ARTICLE 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Theresa Burke
New York, New York
Article 23

My name is Theresa. I'm from New York, NY.

I had just started a new job with Bell Atlantic in 1996 when my mother died and then my father died a few days later. Bell Atlantic, concerned that I was not focused enough during the training class, asked me to leave soon after. Without my parents as a support network, I turned to public assistance. As a condition of receiving assistance I first had to go through a two month "How to get a job" program, which basically involved sitting in a room with telephone books and making cold calls. I was eventually placed in a Work Experience Program assignment, or Workfare. My first placement was in Jackie Robinson Park at 145th St., doing park maintenance. But, because my Bachelor's degree in business from Marymount College was seen as an asset, I was encouraged to attend an interview at the Office of Parks and Recreation. I was offered a WEP assignment right away. For the past year, I've worked 42 hours per two-week period. At my assignment I use Microsoft Word and handle financial work for the Department of Parks and Recreation. I often train new WEP workers entering the Department.

I work in the same office as Howard Stern, the Commissioner for Parks and Recreation. In fact, I have filled in for the Commissioner's secretary on numerous occasions. Currently, I only bring in $335 per month or $4020 per year, a salary that falls far below the federal poverty level. I receive $215 in a monthly rent allotment, $120 in food stamps and Medicaid. I receive no cash assistance. Whenever I tried to get a job, I got the "ha-ha" answer. Once I asked his secretary, who I had filled in for, to approach the commissioner for a job, he replied that I needed to go through the "proper channels." But the "proper channels" were not interested in employing me. I believe that it is more cost effective for them to keep me as a WEP worker, and I feel that they are blatantly exploiting me for my skills. I have seen numerous interns hired with pay. These students are hired fresh out of Ivy League schools with no prior work experience. I wonder why they are able to find money for paid interns, but none for me.

The only advancement I have been offered by the commissioner is an advanced version of WEP, as he describes it. The program is called PAC. It substitutes your WEP assignment and involves resume writing and computer classes. However, this program is 35 hours per week and there is no guarantee of a job at the end. I believe I have plenty of computer skills and I am not going to give the Welfare department an extra 14 hours a week of my time without any additional benefits.

Finally, I've decided to take my time and look for other jobs, as allotted by the program. My supervisor at the commissioner's office told me, even though I had provided her with documentation of my various interviews, that she didn't believe me and said she "needed me there." I pointed out that if she "needed me there," she ought to offer me a job. She then told me that I ought to be transferred and that she was going to make the necessary arrangements, none of which I've heard of yet. Now, I'm in limbo having no idea what's going to happen.

Antonia Cruz
Idaho Hunger Action Council, Boise, ID
Article 23

I'm small but I'm gonna be heard!

My name is Antonia and I live in Burley, Idaho, and it's an honor to be here. I am a mother of five - two children are married and I still have three children at home. For four years, I have been a single mother and struggled to support my family. I have worked on a dairy farm, hauled potatoes and mixed cement, done house cleaning and yard work, and even been self-employed. Five years ago, however, after a lengthy and expensive divorce, a medical crisis and the loss of my business, I was forced to stop working. Welfare was the only way to feed my children. It was never a choice.

I can't image anybody, anybody who would want to be on welfare. First, welfare took away my child support and asked me to live on $276 a month. What does it cost you to have a roof over your head, to have lights, running water, heat in your home, the necessities? Try recycling toothpaste, toilet paper and pads - let's be realistic, you can go generic all the way, but it still takes money. Then, they told me to look for a job but would not give me enough money to maintain and insure my car. In our fast-paced society, I wouldn't be able to keep up in a horse and buggy, much less control it. Finally, there was a lot of talk about training and making jobs available for people. Being a migrant worker's daughter and not having the training for a decent job, I was hoping that welfare reform could help me acquire the necessary skills. But that's all it was, talk. Even though I am in constant contact with my welfare case worker - so much so that I think she hides from me - I still cannot find a single decent, family-sustaining opportunity in my area. I'm saying, "I'm here, I'm ready, I have been ready," but there are no real resources.

