Aid Recipients Protest County Hiring Policies

About 70 general relief recipients demonstrated at the Department of Children and Family Services to protest the county’s practice of using temporary agency workers to fill job vacancies.

The group marched into the department’s Los Angeles administrative offices at 550 S. Vermont Ave. and demanded a written commitment to giving workfare workers priority for entry-level jobs.

“We have a right to be included in those jobs,” said Abdullah Muhammad, the chairman of Workfare Workers, a group of general relief recipients who said they needed the jobs because their benefits had been cut back.

On July 1, the county removed 8,000 general relief recipients from the rolls as part of a schedule to limit eligibility for the $221 monthly grant to five months in any 12-month period. To qualify for the grant, recipients must put in 40 hours each month in a workfare project, often at city or county agencies.

The protesters said they chose the Department of Children and Family Services because the division, which has 5,000 workers, uses the most temporary help--an allegation department officials could neither confirm nor deny.