Today, April 4, is the 30th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 30 years ago, Dr. King was in Memphis to support the city’s sanitation workers in their struggle for justice and dignity. It was a fight against racism and for workers rights. For these ideals, Dr. King gave his life. Today we are marching to demand an end to W-2 suffering. The W-2 program has forced many thousands of single mothers to work for starvation wages for the benefit of private businesses, so-called non-profit agencies and government departments.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, three out of four W-2 workers in Milwaukee County are now employed in the so-called Community Service and Transition Job categories. These workers do not receive wages from their employers, just their old welfare check plus support services. That means there are now 10,000 W-2 workers in the county providing FREE LABOR for their bosses. And if they drop out of the program, they risk having their children taken by the government because of the loss of income.
This is why state officials are telling the world that W-2 is a success -- they have managed to create a pool of low-wage captive workers for the benefit of businesses unwilling to pay a living wage.
Whether we’re talking about rural counties, where most W-2 workers are white, or Milwaukee County, where most W-2 workers are African American, Latino or Hmong, these W-2 workers are fighting against a racist, anti-worker system -- just like the sanitation workers of Memphis. As we leave the Clinton Rose Senior Center, we will pass a number of sites having to do with W-2. We will pass OIC-GM and YW Works.
These two agencies, along with Goodwill Industries (Employment Solutions), UMOS and the private, for-profit MAXIMUS, Inc., have received the contracts to administer W-2 in Milwaukee County. They administer the program, but they don’t run it.
We will pass one block from The Job Shop, a modern day sweatshop located in the Milwaukee Enterprise Center at 4th and Hadley. The boss at the Job Shop profits from W-2 labor -- but he doesn’t run the program, either. We will pass one block from the Governor’s Central City Initiative Office at 5th and North Avenue. Governor Tommy Thompson pushed W-2 through the state legislature and made a national name for himself -- but he doesn’t run the program.
Unfortunately we will not be passing by the Bradley Foundation, located at 1241 N. Franklin Place just off Prospect Avenue on the East Side. Bradley is the richest and most powerful right-wing foundation in the country. It paid for the development of W-2. It also paid for the campaigns to overturn affirmative action in California and Texas. And it funded the racist book The Bell Curve, which tried to "prove" that Black people are inferior to whites. This isn’t just "conservative", this is fascist, Nazi propaganda. Bell Curve author Charles Murray was actually brought in as a consultant for the development of W-2. But as bad as Bradley is, it only plays a role in serving the rich business interests by pushing programs like W-2.
Today we are marching to the offices of the people who do run W-2, whose job it is to oversee the work of the W-2 agencies. We are marching to 111 West Pleasant St., home of the Private Industry Council, or PIC. This is where the real power is. And this is where some of the richest and most powerful business leaders in the area -- virtually none of whom come from the communities of color -- make sure that their own companies profit from the captive labor provided by W-2.
Some of these business leaders include (This information was provided to us by the PIC itself and was current as of spring of 1997):
Members of the PIC’s Board of Directors include:
Unfortunately, there are also a number of labor officials and community leaders who have accepted positions on the PIC. They don’t reap the big profits from W-2 labor, but they provide a cover for the rich businessmen who do. But W-2 isn’t just a local program. W-2 was developed as a model for the rest of the country and even for other countries overseas. That’s why Jason Turner, who headed the task force that developed W-2, was recently hired to run the WEP workfare program in New York City. That’s the largest workfare program in the country. Parts of W-2 have been adopted by the government of New Zealand, among other places. W-2 is meant to serve the interests of the whole corporate class that runs this country. And poor people in Milwaukee are being used as guinea pigs in the development of that program. What can we do about W-2? We know it’s not enough to march and protest about W-2. But that is a first step, and it’s been one that has been sorely lacking in Milwaukee. The purpose of today’s march is to show solidarity with those who are suffering from W-2 and to point the finger at the rich businessmen who are profiting from it. Now we have to continue to organize.We call again for the union movement in the state of Wisconsin to take up a serious organizing campaign among W-2 workers. It’s six months into the program. What’s the delay?
Forget pouring money into a new round of elections. Create a fighting labor movement and the politicians will fall in line. But neglect the organizing in favor of electing "friends of labor" and we’ll continue to fall backwards into economic and social crisis.
We have to support those in the W-2 program. We have to build more and larger protests, marches and demonstrations. We have to continue to educate, organize and mobilize. And we have to revive the people’s movement. No politician, no matter how progressive, can substitute for a broad-based, people’s movement. This movement must fight for the rights of all poor and working people and it must put the struggle against racism at the top of its agenda. It must respect the right of self-determination of the communities of color. And it must be determined to reach the goal of Justice -- by any means necessary.
If you would like to help build such a movement, we invite you to join A Job is a Right Campaign. Together, we can win!