This has been the experience in Quebec, the first province to introduce workfare back in 1989 under the former Liberal government, and also in New Brunswick and Alberta, as well as in most of the American states. The single exception in the United States seems to be Massachusetts, whose workfare program is strictly voluntary--and therefore can't strictly be called workfare. Moreover, it provides complete childcare and transportation allowances, pays participants the going market wage rather than their welfare amounts, and stresses training and the acquisition of marketable skills.
Apart from Massachusetts, however, other workfare programs in both the U.S. and Canada make participation compulsory as a condition for staying on welfare, provide little or no training, and little or no child care services. They have not succeeded in reducing welfare caseloads or cutting welfare costs.
The dismal record of these experiments, however, has not deterred right-wing governments from introducing them. The Harris government in Ontario is in the process of imposing workfare in that province, despite opposition from social action groups, unions, churches, and even some of the province's largest municipalities.
The Social Services Department of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton (RMOC), for example, has done an in-depth study of workfare as it has been implemented elsewhere, and on the basis of its findings has recommended against introducing such a program in the nation's capital.
The RMOC study noted that there are several basic assumptions made by all governments that have tried workfare:
(1) that a large number of welfare recipients could find work if they wished, but choose to live off welfare;
(2) that a large number of them are actually working and thus are defrauding the system;
(3) that workfare reduces welfare rolls by eliminating the welfare "cheats";
(4) that workfare promotes self-sufficiency; and
(5) that workfare teaches new skills, provides training, and improves employability.
One by one, the RMOC study challenges these assumptions. "The assumption that large numbers of people on welfare could work if they chose to do so is not supported by the evidence". It ignores the reality of high unemployment. The contention that welfare payments and benefits are so high that they encourage welfare dependence is also without substance. "The assumption of widespread welfare fraud cannot be sustained. Abuse of the system is relatively low".
"Given that fraud is not significant, the assumption that workfare reduces costs by eliminating cheaters is questionable". Instead there is evidence that some workfare projects have had the effect of denying basic help to those in genuine need.
"The assumption that workfare promotes self-sufficiency is hard to understand since self-sufficiency implies an absence of government assistance". Yet workers in workfare programs continue to receive their welfare payments. Workfare more often appears to reinforce dependency on the state, locking poor people into unskilled make-work positions.
"There is little evidence to support the assumption that workfare teaches new skills, offers training, and improves employability". Very few workfare participants are given work that involves meaningful training, and only a small percentage of those who complete such programs find paying jobs.
In New York, "many workers in that state's workfare program have been performing the same entry-level job for nearly a decade." On the basis of its findings, the RMOC Social Services Department suggested that "there are alternatives to workfare that can meet the expectations of reduced caseloads and savings to the taxpayer, but without the pitfalls of mandatory unpaid labour and the imposition of heavy sanctions." The proposed alternatives included a program of economic incentives, such as offering salary subsidies to employers to supplement the minimum wage, on condition that those on workfare getting such jobs also receive training, skills upgrading, counseling, and follow-up support.
The Harris government, however, is determined to force the province's "able-bodied" welfare recipients to work for at least 17 hours a week to keep their meagre benefits of $520 a month. They will have to work in what the government calls "community service" jobs provided by municipalities, or in similar private sector jobs found for them by private employment placement agencies.
In Quebec, PQ Income Security Minister Jeanne Blackburn has publicly admitted that workfare there has been a dismal failure. In the first five years of the program, the number of Quebecers on welfare rose by a staggering 42% to 776,541 persons in 464,500 households. Of the 80% of welfare recipients considered "employable," only about 15% are now actually enrolled in workfare programs. And of those who have participated in such programs since 1989, fewer than 12% of them have been able to find stable jobs.
The cost of administering these programs in Quebec has been horrendous. A study by Deena White, a sociology professor at the University of Montreal, found that welfare agents have had to spend 86% of their time in financial dealings such as "getting the right cheque to the right person at the right time," instead of handling the more important services relating to their caseloads.
The main purpose of workfare, in the opinion of most analysts, is to provide a pool of cheap labour for employers rather than to help those on welfare or reduce welfare costs.
"Workfare programs are 'cash cows' for business people," says Robert Mullaly, a social work professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton and a vocal critic of New Brunswick's workfare showpiece, N.B. Works, a $177-million joint initiative with the federal government. N.B. Works participants have worked at clearing parkland and hiking trails, as well as at menial jobs in the service sector. There has been a high dropout rate, especially among women, mainly because of the lack of adequate childcare and transportation, and the enforced long periods away from home. It's a lot cheaper for employers to hire welfare recipients than people who would have to be paid more than the equivalent of welfare benefits. The workfare workers are also denied the right to join or form unions, and are not even covered by minimum labour standards legislation.
"That suits the business world and the politicians just fine," says Mullaly. "Besides providing cheap labour and subsidizing employers, workfare takes jobs away from other workers and serves as a mechanism for keeping wages down and profits up."
In a recent survey of companies in Quebec who have used workfare recipients, 50% of those polled admitted that they would have had to hire people at full wages if the province's workfare scheme didn't exist. The imposition of forced labour on welfare recipients has occurred in Canada despite a prohibition against it in the old Canada Assistance Plan (CAP). This act, which established Canada's welfare system, stated that "no person shall be denied assistance because he or she refuses or has refused to take part in a work activity project."
Whether Quebec and other provinces that brought in workfare violated this section of CAP is now a moot point, since CAP has been scrapped and replaced by the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST). The only standard that Ottawa seems to be maintaining is guaranteed access to social assistance for people moving from one province to another. The decision on whether or not to ban forced labour is now left to each province, and indications are that many of the provinces--maybe the majority--will not favour such a ban.
Workfare also violates Article 6 of the United Nations International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, to which Canada is a signatory. This article states that the countries which signed this covenant "recognize the right to work which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his (her) living by work which he (she) freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right."
Undeterred by their violation of this international pact, Canada's provinces are moving full speed ahead with more and even harsher workfare projects, using the spurious claim of providing jobs for the jobless as an excuse.
Let's give the last word to Leonard Marsh, author of the 1943 Report on Social Security in Canada, which was the blueprint for Canada's post-war welfare state: "The only answer to unemployment is employment--and not just any kind of employment, but employment carrying a reasonable level of remuneration and reasonably satisfactory working conditions."
(This article is based on material provided by Labour Times, This Magazine, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton.)
