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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan.18, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Over 400 people marched into the State Capitol here Jan. 4 to oppose the governor's proposal for so-called welfare reform. Over half the protesters were from Milwaukee's Hmong community.
After rallying in a nearby church, the protesters marched to the Capitol to attend a Joint Finance Committee-sponsored public hearing on the bill. It is known as W-2, a euphemism that stands for Wisconsin Works.
After singing songs, the demonstrators began to chant, "No justice, no peace--stop W-2!"
The legislative leadership holding the hearing had told the crowd they would have to meet in a room that holds barely 100 people. In response, the people began chanting, "Move the hearing!"
They brought their children to sit right up in front of the committee's podium.
When more and more people crammed into the hearing room and the chanting grew louder and more militant, the legislators finally relented and agreed to move the hearing to the larger Assembly chambers.
W-2 is known as the brainchild of Gov. Tommy Thompson, who has made a national reputation for himself by cooking up increasingly Draconian attacks on welfare. The proposal, however, was actually hatched by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank funded in part by the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation.
The foundation also funded the racist pseudo-scientific book "The Bell Curve."
Under W-2, all recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children would be forced to take jobs assigned them by the state. The proposal would affect some 70,000 families, most of them headed by single mothers.
Critics charge that fully three-quarters of the assigned jobs would pay less than the minimum wage, with no provision for education or child care for children over 10 years old. AFDC families in Milwaukee County, where unemployment in inner-city neighborhoods already runs as high as 25 percent, would be hit hardest.
W-2 isn't welfare reform, charged a leaflet handed out by the Job is a Right Campaign, a grassroots labor-community organization that has been agitating against W-2. It is Thompson's attempt to create a super-low-wage, captive work force for Wisconsin corporations.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate of 3.7 percent is one of the lowest in the country. The state's corporations publicly complain they must pay above the minimum wage to attract entry-level workers.
Among the most angry opponents of W-2 are the Hmongs, who come originally from the mountains of Southeast Asia. Some 40,000 Hmong soldiers lost their lives during the Vietnam War after being recruited by the CIA to fight in the U.S. secret war in Laos.
Brought to states like Wisconsin and Minnesota after the war under church-sponsored refugee programs, the Hmongs have found only unemployment, poverty and discrimination. Asian children in Wisconsin now have the highest infant mortality rate in the United States.
Since many Hmongs speak no English, and W-2 offers no provisions for language education, the Hmongs fear they will be forced into slave-like jobs and unbearable living situations if the proposal passes.
With the exception of the tightly organized Hmong community, opposition to W-2 has so far come largely from church groups, social-service agencies and a few progressive government officials. As more and more people become aware of the implications of W-2, however, the anger and the opposition are sure to grow.
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