Welfare Reform and its Impact
Potentially, this issue can affect all workers in Indiana through how it is administered and where welfare jobs are created. With respect to administration; we believe all aspects of reform should be administered directly by the state through DFCS, (Division of Family and Children Services) and Workforce Development.
Medicaid has to be administered by the state. From an efficiency perspective; it makes sense to have all programs centrally administered (just like one-stop shops the state has been pushing), and the state is the only group that can administer all programs. Therefore, they should remain with the state, especially since administrative cost are less than half that of private companies. We need to streamline the process within state government, not open the system to privateers.
Regarding placement; without legislative protections many jobs will be in jeopardy because the Federal law leaves too much room for individual state interpretation. Therefore, we need to tighten the state process by legislatively addressing several key concerns. In general, we need the following:
- Clients defined as employees within our systems. This is the most important issue, since everything else evolves around it. If clients are seen as workers (which they are) and not simply "working off their grants", then they are union eligible, receiving workers' compensation covered by IOSHA, receiving health and contract benefits, etc…If not, then they become free labor that replaces our members.
- No displacement of employee position. Right now they can replace our members when a vacancy exists. Worse yet, "vacancy" is liberally defined to mean not only a vacant position but a transfer or promotion vacancy as well. Within 2-3 years, 75% of our jobs could be filled by clients under this definition. We need to protect the existing job positions with recipients filling newly created positions, as the law intended.
- Wage rate. We need to make sure that recipients are paid the same as employees who are currently performing the work. If not, we have a 2-tier wage system, which encourages employers to fire their employees and replace them with below minimum wage recipients.
- Miscellaneous. There are a variety of other critical areas that need to be addressed by technicians.
The Indiana State AFL-CIO opposes any additional reform unless these recommendations are a part of that reform. |
