Missouri CWA, JwJ Convene Innovative Hearing on Social Service Cuts

Testimony Airs on Web as Workers, Clients Speak from Sites Statewide

At a hearing aired online from five locations across Missouri last weekend, CWA Local 6355 member Lacy Proctor, left, was among social service caseworkers testifying about the state's devastating budget cuts.

Below: An audience at the University of Missouri in St. Louis watches as testimony airs from another city. CWA and Jobs with Justice organized the hearing.

 

At a unique statewide hearing that CWA helped organize in Missouri last Saturday, caseworkers and clients testified about the devastating impact of cutting and consolidating the state's network of social services.

The two-hour hearing was streamed live online from five University of Missouri campuses, where CWA-represented social workers, clergy, people in need and others gathered to watch and give testimony.

"It was fantastic," said Bradley Harmon, president of the Missouri State Workers Union-CWA Local 6355. "We had a lot of rank and file members give very powerful testimony about why we do this kind of work — work that doesn't pay very well and has a lot of stress attached to it. We also heard from people who've been able to turn their lives around because of the services our members provide."

The hearing was convened by the Missouri Jobs with Justice's Public Good Project, a coalition that CWA helped launch last year. It is bringing together unions, clergy, community groups and other allies supporting a strong public sector that serves the common good.

The coalition is preparing a report on the hearing that it will submit to Missouri's Democratic governor and Republican-dominated House and Senate before the next legislative session in January. "It's a continuation of our effort to change the narrative, away from the 'cut-cut-cut' mantra," Harmon said.

Over the last two years, 432 state social services jobs have been cut through attrition, the majority of them CWA-represented "eligibility specialists." Local 6355 Organizing Director Richard von Glahn said 1,705 of the jobs remain but full staffing would require nearly 500 additional employees. "The need for workers has actually increased at the same time that the jobs have decreased," he said.

Officials from the affected state agencies were invited to participate in the hearing but declined. Publicly, they are claiming the cuts will better serve clients by making the agencies more "efficient."

Among the alleged efficiencies, the state's Family Support Division has been cut back to a single employee in many counties. The agency takes applications for food stamps and other welfare programs.

A CWA member who was once a client herself said caseworkers are now handling an average of 750 cases, an overwhelming burden for workers and people in need.

"I feel a loss of purpose," Lacy Proctor testified, quoted in The Columbia Daily Tribune. "You feel like you are destined to fail every single day when you walk in the door."

A standard caseload for eligibility specialists should be 285 to 315, von Glahn said, explaining that under a law CWA pushed for, union and state officials meet every two years to review the figure. Despite agreeing in 2010 that 315 cases should be a maximum, workers in some offices are handling 1,200 cases or more, he said.

Proctor was a pregnant undergraduate student when a Family Services Division caseworker helped her get Medicaid and food stamps. As a result, she said she was able to stay in college, keep herself and her baby healthy and prevent a lifetime of medical debt and poverty. Before her daughter was 2 years old, Proctor had graduated from college and gotten a job as a caseworker herself.

"It was the best feeling in the world to be able to call my caseworker to report that I would no longer require their services," Proctor said. "The pride and self confidence that I had and continue to have from this experience is irreplaceable. I want to help others have that same feeling."