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25 Emp. Resp. & Rts. J. 1 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/emprrj25 and id is 1 raw text is: Employ Respons Rights J (2013) 25:1-21 DOI 10.1007/s10672-012-9209-3 Organizing Workfare Workers as Contingent Employees: Lessons from the New York City Work Experience Program Worker Unionization Campaign, 1996-1997 Victor G. Devinatz Published online: 6 November 2012 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012 Abstract The stated goal of the nation's largest workfare program, New York City's Work Experience Program (WEP), is to provide welfare recipients with adequate training and relevant job experience so that they can successfully compete for work in the private sector. When it became apparent that the program was not living up to its stated ideals, the workfare workers began a union organizing drive late in 1996. However, the city administration formally opposed the unionization campaign on economic grounds and by arguing that workfare workers were not employees per se. In this article, I argue that workfare workers are a type of contingent public sector employee, discuss and analyze the New York City WEP worker unionization campaign and provide recommendations how this drive could have used the idea that workfare workers are contingent public sector employees in pursuit of a potentially more successful outcome. Key words Workfare - Union organizing - Contingent employees - Welfare policy Neoliberal globalization has radically restructured employment relations throughout the world in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In post-industrial, industrial and industrial- izing nations, employers seek out increased work force flexibility so that they can ignore employment laws and regulations. This appetite for flexibility has resulted in the reduction of the number of standard jobs in the labor market's primary sector, defined as jobs that are well-regulated, provide a regular wage and offer job security. Supplanting these standard jobs is employment in the economy's informal sector which is characterized by jobs which offers workers with, if any, legal protection. Representative groups of informal economy workers include temporary workers, independent contractors, self-employed workers, day laborers, and workfare workers. Recent statistics reveal that the informal economy makes up approximately 8.5 % to 10 % of the US economy with self-employed and temporary workers comprising the largest categories of informal workers at 6 % and 5 % of the labor force, V. G. Devinatz (E) Distinguished Professor of Management, Department of Management and Quantitative Methods, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-5580, USA e-mail: vgdevin@ilstu.edu 4_ Springer

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