But what are the alternatives to welfare? At minimum wage, my transportation, maintenance and child care become a nightmare again. Or consider the example of a single mother I know who is employed but still, once or twice a week, goes to the Community Action office in our area to pick up a food box because she cannot afford to put food on the table for her children. This woman is not a welfare recipient - she works for the welfare department.
I have been told that I should consider relocating. But my children already come from a broken home. And I know myself, being the daughter of a migrant worker, that the instability of moving from place to place affected my grades in school terribly. With my children, I'm trying to break that cycle by establishing some stability in their lives and pushing education.

I know I am not alone and that there are people out there with larger families, in worse situations than I'm in. But I am here for them, too, and as part of that large voice that carries out to you. The vast majority of people affected by welfare reform are people of color, uneducated, with no hope in sight. In the United States alone, we already have third-world hunger in our towns and cities. Men, women and children are living in cardboard boxes, dirt holes and chicken-coop-like huts. Our people are going hungry.

It seems our congressional officials have no worries when it comes to increasing their salaries, while they oppose an increase in the minimum wage. For those in charge, I want to pose a challenge and call upon our elected officials throughout the states to support families and to encourage businesses to offer higher paying jobs with livable wages. I would also like to invite the committee to the state of Idaho to investigate the impact of welfare reform in my hometown.
Hire us - we are ready and willing. Put us to work. I'm all for progress, but not at the cost of putting food on the table for my children. Give us livable wages, job training and placement to give our children a better and healthier future.

Khalil Abdus Samad for Esteban
POWER, San Francisco, CA
Article 23

Hello, my name is Khalil from San Francisco, and I'm representing Esteban, who couldn't be here because if he'd been here today he wouldn't have been able to do his Workfare job, and if he didn't do his Workfare job he couldn't have gotten his welfare benefits.

I was on workfare until March of this year when I was hired by POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights.) I'm here to tell you about human rights abuses going on in the workfare program in San Francisco. Workfare is an impersonal experience and issue for most people but I'd like to make it personal by lifting up Esteban, a fellow workfare worker.

Esteban is always up before the sun rises for fear of being late to his new job cleaning Municipal Transportation buses for the city of San Francisco. As a welfare recipient, he would be breaking the law if he did not work; new welfare legislation mandates that Esteban must work 15 to 17 hours a week or lose his monthly $345 general assistance check. This is what the city calls "workfare." Esteban works side by side with unionized city workers. These workers are paid $15 to $24 dollars an hour. Esteban earns $5.31 and he enjoys none of the same job protections or benefits as the unionized workers who are doing the same work and sometimes, in my experiences, much less. He is careful to arrive at the MUNI bus yard before seven a.m. in order to receive his white paper jumpsuit and rubber gloves. He removes graffiti from at least six buses a day using a caustic solution that burns his skin on contact. The cheap latex gloves he is issued are not strong enough to prevent him and his co-workers from developing chemical lesions, sores, and infections on their hands. The only time that Esteban receives additional protective equipment - a mask, goggles, and thicker gear - is when Municipal workplace inspectors arrive to conduct their five-month yard check-ups. The next day, it's back to the rubber gloves and paper jumpsuit.


Kaying Thao
Hmong American Friendship Association, Milwaukee, WI
Article 23

[The testimony is translated from Hmong.]
My name is Kaying. I am the mother of five children, the eldest of whom is 18 years old and the youngest of whom is 4 years old. My husband died May 27, 1997. My husband and I had lived in the mountains of Laos. All our lives we had no access to education and were farmers. My husband and family members fought in the Vietnam War on the American side. After the war, my family, like many other Hmong families, was being prosecuted for its involvement in the war, helping the United States. We came to the United States in 1992 as refugees, barely escaping with our lives.

