ACRI and partner organizations succeeded in bringing to a halt an attempt by the Finance Minister to expand the implementation of the Employment Lights welfare-to-work program, also known as the Wisconsin Plan. The Knesset voted on July 8 to remove from the proposed Economic Arrangements Bill 2009-2010 a section detailing the expansion of the program to all regions of the country, thus accepting the organizations’ position that changes need to be made so that the program can more effectively and fairly tackle unemployment.
In a May intervention before newly appointed Finance Minister Yuval Shteinitz, ACRI together with Community Advocacy, Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow and Rabbis for Human Rights, urged the minister not to expand the program, as had been announced in the framework of the government’s financial emergency plan. The Wisconsin Plan, the intervention warned, had been widely criticized on account of its severe negative impact on job seekers and the violation of their right to live in dignity. Past experience in other countries where the Wisconsin Plan was implemented shows that the plan failed to contribute significantly to a rise in employment levels and to the reduction of poverty. In some cases, the Wisconsin Plan had led to a deterioration in the living conditions of recipients of income support benefits.
“It is inconceivable that at this point in time, in such a difficult financial climate”, the organizations wrote, “hundreds of thousands of Israeli job seekers will be turned into guinea pigs of this problematic plan”. ACRI continues to follow this matter closely, pushing for a solution that is fair to the most disadvantaged communities, and not the private companies who receive the contracts for implementing the program.
Further reading:
Human Rights Groups to Finance Minister: Don’t Expand Wisconsin Plan, May 28, 2009
