In a stormy session of the Knesset Finance committee, the continued failures in the Wisconsin Welfare-to-Work plan, for the employment of people living on income support, were exposed. Kadima MK. Marina Solodkin said that "employment under the Wisconsin scheme is similar to legendary USSR leader Joseph Stalin's forced labor camps."
Solodkin called on Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor, Eli Yishai to drop the program. In response, Yishai said that he has initiated an examination to find ways of introducing more leniency into the program. "I personally do not support the program however I am obligated by my post to fulfill legal directives. The plan was included in the Economic Arrangements Law from last year and current efforts are being made to improve it and minimize its' flaws."
Several participants in the plan have claimed that immigrants from the CIS have noticed, time and again, violations of workers rights in the framework of the Wisconsin plan pilot program. One woman from Ashkelon said that she had been referred to a cleaning job in Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv.
The program administrator Dorit Novak, of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, defended the program and said that "it is an important program intended to cope with income support recipients. Over 15 years the number of claimants has grown to 140,000 and only upon institution of the plan did the numbers decrease." However, she acknowledged that adjustments were still required in the program.
Novak presented figures which indicate that 23,000 people entered the program in its first year. Of those, 12,000 have remained, of which 11,000 have been placed in jobs. She said that NIS 16 million was distributed to participants for support services including transportation, childcare, clothes and even glasses.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on November 7, 2006
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