by Janice Thurman, Coordinator, W-2 Workers United
This past August 22 was the one-year anniversary of President Clinton signing the national welfare reform bill. That bill meant the end of AFDC and the government’s 60-year commitment to provide for the poor.
On that day, A Job is a Right Campaign, W-2 Workers United, AFSCME Local 82, Muhammad Mosque No. 3, the Wisconsin Injured Workers Network, Education for the People, Repairers of the Breach, State Senator Gwendolynne Moore and many other organizations and individuals held a press conference outside the Bradley Foundation. At that time we condemned Clinton’s reform bill and also Bradley’s role in helping to destroy AFDC. That was also the first time we raised the idea of organizing W-2 workers into a union.
W-2 went into effect on September 1, which was Labor Day. W-2 Workers United and Job is a Right organized a contingent in the Milwaukee Labor Day parade, again calling for a unionizing campaign directed at W-2 workers.
All workers need a union, including W-2 workers. I’m speaking for all W-2 workers, but especially for Black women. Black women have always faced discrimination in the workplace. As mothers, we have always had to put up with a lot on the job in order to provide for our children. Taking care of our kids is the most important thing, so, rightly or wrongly, we put up with things we shouldn’t have to in order to be able to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. We know that this discrimination will only increase as the employers realize that W-2 workers are forced to work for them, that they have little or no rights.
W-2 workers need better wages and decent working conditions. They need time-and-a-half for overtime, coffee breaks, vacations. They need a grievance procedure. People who work Community Service Jobs are providing a service for their employers and deserve to be paid for their work. They need to be able to take time off to care for their children when they are sick. Day care centers won’t take sick children and W-2 doesn’t allow time off for that.
In short, W-2 workers need a written, legally binding contract, and that is only possible with a union.
We have been talking to the unions about this since before W-2 went into effect. Now we are saying again that we stand ready to support an organizing campaign of W-2 workers. We are ready to help organize, but it is the unions that have to take the first step forward.
By this coming March, all people still receiving AFDC will have to be converted over to the W-2 program. Now is the time to open up a real organizing campaign.