Welfare-to-Work Event Lacks Key Element

It was billed as a national event to educate employers about hiring welfare recipients.

But everywhere she looked, businesswoman Sarann Graham saw only government officials, nonprofit agencies and other employment-service providers at the Welfare to Work Partnership first national conference Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles.

“Where are all the businesses?” wondered Graham, director of business development and training for Long Beach-based Delco Machine & Gear. “The folks who need this information aren’t here.”

Chalk it up as just another challenge facing organizations like Welfare to Work Partnership, an independent, nonpartisan group that’s urging the private sector to get involved in getting welfare recipients off the dole.

The daylong event at the Regal Biltmore Hotel was an effort to educate business owners on the basics of setting up their own welfare-to-work programs.

Maybe it was the $250 registration fee. Maybe it was the holiday season. But employers among the crowd of about 300 appeared in much shorter supply than the myriad agencies hoping to sell them job-readiness programs.

“We came to provide information about our services to employers,” said Dori Ford, a trainer with Curtis & Associates in Garden Grove, a for-profit agency that teaches jobs skills to public-aid recipients. “We’ve talked to maybe seven or eight.”

Nevertheless, the mood among Wednesday’s crowd was upbeat and enthusiastic about the private sector’s ability to make a difference in the nation’s great welfare-to-work experiment. Mayor Richard Riordan stopped by to offer encouragement, noting that many jobs in Los Angeles are going begging for want of qualified workers.

“Right now we have [thousands] of computer-related jobs in Los Angeles that we can’t fill,” Riordan said. “That’s what Welfare to Work is all about. . . . It’s vital to the future of this city’s economy.”

Formed in May by a handful of large companies, including Burger King and Sprint, the Welfare to Work Partnership has since expanded its membership to 2,500 companies nationwide. All have pledged to hire at least one former welfare recipient.

Although President Clinton and other politicians have emphasized the private sector’s “moral obligation” to put these citizens to work, the Welfare to Work Partnership has tried to emphasize bottom-line advantages to doing so.

Partnership member American Airlines, for example, has hired 1,500 former welfare recipients so far, using nonprofit intermediaries to carefully screen welfare recipients before they join the company. American has experienced a 10% to 20% reduction in recruitment costs and a lower turnover rate among those workers than the company average, says Fred Machado, who oversees the carrier’s welfare-to-work program. American also has availed itself of federal and state tax incentives for hiring those workers.

“So many [welfare-to-work] appeals play on emotion,” Machado said. “But there has to be a business rationale for it to work.”

Representatives from Wal-Mart, Pacific Bell, Xerox and other large employers likewise shared their experiences in building successful welfare-to-work programs.

But Delco’s Graham says the Welfare to Work Partnership in its future conferences needs to do a better job of reaching small businesses like hers--which represent 75% of the organization’s membership and most of the nation’s employment base.

“Those are the people they need to get involved,” Graham said. “There are lots of resources out there, but small businesses don’t know how to tap into them. . . . It’s too bad more of them weren’t here to find out.”

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For more information on the Welfare to Work Partnership, call (202) 955-3005 or visit its Web site at https://www.welfaretowork.org

* WELFARE REFORM: L.A. County unveils ambitious welfare-to-work goals. B1