that they could work 100 or more hours per month while members of the control group were told that they could work a maximum of 99 hours per month.5 Elimination of the 100-hour rule was expected to produce a positive effect on work effort. Experimental group members were expected to work more hours, earn more income, and have lower grant amounts than members of the control group. Grants are determined based on family size and the amount of work income; recipients who work more should have lower grant amounts. Data indicates that control group members (those prohibited from working 100 hours or more while on welfare) actually worked, on average, more hours per month (58) than experimental group members (51). The average monthly income

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of members of the control group ($442) was higher than the average income of experimental group members ($322). AFDC grants are calculated based on household size and the amount of income from work. Higher work income results in lower grant levels. Consequently, the average size of welfare grants (controlling for family size) were lower for members of the control group ($73) than the experimental group ($87). Why didn't the experiment produce the expected increase in work hours and employment income among members of the experimental group? One reason is that those in the control group were more likely than experimental group members to be terminated from AFDC when they exceeded 100 hours of work. Thirty-seven per cent of control group members had their benefits discontinued, compared to 26 per cent of experimental group members. Of the people who went off welfare, the portion reporting they had left AFDC because either the primary or the secondary wage earner in the household was earning an income was 80 per cent for the control group and only 67 per cent for the experimental group. At the time of the interviews, the control group members had more hours of work and higher income than experimental group members. It would appear therefore that participation in the experiment increased the chances that experimental group members would combine welfare with work. The portion remaining on welfare and working more than 100 hours per month was 15.6 per cent for experimental group members and 9 per cent for those in the control group. The latter evidently did not disclose their full hours of work and earnings to their caseworkers, for fear of losing their benefits. The termination of the 100-hour rule appeared to provide a subsidy to employers in industries that typically pay low wages and provide seasonal work. Almost 60 per cent of the respondents were or had been employed in the agricultural industry, primarily as farmworkers. Farm labourers in California's Central Valley are almost exclusively of Mexican descent; many are undocumented workers and have few job-related choices. For these workers, farm labour is low wage (in some cases below the minimum wage) and hazardous. Workers are sometimes sprayed

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with pesticides as they pick fruits and vegetables (Schlosser, 1995). Tienda and Singer (1995) report that wage growth for Mexican immigrants is associated with movement into nonagricultural jobs rather than educational attainment or length of work experience. Cost-effectiveness studies

A number of large scale studies have examined the costefficiency and effectiveness of state welfare-to-work programs in placing people in jobs. Cost-efficiency studies have primarily been oriented toward reductions in welfare expenditures (dollars saved as people leave welfare for jobs or lose their benefits due to government sanctions for non-cooperation) and increases in the dollar value of wages earned by welfare recipients.6 Orthner (1995) examined outcomes associated with the JOBS program in North Carolina. His evaluation looked at program impacts in 15 counties for all mandatory registrants in the JOBS program between 1990 and 1994. A representative sample of participants was tracked during and after program enrollment. Program participants were matched with people who were required to, but did not participate in JOBS programs. JOBS participants (70 per cent) were more likely to be working after a year than members of the comparison group (61 per cent); earnings of JOBS participants, however, were only slightly higher than nonparticipants. JOBS participants were less likely than members of the control group to receive AFDC, but more likely to receive Food Stamps. (Food Stamp allocations are determined by family size and income. Former recipients may have had less income from work than from AFDC.) Welfare savings associated with the program expenditures averaged $128 in AFDC payments per year and $17 in Food Stamps. Orthner also analyzed costs associated with job placement. For each of the 5,468 individuals who completed components of the JOBS program, state expenditures averaged $4,970 per participant. When costs per employed participant are calculated, the state spent $7,122. When the net effect of the program is calculated (employed participants in the experimental group minus employed participants in the control group), net cost per placement (for 502 individuals) was $54,138.

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The most comprehensive cost-effectiveness study of mandatory work and job training programs was undertaken by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC). MDRC conducted studies of work program effectiveness and costefficiency in eight states (California, Illinois, Maryland, Arkansas, Maine, New Jersey, Virginia, and West Virginia) during the mid-1980s (Gueron & Pauly, 1991). Welfare recipients were randomly assigned to work programs and compared to control groups of welfare recipients who were not assigned. The MDRC studies confirmed that state governments could reduce welfare expenditures by implementing work and job training programs. Program participation was found to result in small increases in earnings for some recipients. In one state, West Virginia, the program was found to have no effect on either earnings or welfare savings. Researchers attributed this to high unemployment rates and rural isolation. Programs in urban areas with high unemployment rates were found to produce welfare savings. Average earnings increased by $889 per year for single parents while average welfare payments decreased by $608 per year. Differences between experimental and control groups in terms of both increased earnings and welfare savings were not statistically significant. Control group members were almost as likely to find work and leave the welfare system as those members of the experimental group who had left the system. Specific target populations within the experimental group had greater increases in welfare savings and earnings. Programs targeting the most job-ready groups of recipients (high school graduates with previous labour force attachment) did not produce the greatest impact in either welfare savings or earnings. Earnings gains were the greatest among those people in a middle group (in terms of skill level). The least skilled participants produced the most in welfare savings, but had smaller earnings gains. MDRC also completed follow-up studies that examined the employment experiences of program participants at four sites (Virginia, Baltimore, Arkansas, and San Diego) over a five-year period. The analysis completed by Friedlander and Burtless (1995) primarily examined two monetary measures: earnings impact and AFDC payment (reductions in welfare expenditures)

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impact. Earnings impact ranged from an average of $2,119 annually in Baltimore to $1,079 in Arkansas. AFDG payment impact ranged from $118 in Arkansas to $953 in Baltimore. The Baltimore programs differed from the three others in that the program emphasized skill development and education rather than immediate job placement (workfare) or job search. In all four programs, participants found jobs at a faster rate than they would have without program participation. Three of the four programs (the exception was Baltimore) did not help people find better paying jobs or improve their financial situations. The Baltimore program had the longest impact on earnings, but limited impact on welfare savings due to the higher costs of service delivery. The researchers also found that members of the control group (people who did not receive services) often "caught up" to members of the experimental group in terms of earnings. Therefore the effects of the experiment at the conclusion of the experiment were greater than the effects at the end of the fiveyear follow-up period. There was also little difference between members of the control and experimental group in terms of job loss and return to AFDC. Burtless (1995) concluded that these programs could not be judged effective: Some programs caused participants' earnings to rise by onethird or more. Unfortunately, this large percentage gain does not translate into a substantial improvement in most recipient's standard of living. The reason is simple. People on welfare earn very little money. Even if their wages doubled or tripled, few would earn enough to bring their families up to the poverty line. A number of programs have been found to work, but none has been found to work miracles (100). Program Implementation

