Corporate Slamming: Trading One Poor Worker for Another

Corporate Slamming

I am worthy!

Trading one poor worker for another - and making a profit

Friday, May 23rd, 1997 -- If you think the federal guidelines for welfare reform act to give welfare recipients the impetus to work, think again. The program, in many states, is being used to pay off big business who use tax credits and cash payments passed from Washington to state treasuries to nearly enslave welfare workers who must get a job or lose even the most basic safety net provisions -- like food stamps.

The word from Congress and the White House is "get a job or starve." So the poorest of the poor have been flocking to training centers, state employment offices and private programs funded with public money to desperately seek a job which will fulfill state and federal requirements.

But what really happens is that employers take fat cash grants, in one form or another, to place low-skilled, undereducated welfare workers in jobs currently held by the working poor. In short, big business is cashing in on the backs of the poor. Firing one to replace him or her with another.

Juanita Alvarez, our mythical welfare mom, is told she either gets a job or loses her AFDC payments and health care supports. Juanita, frightened to death by this prospect, hightails it down to the local state-supported job center where she is hustled over to a private 12-step "educational" institution, which is often a for-profit venture. There she is taught to respect herself, write a resume and look for a job. She spends four to eight weeks in the "program" and then finds out there are few jobs for latino women who have some trouble with English.

Her friend Rosa has better luck. She's hired by a local slaughterhouse to cut the heads off chickens. The slaughterhouse, owned by a giant meat packing conglomerate, pays Rosa minimum wage. Sounds good. Well yes, except that the slaughterhouse fired another worker, Joe Rodriguez, who earned nearly $10 and hour doing the same job. Rosa earns $5.50 an hour, but the meat packing corporation got $5,000 from the state as an "incentive" to hire Rosa and get her off welfare. Thus, Rosa costs about half what Joe cost the company to do the same tasks.

Juanita, desperate to find something, anything, hears about another program at the nearby Dollar-A-Day Motel. Dollar-A-Day is sponsoring a training course for maids. They teach Juanita how to scrub toilets, empty trash cans and change linens. Juanita does well at this. She's been doing those things for her own family for 20 years. Dollar-A-Day, which is owned by Titan Hotels pays Juanita -- get this -- $6 dollars a day during her training program which lasts more than two months. The rest of her $198.00 a week "salary" is credited to her workfare-requirement file - but no money changes hands. In other words, no one pays anything but the $30.00 a week "spending money" to Juanita.

Wait, there's more. What Juanita doesn't know is that Dollar-A-Day and Titan have been in a terrible labor dispute with the union that represents hotel maids. Titan executives are using Juanita to replace striking maids while negotiations proceed.

What will happen to Juanita? Take a guess.

What will happen to Joe? Well, he'll be making a welfare application to help feed and house his kids. Then he'll be told "Work… or else."

Rosa has a job for now, but there's no guarantee that the slaughterhouse will keep her once she begins costing them the same as Joe did. Why should they. All they need do is hire another welfare mom to replace Rosa next year. That way they get another $5,000 tax credit and a brand new worker at wages which compute to less than minimum wage.

And the beat goes on.