Today, my family and I face another war, a war of illiteracy, poverty, uncertainty, and family breakdown. In 1997, my family and I were placed in W-2. I am required to do work experience 20 hours a week, and four hours of job search. I have medical problems with my back and was not able to work. I visited my doctor once a week. He wrote a letter to my social worker entailing my condition, saying that I am not able to work. But my social worker informed me that if I do not meet my W-2 requirement, I will lose my benefits. I feel that working in the work experience program, where a W-2 recipient is placed in a company to work for free, 20 hours a week, is like slavery. They force you to work and do work that you don't like and that you don't learn skills from.

A month ago, my back had gotten worse and again my doctor wrote a letter to inform my social worker that I cannot work. I stopped doing work experience and as a result my family's benefits were cut off. We are concerned about money for house rental and money to buy food. It's up to the government to decide the future of me and my children.



Synthesizing comments
Article 23

Bob Brown
Labor Party, Mid-Atlantic Region

Let me start by saying how I envisioned today: I look at this as a courtroom, where there are witnesses, there are lawyers (that's what I think a synthesizer is) and jurors, and spectators. You heard the testimony around Article 23 (I hope the people around the room have taken time to read Article 23 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights) It deals with a lot of economic rights. You heard from Theresa, Antonia, the story of Esteban, and Kaying. To recap just a few of the many abuses, the many human rights violations , the economic nightmares they suffered at the hands of the US government, I'll read a few:
Three hundred and thirty-five dollars a month, $4200 a year, workfare, week work, a secretary sometimes to the Commissioner of Parks and Recreation; $335 / month for that job!

Recycling toilet paper, tooth paste, receiving $276 / month in Idaho with no living wage jobs to be found in your community.

Five dollars and thirty-one cents an hour working alongside those making $17. Working with hazardous chemicals that are causing workers to get ill.
Suffering an injury while on workfare. Losing food stamps as a result of not being able to work and can't feed her children.

The signing of welfare reform legislation by President Clinton in 1996 is the foundation for indicting the US government for economic human rights violations.

Choices for single mothers on AFDC are simple: go find a minimum wage job where you have no benefits, or take a workfare job where you have paltry benefits but receive a wage that is less than minimum wage, or starve. Three choices.

Downsizing, unemployment, temporary work, part-time work; this is the future being planned for all of us who are not yet there. Increasing numbers of men, women, teenagers, children, millions are being thrown out of work and the American economy: workfare, unemployment. It violates our human rights, violates Article 23.

US corporations, with their faithful servants in government, are restructuring work in America. This is part of their partnership in "global economic success." Their globalization plan includes rationing down the cost US domestic production of goods and services to a worldwide battle. Their plan enriches the select few while it impoverishes the broad many. Workfare is an economic scheme to impoverish our brothers and sisters, our people, our class, ourselves. A political fight takes organization and program. Our political program, our political fight, must be bold. It must be bold to be effective. It must secure economic human rights; economic human rights cannot be real unless they are guaranteed by the US government. It must include the guaranteed right of every person in this country to a living wage job. The guarantee must be made by amending our US constitution. Lack of place for workfare workers to join unions, a dying wage not a living wage, no insurance, no existence worthy of human dignity, no supplements for social protection. We have no right to work, we have no right to work at a job at a living wage, we have no free choice of employment or just conditions of work nor protections against unemployment. Those are all the parts of Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We indict the US government for violations of its people's economic human rights and every and all aspects of Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I urge, I demand, we urge, we demand, that those jurors present let justice prevail and that you find the US government guilty of the human rights violations and that in your verdict you strive to build this movement and thus commit yourselves to fight for the right, the guaranteed right, to every person in this country a job at a living a wage. The US government and its master, corporate America, are the defendants at this tribunal. I ask the jurors to find them guilty as charged!

 

Testimonies - Article 25 Violations