Hagan and Lurie (1995) conducted field research to assess the implementation of the JOBS program in 10 states during a three year period. They found that although the states receive matching Federal funds (at rates between 50 and 80 per cent) for the JOBS program, rarely did these states spend sufficient funds to qualify for the full Federal allocations.7 Decreased tax revenues during a period of high welfare participation limited the ability of

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the states to provide sufficient funding for program services. Limited resources resulted in many states giving priority to voluntary clients. Most of the states emphasized human capital investment approaches rather than workfare and job search. The most prevalent program components were not education or job skills training, however, but job readiness programs (interviewing skills and resume writing) rather than job skills training. The wages associated with the jobs acquired by participants in these programs (entry level clerical, nurses aids) were not sufficient to move single mothers off welfare permanently. Hagan and Lurie (1995; 1993) also examined how the availability of child care affects program participation. JOBS guarantees child care by matching state expenditures (at rates between 50 and 80 per cent). Although Hagan and Lurie (1993) found that child care services were adequate to help states meet Federal goals for participation (7 per cent of eligible recipients), gaps in services identified by eligibility workers and state and local administrators included: infant and toddler care, services to help women that work irregular hours (evenings, nights, and weekends), and inaccessibility of child care in rural regions. In some areas, transportation was not available to take women and children to service sites. Hagan and Lurie suggest that services may become less adequate as Federal participation requirements increase to 20 per cent. A recent Urban Institute study found, however, that state governments often cannot meet Federal matching requirements or may target funds to special needs groups (such as teen parents). As a result, there are often long waiting lists for service. The General Accounting Office estimates that in California alone 225,000 children are on the waiting list (Clark & Long, 1995). Out-of-pocket costs for child care may prevent many families from participating in mandatory work or job training (Hardina, 1990). Brasher (1994) estimates that if child care were to cost just $ 1.50 per hour, a family with two children would pay almost $500 per month for full-time (40 hours per week) care; the median state child care payment is $367. Often states cope with limited child care availability and cost issues by excusing parents with child care needs from participation.

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Conclusions There is no empirical evidence that education, job training, job search, or workfare programs are actually effective in putting people in jobs that will help them leave the welfare system. At best, these programs assist people who generally combine welfare with temporary, seasonal, or part-time jobs to find work faster than if they had not enrolled in these programs. The research evidence we do have tells us that in fact, most people who receive welfare do work. Yet, right-wing ideology in the U.S. continues to guide the development of more "radical" welfare reform plans. The Personal Responsibility Act limits welfare benefits (to a maximum of five years) and requires that all adult recipients work or enroll in job training. Funds for welfare programs will be given in block grants to the states. Recipients will no longer be "entitled" to receive benefits even if they meet Federal income eligibility requirements; state legislatures will be able to choose whether to provide benefits to teenage single mothers or refuse to grant increases to women who give birth to additional children while on welfare. Teen mothers will be required to live with their parents and remain in school in order to qualify for benefits. Most public assistance will be discontinued for new immigrants who are legal residents, but not citizens (Havemann, 1995).8 The proposed legislation eliminates requirements that state governments provide a range of job training, education, job search, and workfare programs for AFDC recipients. Although states will be required to increase the number of eligible recipients who work, no new funds are to be provided to help people find jobs. All parents who receive welfare benefits for two years would be required to participate in work activities for at least 20 hours per week; work activities are defined as employment, onthe-job-training, and workfare. Only those recipients who engage in these activities will be eligible for education or skills training programs. By the year 2002, recipients will be required to engage in work activities a minimum of 35 hours per week. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (1995) estimates that the 35-hour requirement basically will force welfare recipients

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to work for wages below the minimum wage. Dividing the typical welfare grant by 35 hours (the calculation now used to determine the number of hours a workfare participant is required to work) produces a wage of $2.42 per hour. (This estimate is based on the median AFDC benefit level, which varies by state, for a family of three.) The fact that these programs do not place many people in long-term jobs has been utilized by the political right to argue that funds for education and training programs be reduced in favour of labour force attachment strategies such as workfare and job search. The conservatives also have used the empirical evidence to call for programs that are oriented toward changing the behaviour and values of welfare recipients. Olasky (1995) in describing the low success rate of welfare-to-work programs in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has written that "lasting welfare reform is likely to come not from Kenosha but through those who are animated by Biblical concepts of challenge, personal involvement, and spiritual commitment" (49). Olasky also describes the value assumptions associated with a private, job-training program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin: A change in values is the way for many women to leave welfare, Miss Darden [program operator] and her disciples say. An honest woman can attract a hard-working man, can impress employers through her diligence and honesty, and can provide a model of good behavior for her children. Michelle Duley, explaining that traditional values attract men who want to marry, says, "once I stopped being easy, then I started seeing gentlemen." Deborah Lee, in T-shirt and sweatpants, adds, "if you expect marriage, then you change the way you act" (5). Abramowitz (1988) has argued that AFDC is not only designed to regulate work behaviour, it is also intended to control the women. The "new" welfare reform in the U.S. is designed to force both male and female heads of AFDC households into the lowwage labour market, assign a low value to the single mother's role as caregiver, and promote a return to traditional two-parent households. While these goals seem to conflict, they reflect a "victim blaming" ideology; low income single women will continue to be oppressed by patriarchy for perceived immorality and lack of a work ethic.

