WHEREAS:

Since 1968, the WIN program has provided provenly cost effective training and job placement services to employable recipients of AFDC, especially to unemployed fathers and to female heads of AFDC households.

Thousands of such persons have been assisted by WIN staff in state employment services and welfare departments (many of whom are AFSCME members) in obtaining unsubsidized jobs. This has enabled them to either leave the welfare rolls or to reduce their dependency upon welfare; and

WHEREAS:

The WIN program provides a full range of employment and social services, including the cost of child care services, on a 90-10 Federal-State matching basis. It has been crafted in a manner which respects the dignity of its participants and upholds their due process rights.

WIN's major shortcoming has been that the Congress has never provided sufficient funds to enable it to reach and extend services to all eligible AFDC recipients. So long as WIN continues to be underfunded, it is wrong to lay this deficiency on the program; and

WHEREAS:

The Reagan Administration has proposed persistently to Congress to abolish the WIN program and to replace it by forcing states to establish mandatory workfare programs for AFDC recipients. By comparison with WIN, workfare endangers the job security of regular public employees and is punitive to its participants. For these and other reasons, AFSCME has been preeminent in successfully urging the Congress to reject this proposal.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That AFSCME continues to fight vigorously for the retention, expansion, and full funding of the WIN program.

SUBMITTED BY:

Charles Masud, Delegate
AFSCME Local 269
Dominic J. Badolato, Delegate
AFSCME Local 1303, Council 4
Berlin, Connecticut