A Step Forward…

Into the Belly of the Beast

Unannounced, Workfare Reform Activists Visit Lockheed-Martin Board Meeting, Public Hearing. Harbor Area Residents Represented

by Robert Johnson

The Los Angeles-based Welfare Workers Organizing Committee (WWOC), part of a national network of low-income rights groups known as ACORN," took to the streets on March 26 to voice its views on the current status of county programs to benefit the underprivileged. A group of approximately 70 General Relief (GR) workers and organizers armed with chants, slogans, and signs dropped in on a Lockheed-Martin Information Management Systems (IMS) board meeting on the 23rd floor of their corporate offices downtown. After further demonstration and negotiation, the group relocated to the Los Angeles Private Industry Council (PIC)'s public hearing on the allocation of Welfare-to-Work Program resources. Significant advances were made on both fronts, according to WWOC/ACORN representatives John Jackson and Amy Schur, in regards to opening channels of communication and establishing the WWOC as a recognizable entity in the currently shifting field of local welfare programs. "It was a successful day," declared Dee Petty, of the San Pedro-based Barton Hill Neighborhood Organization, a member of the coalition of local ACORN assistance groups.

The demonstrating group was calmly received at both locations, although in both situations their appearance was unexpected. Thomas R. Wrigley, Senior Vice President and Director of Municipal Operations for the $8 billion IMS branch of Lockheed-Martin handled the crowd with the calm assuredness of a politician and was quite agreeable in setting up a discussion session with the WWOC's ten-member negotiation committee. Although he and local Director of Operations Rich Baston were unwilling to make any commitments to prioritize workfare workers to be hired for opening positions in the company, as ACORN members had hoped, they were generally receptive to the ideas of the group and agreed to a meeting time in two weeks to further discuss the issues. The PIC board was perhaps even more open to the group, offering to let ACORN draft their demands and concerns for inclusion in the final document that they produce concerning the expenditure of funds for Welfare-to-Work.

Los Angeles County's public assistance programs are currently in a state of flux, and the model of funding Welfare-to-Work programs similar to the GAIN model [See "UnGAINly Solution," p. 1] appear to be of foremost priority. The City Council's rapid abandonment of the direct cash handout takes its first big step forward July 1, when GR benefits for both workfare and non-workfare participants are slashed, and may ultimately be reinstituted only five months out of every twelve. This means that those currently "on the dole" will lose their $212-a-month check until at least February. The new model, being pushed by both the County and an ad-hoc Committee of City Councilmembers, headed by the 15th District's Rudy Svorinich, Jr., lies in "Welfare-to-Work" and job training programs.

ACORN's specific gripe with these programs is simple: They create no new jobs. While proposing to counsel the unemployed on matters like grooming and punctuality, they are unable to demonstrate that new spaces in the job market will be opened to accommodate these newly employable citizens. In a larger sense, the organization recognizes these movements in the public assistance sphere as representative of the ever-widening rift between rich and poor. Consequently, it makes demands such as an increased minimum wage and trains its eye on corporations who, at present, are taking advantage of workfare workers ("making their money on the sweat of poor people," as ACORN chair Abdullah Muhammed puts it).

One of these corporations is Lockheed-Martin, the gigantic national defense/aeronautics monolith, which has lately been making a practice of gobbling up welfare program contracts as they are made available in the gradual privatization of the handout. Los Angeles County, following the example of Texas has recently announced its intention to contract out 25 percent of the welfare program here, and Lockheed-Martin's IMS, already attracting local ire in the Harbor Area for its newly privatized management of L.A. parking tickets [See "Letters." p. 4] is the leading contender for the project. One of the interesting things to emerge from the dialogue, according to Schur, was the subtle concession that this is a done deal: "We were going about it as if they were a sure thing to get the contract, although we were going on rumors. Although we expected them to throw it back at us, there was no denial whatsoever." Although the impetus to privatize is generally acknowledged to be greater efficiency, Lockheed-Martin has a notorious track record--the company was recently dropped on its state contract to handle the computer systems for the California child support collection system due to gross inefficiency and spending well more than double what it had been contracted for.

The demonstration was supported by a small but enthusiastic core of local residents rounded up by Petty who collectively represented the Barton Hill Neighborhood Organization, a San Pedro public assistance group that offers everything from English as a Second Language classes to grocery handouts. While there are certainly no shortage of individuals in San Pedro and the Harbor Area who are affected by the Workfare/Welfare situation, events like this one seem to magnify the distance between local citizenry and the decision-making bodies that directly affect them. Downtown L. A. is a pretty decent hike for a San Pedran GR recipient to take for something like this. Further, while San Pedro's poor have no shortage of charitable organizations providing subsistence, those like the Barton Hill Group, which place more emphasis on informing people and raising awareness, are exceedingly rare. Many GR recipients in town remain unaware of the deadline that looms in their near future.

Petty, whose driving presence was ubiquitous throughout the day, paints a dire picture of "what happens after July First?": "Homelessness will be up. Hunger will be up. Crime will skyrocket. Everyone that 'has' will be in danger. The situation becomes pretty simple for someone who's been cut off: 'Why do you have what I don't?'--and they'll put a gun in your face and make you give it to them." Svorinich's ad-hoc committee thinks it has an answer. Time will tell.

RANDOM LENGTHS NEWS