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None of these reforms will address recent increases in single parent families. A two-parent household is an unobtainable goal for many minority families (Piven, 1995); Wilson (1987) has argued that the growth in single-parent households on AFDC is due, in part, to a decline in employment in well-paying factory jobs among minority men. Many of these men have difficulty finding well-paying, permanent jobs, enter the military, or are in prison.9 While welfare reform targets single women for behaviour change, little or nothing is done to increase the availability of well-paying, permanent jobs for the men the conservative right would like them to marry. Although we have not been able to verify that workfare or job training programs are effective in moving people from welfare to work, we do have empirical evidence that disputes nearly all public perceptions about welfare recipients. Welfare reform proponents often portray all welfare recipients as inner-city residents who are members of minority groups, but almost 70 per cent of all welfare recipients (including those that receive Food Stamps and Federal welfare benefits for the elderly and disabled are white (Rank, 1994).10 Twenty-five percent of all U.S. citizens are on welfare for at least a short time within a 10 year period; two-thirds of welfare recipients go off welfare in less than three years. Only 2 per cent of all Americans receive at least half their income from welfare for eight years or more (Funicello, 1993). In addition, it is important to note that two-thirds (over 9 million) of the individuals who receive AFDC benefits are children under the age of 18 (Dickinson, 1995). The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (1995) estimates that up to 5.6 million children could be denied assistance under the Personal Responsibility Act. Conservative politicians also have portrayed welfare as the primary cause of the Federal deficit. Yet AFDC constitutes less than 1 per cent of all Federal spending (Piven, 1995). Most of the social programs that are supported by political and economic elites (defence as well as agricultural and other business subsidies) have not suffered the drastic reductions proposed for the welfare system. Forcing low income women and men into the labour market will simply allow businesses to continue to pay

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low wages and offer poor working conditions for temporary, seasonal workers in jobs with few benefits. Some industries will also benefit from changes in financial incentives associated with welfare programs (reductions in marginal tax rates and few restrictions in hours of work for welfare recipients). Analyses of the impact of workfare proposals in Canada should identify the potential corporate beneficiaries of welfare reform proposals, and the likely adverse affects of these proposals on the adults and children who receive welfare. Notes

1. The Personal Responsibility Act restructures many of the provisions in the Family Support Act. Federal transfer payments for job training are reduced. The number of hours a recipient must work per month are increased (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1995). 2. The racial overtones of "culture of poverty" theories are fairly explicit. In The Bell Curve (1994), Murray and his co-author Richard Hernstein, maintain that African Americans have lower IQs than whites and Asians, and that social programs designed to end inequality are inappropriate and ineffective. 3. Teenage promiscuity is not necessarily the cause of teen pregnancy; most teenage girls are impregnated by adult men (Funicello, 1993). This suggests that incest, rape, and statutory rape may be factors in the teen pregnancy rate. 4. In Canada, the Federal government is evaluating a financial incentive program for welfare recipients, the Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) in New Brunswick and British Columbia (see Greenberg, et al., 1995). 5. Retention of welfare benefits is contingent on the amount of income earned per month, and family size. A recipient must submit a monthly income report form to her caseworker; the caseworker determines if the recipient's income is low enough to entitle her to a portion of her welfare grant. 6. More complex cost-benefit analysis studies have also been used to assess job programs. Generally, these studies examine benefits that may accrue to taxpayers and welfare beneficiaries as a consequence of increased income and reductions in welfare expenditures and costs associated with program administration, child care expenses, and reduced leisure time (Bell & Orr, 1994).

148 /Workfare: Ideology for a New Under-Class 7. Hagan and Lurie (1995) report that nationwide, states received 56 per cent of the Federal allocation in 1991 and 67 per cent in 1992. 8. In 1994, California Governor Pete Wilson proposed that access to education and social services be cut off for illegal immigrants. Charges were made that illegal immigrants were more likely to receive welfare than U.S. born citizens and were less likely to pay taxes and work. Proposition 187 was approved by California voters, but implementation has been blocked by the Federal courts (Impoco, 1994). Immigration opponents have subsequently worked to have anti-immigrant legislation incorporated into welfare reform proposals. 9. AFDC is only available to two-parent households in which at least one parent has had sufficent work to have qualified for unemployment benefits. In some communities, the only work available may be illegal work such as drug dealing. Hence rates of incarceration for members of some minority groups are high. 10. The Federal government provides supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits to the elderly, and to disabled children and adults who have not contributed the earned income necessary to qualify for social security benefits. The Personal Responsibility Act will eliminate SSI benefits for many disabled children.

Resisting Workfare Jean Swanson

i

t's hard to fight workfare.

• Myths portray people on welfare as opting for a so-called life of ease on welfare instead of grinding away at jobs. In fact, life on welfare is usually desperate and the amount of money people get is only about a quarter to a half of the poverty line. • Myths charge that thousands of jobs go vacant while thousands lounge on welfare. In fact, there aren't nearly enough jobs for all the unemployed. • Government officials and the media use a special language that blames poor people for the poor economy, and gives the impression that punitive policies are somehow really good for people on welfare. • Some working people, justifiably angry at falling wages and diminishing job security, turn unjustifiably on the poor instead of the wealthy who make economic decisions and could afford to pay more taxes. • Corporate lobby groups like the Fraser and C. D. Howe Institutes, push for workfare programs, knowing they subsidize business and undermine wages and benefits. • Now the federal government has scrapped the law that forbids workfare.

