Giuliani Santa/WEP Workers Aren't Fooled-WW Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the November 20, 1997 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- GIULIANI'S PHONY COMPASSSION: WORKFARE WORKERS SAY POOR WON'T BE DIVIDED By Greg Butterfield Can the government of the world's richest city provide real, meaningful assistance to people in need? For the last four years, New York Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has answered "No." At a time when the gap between rich and poor is growing in New York, Giuliani inflamed tens of thousands of unemployed workers--mostly single women with children--by ordering them to enter workfare or have their assistance cut off. During a radio talk show Nov. 6, Giuliani received a call from Rose Kornitzer. She described herself as a 25-year-old mother of infant twins and triplets. Saying she was depressed and drained by caring for her children in conditions of poverty, Kornitzer told the mayor, "Sometimes I do feel like I'm going to jump off a bridge." Giuliani ordered several top aides to visit the woman's home in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. According to the Nov. 8 Daily News, city officials promised Kornitzer and her husband cash assistance, food, day care, round-the-clock assistance with the children and a bigger apartment. What motivated Giuliani's unusual act of compassion? During his campaign, Giuliani promised to do more for the city's poor--without once mentioning workfare. Even some of the mayor's cheerleaders in the mainstream press saw his response to Kornitzer's plea as a cynical grab for good publicity. However, hundreds of thousands of women, shut out of employment and opportunities by the profit-driven economy, know the mayor is not their friend. Giuliani has so far forced over 40,000 people into the Work Experience Program, as New York's workfare system is euphemistically called. These workers are paid only their assistance check--far less than minimum wage. They often work in unsafe conditions. Tens of thousands of union members--their jobs eliminated by the mayor--have been replaced by WEP workers. STANDING TALL TOGETHER Kornitzer and her husband are white. They are members of the Orthodox Jewish community, which strongly supported the mayor's re-election bid. For many years, politicians representing the interests of the banks and corporations have sought to divide Jewish people from the Black community. Activists with Workfairness, an organization of WEP workers and supporters fighting for union rights, emphasized the need for unity. "It's great that Rose Kornitzer got the help she needed," says Vondora Jordan, a co-founder of the group, "but we have to rise and demand as one that any person in need deserves the same level of assistance." Jordan described the nightly horror faced by women with children waiting in long lines for emergency housing assistance. "How can Giuliani say he is helping when there are Black and Latina women waiting in line 72 hours, sleeping on cold office floors? "Without planning to, Giuliani showed us what he could do to alleviate this suffering," Jordan pointed out. "He could mobilize the vast city government to give direct aid to hundreds of thousands of families. Instead of giving multi-million-dollar tax breaks to Wall Street, he could use that money to create real jobs at union wages. "If Mayor Giuliani really wanted to help," Jordan concluded, "he would let WEP workers unionize. But it's going to take a struggle by all of us--WEP workers, unions, students, women--to make it happen." Workfairness, along with AFSCME District Council 37 and other organizations, is continuing its struggle to organize WEP workers. A meeting of WEP workers who have signed cards for union representation will be held at DC-37's headquarters on Nov. 29. For more information on how to get involved with the organizing efforts, contact Workfairness at (212) 633-6646. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytlab-11.15.97-03:01:29-8302