Wed, 20 May 1998 09:13:20 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 09:13:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Franklin Wayne Poley Subject: Fair Work vs. Workfare. To: WORKFARE-DISCUSS@icomm.ca, FALSECREEK@onelist.com, liberty-and-justice@pobox.com, snetnews@world.std.com, labmovs@sheffield.ac.uk, publabor@relay.doit.wisc.edu, labor-l@yorku.ca, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, united@cougar.com, union-d@wolfnet.com jan_pullinger@bc.sympatico.ca, jenny_kwan@bc.sympatico.ca PREFACE: I have prepared a preliminary statement below on a full and fair employment option to workfare for British Columbia. (We don't have workfare here...yet). I have cc'd four key ministers from B.C. Replies to the ministers would I think be welcome as long as they are to the point whether favorable or unfavorable to the thesis put forward. However, I am asking that you not send general diatribes on the evils of socialism/capitalism/communism to the ministers. That is, a specific problem or set of problems and a specific solution or set of solutions has been proposed. Please keep replies on that level. Moreover if you are serious about this matter please study the material at http://www.vcn.bc.ca/fc and its link to my culturex web site. This is not a frivolous or off-the-cuff "opinion'. It is the result of many years of study and work. FWP. *** False Creek Model Village in Vancouver. Join the discussion of an exciting Millenium Project:http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/falsecreek to subscribe to list; http://www.vcn.bc.ca/fc for backgrounder. *** ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Subject: Fair Work vs. Workfare. I set up this workfare list several months ago out of broad interest in what is surely an unprecedented and very important social-political-economic-whatever movement and also to get specific ideas which might help the False Creek Project to come up with an employment policy. False Creek is a model village being planned by the City of Vancouver for 5,000 people. Having a municipality take on an employment portfolio is stretching matters you might say, so what can be accomplished at the neighbourhood, village or small community level? Some of the discussants on Workfare-Discuss have said they only want to stop workfare as bad policy and program. Having heard the arguments against without so much as a minimally convincing argument for workfare I conclude that it is bad policy and program. It is a shameful attempt to glean votes by issuing shallow slogans and scapegoating the poor. The politics of Premier Harris in Ontario and Mayor Guiliani in New York are a disgrace in this respect. There is however a need for a full and fair employment solution. On that I think just about everyone agrees. But what can one small village do? Can we arrive at a solution for a small village (sorry, couldn't resist that one) where the huge provincial/state/federal systems do not have solutions? I think we can. In part let's consider the Mondragon Model (see http://users.uniserve.com/~culturex). Here we have a worker-owned conglomerate employing some 30,000 and it even has its own university so it must be employing people right across the social-income-educational spectrum. A project like False Creek is stereotyped as a housing project only. To meet the criteria for "sustainability" however (see http://www.vcn.bc.ca/fc) it can go far beyond that. What if those buying into False Creek were to purchase a home and a share in a highly diversified business at the same time? That would give full employment. As long as the income from the business activities is satisfactory, absolute poverty will end (though relative poverty is always with us). The corporate structure can be whatever is agreeable to the participants. A while back I looked through a directory of large U.S. companies which are >50% worker-owned. The corporate structure can be as "capitalistic" or "socialistic" as people want. I don't think it will make a lot of difference as to the success of the enterprise. What goods and/or services is False Creek Corp. going to provide? I think the first thing to look at is minimum personnel requirements for a fully functioning closed economy which provides all of the requirements for the standard of living sought. I am going to give a ball park estimate of 100,000 (men, women and children) for the size of community which could be "parachuted" into Northern B.C. and would be able to have full self-sufficiency. Elsewhere I have commented on the "Winter City" concept and I refer to West Edmonton Mall, the world's largest which is essentially a covered street a mile long. The population of 100,000 is just a little more than the annual net increase of B.C. and it is 1/10 of the increase in the Vancouver Megalopolis expected over the next 20 years. False Creek Village could be a centre for demonstrating some of the principles to be applied in the north before population is diverted there. Presently I am studying the industrial use of automation-robotics. I have a personal preference for high technology but others may not. That being so, they can expect that more people will be required to provide the necessities of life, maybe 300,000 instead of 100,000 and that the work week in such communities would be longer. I believe this model is sound. If anyone doubts that just ask the profs at SFU where I got my business training to critique it. I'll gladly defend the "thesis" and have no doubt about my ability to do so. FWP.