WHEREAS:

For nearly twenty years, the WIN program has provided cost-effective services that have enabled employable AFDC recipients to obtain jobs despite the fact that the program has been constantly underfunded, and

WHEREAS:

More than 20 states rely on federal WIN funding to support substantially innovative and experimental WIN Demonstration Projects such as the highly successful Massachusetts Employment and Training Choices voluntary program that afford public assistance recipients the opportunity to move from dependency to work and economic independence; and

WHEREAS:

The Reagan Administration has again proposed that the program be abolished in fiscal year 1987. WIN would be replaced by a new Work Opportunities Initiative program that would require states to design their own programs. The programs could include a workfare requirement and would have to conform with mandated prescribed levels of recipient participation; and

Meanwhile, current federal funding for the WIN program is being seriously eroded by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act; and

WHEREAS:

It does not make sense to establish a national policy aimed at moving public assistance recipients from dependency to work and opportunity while at the same time proposing to either abolish or eventually defund a program which can be, and should be, used as the mainspring in achieving this goal.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That AFSCME urges the U.S. Congress to retain and fully fund the WIN program.

SUBMITTED BY:

Herbert A. Ollivierre, President
Natalie Baker, Recording Secretary
AFSCME Council 93
Boston, Massachusetts