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And provincial governments across Canada have either introduced, or are considering workfare programs. Yet we must fight workfare because it's part of the competitive impoverishment of the global economy; because it's a direct threat to the jobs and wages of those who are working; and because it won't get anyone out of poverty. Resisting the language that justifies workfare The "thinking" that justifies workfare is based on myths and what I call "social policy newspeak." A first step in resisting workfare is to expose the myths and the newspeak, and to stop using them. Two malicious myths lurk behind the workfare concept. One is that people on welfare have to be forced to take paying jobs, either by law or necessity. The other is that the jobs exist for them to take. Over 40 years of welfare statistics show that people on welfare don't have to be forced to take jobs. Welfare benefits are so low, the welfare system so controlling and demeaning, that the vast majority of people engineer their own escapes from it as soon as they can. In British Columbia, for example, nearly 72 per cent of income assistance recipients were no longer receiving income assistance after six months, and only 10 per cent of recipients stay on income assistance over two years ( B.C. Ministry of Social Services, study for period of Oct., 1990 to Dec., 1994). For many decades the official unemployment rate in Canada has been increasing. The official unemployment rate in Canada has increased from less than 4 per cent in the 1950s, up to 7 per cent in the 1960s, then to more than 8 per cent in the 1970s, and to between 10 and 12 per cent in the 1980s and 1990s (Human Resources Development Canada, 1994b). People who work for only an hour a week are officially counted as "employed" even though they may be living on welfare. So the official rate notoriously understates real unemployment. But even if we do use the official rate of unemployment, there simply are not

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enough jobs to go around. In Ontario, for example, or Newfoundland or Alberta, thousands of people are looking for work. While vacant jobs do exist as people move to other positions or areas, or get sick or fired, or their family situation changes, these jobs don't begin to provide enough work for all who are looking. Many factors push the unemployment rate up into a double digit range: free trade, and the ability of multinational companies to move quickly around the world, encourage jobs in countries where wages are lowest; computers and high technology are replacing human workers; governments have laid off thousands of public sector workers; frightened, insecure workers accept lower and lower pay and therefore have less money to purchase goods and services that others produce; interest rates are high so its tough for average-income people to borrow; free trade deals have limited the ability of governments to promote job-creating economic development within their own province or country. But rather than tackle these areas and create employment, Canadian provincial and federal governments seem to be following the advice of the Liberal-appointed MacDonald Commission on the Economy and the Economic Council of Canada. In its 1985 Royal Commission report on the economy, the Commission quotes the Council approvingly: "...measures to reduce unemployment should focus on facilitating rapid job search and increased job holding, rather than on increasing the number of available jobs" (Government of Canada, 1985). This is precisely what workfare does. Newspeak lives A language of blame, based on the myths that jobs exist and that people on welfare have to be forced to take them, has been developed by some social policy "experts," corporate lobby groups and right wing politicians. If the government came along and said, "we're going to slash welfare or unemployment insurance, period," people might be a bit fearful that the safety net, that has kept our country stable, would be wrecked. So social policy makers are using new phrases about welfare and UI. These phrases make proposed changes like workfare seem like they are for the good of the people on UI and welfare,

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and sound positive until you look at the details. Interestingly, the phrases all imply that low-income people, not the lack of jobs or decent wages, cause poverty. Free trade, high tech, and corporate restructuring are all reducing the number of available jobs. But listening to this social policy newspeak, you'd think poverty was caused by individuals lacking incentive, by dependent people, by the poverty cycle, and low self esteem. You'd also think that everyone on welfare was a single able-bodied, adult person. In fact according to estimates by the National Council on Welfare (NCW, 1995) in March, 1994 in Canada 1.16 million were children and nearly 466,000 were single parents. Tens of thousands of people on welfare are "unemployable" according to diverse provincial definitions, and tens of thousands are officially declared to be "handicapped" and not expected to seek work. The End Legislated Poverty (ELP) Dictionary of Social Policy Newspeak

End Legislated Poverty is a B.C. coalition of over thirty-five groups that want governments to reduce and end poverty. At ELP's board meeting on January 14, 1994, members who are poor and work with low income people brain stormed about the language that is being used to imply that the dismantling of the social safety net is actually good for us. The following is some of the jargon being used to make us think that workfare will actually help people on welfare and unemployment insurance. ACTIVE, NOT PASSIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMS

This is used by the Liberals in their little red policy book. They claim that existing programs keep people lazing about, doing nothing. The phrase implies that training and prodding people to get off welfare will create jobs for them to take. BREAKING THE CYCLE OF POVERTY

Lurking behind this phrase is the theory that children are taught to be poor by poor adults. They then pass this preference for poverty onto their children. Note that no one is exhorted to "break the cycle of wealth" where rich people pass their wealth on to children who pass it on to their children, perpetuating

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inequality of income distribution. This shows the double standard of media and social policy makers. BRING SOCIAL PROGRAMS INTO THE 21ST CENTURY This generally means cut and slash social programs so that people will have to work at low-wage jobs so they can compete with people in Mexico making $5 a day. DISCOURAGING DEPENDENCE This term implies that welfare and UI create "dependent" people like children. According to this theory, the programs have to be changed so that people don't use them. The reality, again, is that people will automatically take jobs when they are available at decent wages. DISINCENTIVE TO WORK Similar to "incentive to work" only the opposite. Used in sentences such as: "Welfare is a disincentive to work." The phrase implies that people would rather collect welfare than work at paid jobs. In the vast majority of cases, this is not true. According to a recent National Council of Welfare study, increasing the minimum wage to $10 or $11 an hour would eliminate virtually any "disincentive" to work in the welfare system. It wouldn't cost taxpayers a cent either. EJECTION SEAT To be honest, this phrase has only been used at ELP board meetings. Board member Andrew Lancombe invented it. The phrase refers to the policies of Alberta and Michigan, where people are simply ejected off welfare into destitution and homelessness. HAND-UP NOT HAND-OUT This term comes out of the U.S. and is lately being plagiarized by Canadian social policy makers. It implies that social programs as they are, always keep people from getting work. If programs are changed to provide counselling, money-management skills, and training for low-wage jobs, the theory goes, then people will

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get off welfare. The reality is that people on welfare and UI will take available jobs when wages are high enough to sustain them. No prodding is necessary. We need more decent jobs and decent wages, not more prodding to get off welfare. INCENTIVE TO WORK This phrase is often used in sentences such as: "Cutting Unemployment Insurance or welfare to provide an incentive to work." The incentive is desperation. If people can't rely on UI or welfare, they will be so desperate they will have to take any job, no matter how ill-suited it is to their skills and no matter how low the pay is. LAUNCHING PAD Similar to trampoline effect, (see later) POVERTY CULTURE This is another phrase that implies that poor people like to be poor and that they need counselling from middle-class professionals to help them choose another "culture," presumably one that supplies more money. REFORM This term used to mean "to make things better." Now, when applied to social programs (for example, "reform" the UI system), it nearly always means "to make things worse for low income people." SELF-ESTEEM This phrase is bandied about in sentences such as, "People need work to build their self-esteem." It implies that a single parent must build her self-esteem at a low wage, exploitative paid job, rather than by staying home to raise her children to be good citizens. TRAINING FOR THE JOBS OF THE FUTURE This phrase is used to imply that if only we got ourselves trained in computer programming or air traffic controlling, we

