Acknowledging the need to empower themselves and others, the women joined together to share resources. The newly formed group of potential welfare rights activists organized monthly meetings to disseminate information on current welfare policy and helped each other solve welfare related problems. After several meetings the women elected to move beyond individual advocacy. They wanted to become active in the decisionmaking about policies that were affecting their lives so profoundly. They moved to form the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition - a welfare rights group whose primary focus would be to equalize the power relationship within the welfare system and in the policymaking process.

WROC's 3,500 membership includes both current and former welfare recipients. The Board and advisory committee are predominantly low income, and the staff includes volunteer recipients. The group's current work and areas of interest include: leadership training and membership development, advocacy training, developing a trained speaker's bureau, initiating a voter registration drive, providing members with training on legislative policies, and implementing a "stop the clock campaign" to end time limits for employed recipients.

WROC has a history of working to affect public policy. In 1985 when the State Welfare Department (DSHS) wanted to count student loans as income, members organized to stop them. WROC organized again when DSHS wanted to change childcare rules for the worse. In 1986 members challenged DSHS proposed 8% grant cuts and successfully secured a 3% increase instead. WROC has also helped to develop, monitor, and evaluate the Family Independence Program (FIP), Washington State's former welfare to work demonstration project. Since 1995, when welfare policies took a turn for the worse, WROC members have monitored agencies to ensure that rules were being implemented in a manner least harmful to recipients.

Unfortunately when the federal welfare bill was signed, WROC members found they needed to be more active then ever. To challenge harsh new welfare rules which include excessive sanctioning policies and which have led to drastic reduction in caseloads, WROC had to forge new alliances. Members helped to organize the Welfare Reform Coalition, bringing together welfare recipients, immigrant groups, women's organizations, churches, and organized labor to work on welfare and immigrant issues. The group has also joined the Women's Funding Alliance and the National Welfare Rights Union. WROC continues to monitor and document violations and abuses in the new welfare system and plans to bring them to the attention of the agency, the public, elected officials, and the media.

Last August, to mark the second anniversary of the signing of the welfare reform bill, WROC held a press conference, during which members presented their local welfare department with a report card evaluating its performance. Agency officials were less than pleased with the WROC's evaluation. The department rated poorly on among other things, consideration of individual family needs in its rush to reduce caseloads, and its ability to meet the needs of families who want desperately to move out of poverty, not simply off of welfare.

WROC is currently developing a "Stop the Clock" campaign to end time limits for employed recipients still receiving a small welfare grant to supplement their incomes. WROC believes welfare time limits are punitive rules designed to intimidate recipients into accepting low wage jobs. To generate support the group will actively involve employed parents and train them to lobby their legislators to change the policy. WROC also plans to launch a media

campaign to gain public support.

According to Jean Coleman, WROC works to add the voice of welfare recipients and low wage workers to the decision making processes affecting their lives. However, with the recent implementation of Workfirst, members have more constraints on their time and find it increasingly difficult to remain active. Coleman adds, "WROC plans to be innovative; we will simply plan smaller actions on days when more parents can be involved."

For further information contact Jean Colman at WROC, 2212 South Jackson, Seattle, WA 98144, tel. 206-324-3063; e-mail: jean@uwashington.edu.