Greetings,
Blake Poland sent a message regarding "America Works", an
organization which I became familiar with in 1993 when I attended the
International Healthy Communities conference in San Francisco. At that
time I wrote the following report to my colleagues who were engaged in
an employment training program for people on social assistance (under
the now defunct jobsOntario fund, where social service organizations
worked with private sector partners to provide supports, training,
placement and find jobs). Peter Cove was a popular figure at the
Healthy Communities conference and had had considerable media coverage
already. I will be interested to hear from some of the American
subscribers to CLICK4HP who may be more familiar with this organization
and it's impact on the 'privatization of welfare' and job training.
Subject: "Public Ends/Private Means" session at IHC conference
Date: Tue, Dec 14, 1993 5:00PM
One of the workshops that I monitored had the above title and was
described as:
"How to convert the public will without the intermediary of government,
the concept of "more governance and less government" will be discussed,
as will community programs which have "disintermediated" the bureaucracy
from public purpose."
The main speaker was Peter Cove, president of the job placement agency
"America Works!" which gets welfare recipients into jobs and off
dependency. The three elements about this agency are that it's:
1. performance-based in that they only receive $ when the person is
permanently employed;
2. education/training is focused on getting a job (based on principles
that welfare recipients want to work, any job is better than none, and
'who you know is as important as what you know') not on training for
specific jobs - they have a 1 week pre-employment class, then some
upgrading of 5-6 weeks on business skills at entry level and a sales
course.
3. its a For-Profit company that only asks for government funds based on
'delivering the goods' (person is off welfare on the job and stays) -
believing that "you [taxpayers & government] should get what you pay
for, but shouldn't pay for it if it doesn't deliver". They point out
that it costs the government about $23,000 /year to keep someone on
welfare, but they'll get a person off welfare for $5700.
Peter Cove emphasized their "sales" program to sell potential employees
to companies (who pay a fee like temp. placement agency fees % of hourly
wage) on a "try before you buy" concept - 4 months probation without
benefits, with a corporate representative from America Works! meeting
with the worker and line manager regularly to deal with "delicate issues
that come into the way of the transition from dependency to working -
barriers that could be difficult for the worker (abusive mate,
transportation, daycare) and the company (worker fitting in,
interpersonal relations etc)". Once the company hires the person after
the 4 month try out, AW gets 2/3 its fee, after 5 months if the person
is still working they get the last 1/3 (I think he referred to the $5700
from government).
Peter Cove & America Works! were very popular - the press came in twice
to the session to film him and interview him afterwards, and the
president or chairman from Canada's own National Citizen's Coalition
called him to arrange for him to come in January and "speak to the
budget minister (federal or Ontario?) about options around job training
and welfare reform". He repeatedly referred to David Osborne's book
"Reinventing Government" and sees the approach of "less government and
more governance" as the new wave, which he is riding. By the way, AW had
placed 7000 people in 2 years, which is an often quoted statistic to
show effectiveness. What isn't known is retention of jobs after one
year and impact on the welfare system and social safety net.
> [Stirling, Alison] > Blake had commented:
> > The interviewer tried to challenge him gently on a number of issues,
> but never really attacked his underlying assumptions (e.g. that what
> unemployed single moms lack - and all they lack, is proper "training"
> and incentives to be employed).
>
> Welcome to the "new economy".
>
> [Stirling, Alison] I agree that this model is being held up as an
> example for the 'new economy' and certainly used in Ontario by the
> Harris government when they began to look at revamping the workfare
> program, after dismantling the employment training and support
> programs for social assistance recipients.
>
> Alison Stirling,
> <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
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