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could get off welfare or UI and be set for the future. In fact, we don't need 1.5 million (the number of unemployed in Canada) people in new high tech jobs. Training does not create jobs. Available jobs are mostly low-wage. Tens of thousands of people get trained and then can't find work. They are pushed out into the labour force to compete with those who do have jobs and pull wages down because they are trained for exploitation. TRAMPOLINE

EFFECT

This phrase at least recognizes that people are going to be losing a lot of jobs. Social programs, it implies, should be designed to bounce people back into jobs, which still don't exist. TRULY

NEEDY

This phrase is used to justify cutting universal programs, or programs to the "merely" needy. It implies, for example, that people on UI, who may get more than people on welfare, should have to give up the UI so that government can cut the deficit and maintain payments to the "truly needy." Lost in the dialogue is the status of the truly greedy, who continue to use their tax breaks and incentives to accumulate wealth. (These definitions are from the Action Line social policy supplement, written by Jean Swanson, produced by ELP)

The social policy newspeak words and phrases reveal a double standard. For example, the federal government spends almost exactly the same amount of money on tax exemptions for Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) deductions as federal and provincial governments spend on welfare (Caledon Institute, 1994). Yet no one asks if people who receive these RRSP deductions are "truly needy." This question is constantly being asked of people on welfare. People who claim RRSP deductions aren't accused daily of fraud by politicians and the press. People on welfare are. People with RRSP deductions aren't asked if they spend their money on booze or cocaine, or bingo. People on welfare are. People on welfare are put under a microscope to determine if their monthly pittance contributes to their "incen-

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tive to work." Yet this isn't done with richer people who buy RRSPs. Applying social policy newspeak phrases to the wealthy shows how ridiculous they really are: • Are wealthy people "dependent" on tax breaks? How could we reform the tax system to make the wealthy more "independent"? • If tax loopholes for the wealthy were closed, would the wealthy continue to pass their tax dependency on to their children. Is greed generational? • If RRSP laws were changed, would the wealthy lose their incentive to work? (The incentive to retire?) Would they become couch potatoes and sluggards? • Should tax policy provide a hand-down, not a hand-out to the wealthy? •• Would the wealthy have more self-esteem if they worked for their money, rather than inherited it? • Would counselling help the wealthy escape from the culture of wealth? • Is 46 per cent of the wealth sufficient for the richest 5 per cent of the population? Could they get by with 40 per cent? Could they eke out an existence on 30 per cent? How much would be left for the rest of us if they did? The language of workfare fits into George Orwell's descriptions of the "B vocabulary" in the Newspeak appendix to his book 1984. The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them (Orwell, 1949).

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Resisting national legislation that allows workfare This section could also be called "How do we get people to fight for a right they don't know they've lost?" Workfare has been illegal in Canada since the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) went into effect in 1966. CAP outlined the conditions under which the federal government would share welfare costs with the provinces. As CAP said that all Canadians had the right to income when in need, it effectively prohibited workfare as a condition of eligibility. CAP also assured the right to an amount of income that met budgetary requirements, the right to appeal decisions about welfare they disagreed with, and the right to income when in need regardless of the province they were from. These rights didn't have the status of a constitutional guarantee, but they meant that, theoretically, provinces couldn't get federal money for welfare if they violated these rights. Economic and social rights don't get as much attention in Canada as political rights like the right to free speech. The federal government didn't advertise that it planned to abolish basic economic human rights with the Social Security Review in 1994. But, reading between the lines of "Improving Social Security in Canada," the government's discussion paper on social security reform, it became apparent. Under the heading, "Guiding principles for reform," the paper asserted, "...for those with the potential to help themselves, improved government support must be targeted at those who demonstrate a willingness and commitment to self-help" (HRDC, 1994a). This could mean the end of the right to income based on need, and the beginning of workfare. Human Resources Minister Lloyd Axworthy also said that CAP rules were "restrictions" on provinces. In a meeting with Canadian delegates to the United Nations Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen on March 6, 1995, Axworthy said, "With CAP the only condition was mobility and the others dealt with restrictions." CAP'S policies of preventing workfare and guaranteeing income to people in need, might be "restrictions" for provincial governments wanting to cut welfare budgets, but the policies they enshrine are basic human rights for people in need.

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The UN Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, signed by Canada and the provinces in 1976, says that employment should be "freely chosen," and that all people have the right to "an adequate standard of living,... including adequate food, clothing, and housing and ...the continuous improvement in living conditions" (United Nations, 1992). CAP'S meagre restriction on workfare was too much for the federal government. Bill C-76, passed in July 1995 by the Liberal government, ends the Canada Assistance Plan and certain basic human rights, including the right to "freely chosen" employment and the right to income when in need, that were part of it. Ignorance prevails In March, 1995, the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO) sent out information about the abolished CAP rights, and asked anti-poverty groups across Canada to lobby their MPs and provincial governments about the rights in the Canada Assistance Plan, including the right not to have to work for welfare. To their horror, they found that the vast majority of MPs didn't even know: • that CAP included basic human rights. • that these rights included the right not to have to work for welfare and the right to income when in need. • that these rights were on the chopping block. The political ignorance was revealed on November 7, 1994, when the National Anti-Poverty Organization presented its brief to the Standing Committee on Social Security Review in Ottawa, and again on May 9, 1995 when the NAPO executive met with members of the Saskatchewan Cabinet, and also during the Spring of 1995 when members of End Legislated Poverty in B.C. and anti-poverty groups throughout the country met with individual Members of Parliament from the Liberal and Reform Parties. Some MPs didn't even know that CAP contained rights for poor people. Saskatchewan Social Services Minister Bob Pringle balked at naming the rights at a meeting with the NAPO executive on May 9, saying, "I don't view this as a test."

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When anti-poverty groups have held news conferences about the loss of this right to "freely chosen" work, they have been mostly ignored. When NAPO presented its brief to the Parliamentary Committee on social cutbacks in Ottawa, a brief which contained extensive information on workfare, the media declined to cover the issue at all. Instead they noted that NAPO had been "snubbed" by members of the committee, most of whom didn't show up. Working to help more people become aware of the need for national welfare standards, including a prohibition on workfare, the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO) sent out 30,000 copies of a twelve-page paper to community, anti-poverty, women's, church and other groups across Canada in March, 1995. Called "30 million good reasons to have national standards for welfare" (NAPO, 1995), the tabloid argued that workfare violates basic human rights, is costly, doesn't work to get people off welfare, and undermines the wages and working conditions of people who have jobs. It urged people to lobby their Members of Parliament to restore the welfare rights in the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP), including the right not to have to work or train for welfare. Although many groups supported this mobilization, the government went ahead and implemented its Canada Health and Social Transfer on April 1, 1996, making workfare perfectly legal in Canada. Both NAPO and the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) are now calling for a Canada Social Security Act that would require work and training to be freely chosen, in compliance with the commitments Canada had made to the United Nations. In July, 1996, the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty, NAPO produced another education and action guide, urging people to work for a Canada Social Security Act and an end to poor-bashing. The Canada Social Security Act that NAPO and NAC want would guarantee: • the right to adequate income when in need; • the right to appeal decisions about welfare; • the right to freely choose work or training;

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• the right to social assistance without discrimination based on sex, race, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion, age, mental or physical disability, or source of income. Getting workers to resist workfare

"I have to slave 40 hours a week for my pay. Why should I pay taxes so people on welfare can laze around?" That's an argument that must be challenged if people on welfare are to unite with people in paid jobs to resist workfare programs. Of course, it's an argument that assumes jobs are available for all who need them. And it's an argument that assumes a double standard, as it questions paying taxes for welfare, without questioning paying taxes for, say, RRSP exemptions for the rich, or business entertainment deductions, or deferred corporate taxes. But it's an easy argument to counter when regular employees and people on workfare-type programs unite. That's exactly what happened in February 1995, in Saint John, New Brunswick. The National Anti-Poverty Organization, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), and One Voice for All, a St. John's antipoverty group, co-operated to expose the pitfalls of New Brunswick's job programs for people on welfare. At that time New Brunswick was the poverty capital of Canada with the lowest welfare rates in the country, $257 a month for a single person. The official unemployment rate was 11.6 per cent, and the minimum wage was $5 an hour. The CUPE-NAPO alliance on workfare began in October 1994, when the NAPO executive was meeting in Alberta and hearing from local anti-poverty groups about the impact of Premier Ralph Klein's welfare cuts. NAPO board member Louise Rusinek told the executive about an job she had seen posted on the wall of the Red Deer social services office. It was for an ACE job, Alberta Community Employment. This was an Alberta workfare program for people on welfare. People on welfare were told to apply for ACE jobs or they would be cut off welfare. Because 30,000 had already been cut off, people on welfare were afraid that they would be next, and did apply for these jobs. The ACE jobs were with community programs and paid $6 an hour for 6 months. The job that Louise saw posted was for a nursing

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assistant in the Red Deer hospital where union nursing assistants earning $ 12 an hour had been laid off due to recent health care cuts. Louise met with the union rep over the issue, and NAPO and CUPE began talking about the Red Deer example throughout the country. Clearly, workfare meant that people on welfare were being used to undermine the wages and working conditions of people who already had jobs. And, in fact, the people on welfare were virtually no better off, as the wages were hardly enough to live on, and the job would end after six months when someone else would be cycled into it. On January 11, 1995, representatives from CUPE and NAPO met in Ottawa to discuss a joint campaign on workfare. The two national groups, one representing people who could be forced into workfare programs, and the other representing people whose jobs were in danger from workfare programs, developed a leaflet for members of both groups and the public. Called, "Having people work for welfare makes sense? Or does it?" the leaflet related a fictionalized account of what happens to two people in a workfare scheme. In the leaflet the person on welfare is forced to take a workfare job as a personal care aide, while the unionized personal care aide is laid off. The person on welfare who takes the job is still poor, still vulnerable. The person who had the job realizes that workfare is about free labour for employers, and undermines the wages and benefits that her union worked for. CUPE and NAPO also decided to target Saint John, New Brunswick, for their first anti-workfare action. Premier Frank McKenna had said he supported workfare. New Brunswick had a program where people on welfare were being put in low wage, 20-week jobs as teaching and nursing assistants. Meanwhile the regular union teaching and nursing assistants who earned about $12 an hour, were seeing their hours of work cut back. After 20 weeks the people on the workfare program were put on UI and another batch took their place. On February 9, with the temperature plunging to 20 below zero, One Voice for All, Saint John's anti-poverty group, and CUPE's New Brunswick division organized a day of events to expose the real impact of workfare. The key to the success of the events was equal participation by the union and the anti-poverty

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groups. The day began with a well-attended news conference featuring local anti-poverty spokesperson Pam Coates and myself as NAPO president, as well as CUPE New Brunswick president Bob Hicks and National president Judy Darcy. The two groups gave the media copies of the stories of four people involved with New Brunswick's workfare-style programs: The real story on Workfare programs: Lay-offs for existing workers while welfare recipients do the jobs as cheap labour

Pam's story Pam has a grade 12 commercial degree and drove a taxi for years before being forced onto welfare. Three years ago she went to Manpower to "get off the system." She wanted to go to community college and take a human service counsellor course. She was advised to get a student loan and was told she'd be helped with babysitting and transportation and that her income would not be affected by the student loan. Within months her welfare cheque was cut back because she was receiving a student loan. She was a single mom (her son was 6) and back on welfare. The department told her they'd put her on job training through the Job Core program. Pam said she'd like to work with people and they placed her in a nursing home. For 20 weeks she scrubbed floors and windows, peeled potatoes and painted concrete floors. She was then able to go on UI, which ended up being less than welfare. Pam was on UI for a year and was cut off when she had to be in hospital (she wasn't "available for work"). She went back on welfare. "There's no hope in sight of a job for me. They say they want to help you and then they tie your hands." Bob's story Bob's a utility operator with the provincial highways department. He works about ten months of the year, driving snow ploughs in the winter and driving graders and back-hoes in the summer and has been doing so since 1989. "Ten years ago I was on welfare and it's no picnic. But you can't create jobs that aren't there and you can't train people

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for jobs that aren't there." Cuts in hours for seasonal employees have meant he's had to bump others with less seniority out of work. "A lot of us don't want to do it, but we have no choice." Meanwhile he sees welfare recipients clearing parkland, jobs that he and his co-workers could be doing when they're laid off in the summer. He sees workfare as simply this: the province shifts its welfare costs over to UI and the federal system. Instead of having to pay welfare costs, the province moves recipients into dead-end work for 20 weeks only, and then they can move over to UI and save the province some money for a period of time. "Nothing is going to improve with a system like that." Michelle's story When she and her husband separated, Michelle had to go on welfare. She was offered computer training at the Academy of Training. Then she was given a 20-week position as a clerk doing filing in the school board office. She was paid $6.25 per hour, while the other clerical workers earned about $10. She has two children and got a day care subsidy. She knew the 20-week period is never extended, that the board gets a free worker but the worker never gets ahead. "Everyone I've talked to who has been on these programs, their biggest concern is how they're worse off working for welfare." But she really wanted the experience. "It's also very frustrating because you are really treated like a grant worker. There's definitely a stigma. It's very uncomfortable because everyone knows you'll be gone in 20 weeks. It took me three months just to be accepted. And because I was experienced perhaps others felt they'd lose their jobs to grant workers. I had to assure people I wasn't going to take their jobs." "When you're hired there is no interview or anything. No training, no prerequisites. I got a call on Thursday to start a job on Monday. I went through four babysitters and two day care centres during the 20-week program. I was at an advantage because I had computer training, otherwise the work is filing and photocopying, that's it."

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"It's wrong for them to claim it's job creation... there's not even a hint of it." Barb's story Barb's union represents school clerical workers in the New Brunswick education system, and the threat of replacing staff with grant workers was so great the union filed a grievance in 1993 which has just been resolved in favour of employees. Now anyone whose hours are reduced while a grant worker is hired will be re-instated or re-imbursed for hours missed. Even so there are many cases of grant workers being brought in when decent full-time jobs could be created instead. The system now provides that any kindergarten with more than 25 children gets one grant worker as a teacher assistant. Representatives of the groups appeared on a local radio talk show for two hours. This was followed by a march and rally of about 200 people. Speakers from both groups showed how workfare didn't work for anyone. Union spokespeople said that all workers deserved decent wages and benefits, and people on welfare said they too needed decent wages and benefits to survive. Local media coverage of the event was good, and there was even some national coverage. People who called into the talk show were overwhelmingly supportive of the groups' positions that workfare doesn't work. While NAPO and CUPE are working together to fight workfare, other unions have also come out strongly against the concept. In its brief to the Human Resource Development's Social Security Review, the Canadian Labour Congress explained, Civil language does not capture the depth or nature of the negative feelings that we have about the government's intentions to... reintroduce workfare and mandatory training. It plainly and deliberately victimizes victims. It takes the most disadvantaged members of society and rubs their faces—faces that are disproportionately female, of colour, aboriginal, or people who suffer from disability and children's faces—in the reality of their disadvantage.

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It reflects a kind of social sickness that besets societies that are about to devour themselves in internal conflict.... We do not suffer here in Canada from a problem of large numbers of people turning down good jobs so they can bask in the luxury of UI and welfare. Quite the contrary, despite the problems in doing so, people leave welfare at an unusually high rate... (CLC, 1994). The brief of the Canadian Autoworkers Union pointed out that, "Workfare programs are a reactionary step backwards into the era of punitive Victorian insitutions of social control, concerned more with regulating and even criminalizing the poor than with eliminating poverty. [Workfare] is... clearly designed to win political points for government by fanning the flames of public hatred against poor people..." (CAW, 1994).

Resisting workfare before it happens

With poor bashing and workfare sweeping the country, and with a workfare-spouting Premier elected in Ontario, activists at End Legislated Poverty in British Columbia, began working in the spring of 1995 to alert unions and community groups to the possibility of workfare in B.C. The situation was urgent as the report of the Premier's Forum on New Opportunities for Working and Living had been released in April, 1995. The Premier's Forum was a group of 30 people handpicked by then-premier Mike Harcourt to advise him on how to deal with looming changes and cuts from the federal government. The 30 people included business people, labour activists, community representatives, academics, but no one from women's groups or antipoverty groups. After these two groups raised a ruckus, one antipoverty representative, Linda Moreau of End Legislated Poverty, was appointed after the Forum had already held two meetings. But Moreau couldn't turn the tide of the Forum, which also included high level government staff members, four cabinet ministers, and five deputy ministers. In fact, Moreau says she spent most of her time trying to challenge the poor-bashing language used by many Forum members. The Premier's Forum Report didn't use the word workfare, but it did call for workfare programs. For people under 25, the

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Forum said, " Treatment programs should be made available for young adults who are unable to participate in training or work due to substance abuse or other problems. Those who do not require treatment and choose not to receive training, should be required to work in order to receive public support." For people over 25, the Forum suggests an Ontario-style workfare program where welfare rates are cut back, then people are "allowed" to earn back the difference by working. Referring to the CAP right to freely chosen work, the report also said, " federal rules for many years said that receiving income assistance benefits could not be made contingent on the individual carrying out work or training....this kind of restriction is too rigid" (Premier's Office of B.C., 1995). Fearful of the recommendations of the Forum, people at End Legislated Poverty drafted a resolution for the April provincial convention of the NDP in Vancouver. The resolution called for the government to reject workfare and to enshine the rights in CAP provincially. It was modified only slightly and passed unanimously, with Minister of Social Services Joy MacPhail, speaking in favour of it and telling a group of welfare advocates on April 20 that she helped write it. However, when asked if the government would enshrine the CAP rights, MacPhail said it wouldn't. A modified version of this resolution was also passed by members at the CUPE convention in Prince George in June. Then-premier Mike Harcourt spoke at this convention, condemning workfare. Anti-poverty advocates became more fearful that workfare was on the government's agenda when they found the following sentence in the Ministry of Social Services Strategic Plan for 1995-1996, under the heading, Program Objectives: "Respond to and implement recommendations arising from the Premier's Forum on Opportunities for Working and Living" (Ministry of Social Services of B.C., 1995). On June 16, 1995, ELP and Suze Kilgour, a Premier's Forum member from the Hospital Employee's union who allied with Moreau in opposing the Forum's recommendations, called together people from anti-poverty groups, unions, Aboriginal, women's and community groups to work on education and

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action on workfare. The group, whose most active members are from the B.C. Teachers Federation, United Native Nations, First United Church, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Vancouver Status of Women, Domestic Workers Association, Labour Councils, and Hospital Employees Union, called itself WHOA, Workfare Hurts One and All. About 30 groups signed a letter to then-premier Mike Harcourt asking him to reject workfare and to enshrine in the law the five CAP rights, including the right not to have to work for welfare. However in November, 1995, the B.C. government introduced a socalled reform of the welfare system that included the following: • a $46 per month rate reduction for supposedly "employable" people; • an end to the $100 (for singles) and $200 (for families) monthly flat rate earnings exemption; • a plan to force people between the ages of 19 and 24 to take work, training, or "treatment" after they have been on welfare for nine months; • forcing single parents to seek work or training when their youngest child reached age 7 (down from age 12 previously); • obliging single parents on welfare who were enrolled in college or university to apply for student loans for living expenses (formerly paid by welfare); • a "Family Bonus" of up to $103 monthly per child for families with incomes under $ 18,000 annually, which would be deducted back from social assistance payments for those on welfare. C.D. Howe analysts supported the Family Bonus plan, and called it a form of workfare (Vancouver Sun, July 12, 1996). Anti-poverty activists also consider it to be workfare. Linda Moreau, of End Legislated Poverty, called it "a way to pressure

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people to take bad jobs" and "part of a strategy to promote cheap labour." WHOA is continuing to educate and lobby the NDP government, which extols its reforms as making work more worthwhile than welfare. WHOA's three-hour workshop on workfare was designed for union members and has had successful trial runs with students and domestic workers. WHOA members hope to use it more extensively with union members, and at community group staff development meetings. WHOA members, like Moreau, are talking about the need to develop a strategy of opposition to not only blatant workfare schemes, but to all changes to the welfare system that help promote cheap labour. Resisting workfare at the United Nations Outraged that the Canadian government was ending the Canada Assistance Plan (and, in so doing, allowing workfare), and frustrated by the lack of interest by the corporate media in Canada, and by Members of Parliament, three national groups took their concerns about workfare and the other basic human rights being abolished by the federal government with Bill C-76 to the United Nations in May, 1995. What does the UN have to do with workfare? The United Nations Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, signed by Canada in 1976, says that all the countries that sign it have to allow everyone the right to gain a living by "freely chosen" work. Workfare is not freely chosen. The Covenant also says that all people have the right to adequate food, clothing and housing and to the "continuous improvement in living conditions." Every five years each country that signed the Covenant has to report to the UN Committee on how it has been complying with the Covenant. In the past, when the Canadian Government has reported to the Committee, it said it was meeting Covenant requirements with the Canada Assistance Plan Act. In May, 1995, aware that CAP was about to be abolished, three national groups headed to Geneva, Switzerland, to report to the UN Committee on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights. They argued that Canada was about to take major steps that would make it impossible for it to comply with the Covenant;

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abolishing the Canada Assistance Plan, and reducing its budget for health, education and welfare by $7 billion. Vince Calderhead, then of Vancouver, represented the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues. Sarah Sharpe of St. John's, Newfoundland, represented the National Anti-Poverty Organization. The National Action Committee on the Status of Women also joined in the action, with many other national groups endorsing the effort. The Committee received the submission of the three groups very favourably. As a result, the Committee asked the government of Canada to address the concerns of the three groups in its next report to the Committee, due in June, 1995. Both the Canadian government and the UN Committee are late in hearing these reports, so the Canadian report probably will not be dealt with until the summer of 1998 or later. Meanwhile anti-poverty groups like End Legislated Poverty in B.C. and the National AntiPoverty Organization are asking groups to write directly to the UN with their comments on how the Canadian government is violating the Covenant, particularly in the areas of "freely chosen" work and "continuous improvement in living conditions." The three groups could return to Geneva when Canada makes its report, to make sure that the position of non-governmental organizations is heard. Will the UN pay any attention? If past experience is a guide, they might. In 1993 the Committee issued a list of "concerns" about poverty and homelessness in Canada that got quite a bit of publicity and embarrassed the government. Resisting workfare To resist workfare is to challenge some of the most fundamental myths that our economic system is based on. To resist workfare disputes the myth that jobs are available for all. Resisting workfare confronts stereotypes about poor people. Resisting workfare defies the idea that the poor are to blame for the lack of jobs. By resisting workfare we are struggling for the internationally recognized human right of freely chosen employment. Resisting workfare can also expose the corporate drive for lower and lower wages and more and more working poverty. Resisting workfare is most effective when the people who are forced into workfare programs unite with people who have paid

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jobs, to share their experiences with each other and with the public. This is exactly the kind of unity we need to build a broad social movement for a just society, where decent jobs at decent pay exist for all who need them, and where people who can't take paid work will be supported adequately and with respect and dignity. "Work/are is just another name for slavery," Cora Lee Johnson told me at the United Nations Conference on Human Development in Copenhagen in March, 1995. Cora Lee describes herself as a poor black woman whose grandparents were slaves. She lives in Georgia, U.S.A., and has spent a lot of time fighting against American work/are programs. "The only difference I can see," she said, " is that slavery was just for black folks. Workfare is for white people too."

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