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A Day's Work, A Day's Pay

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A Day's Work, A Day's Pay follows three welfare recipients in New York City from 1997 to 2000 as they participate in the largest welfare-to-work program in the nation. When forced to work at city jobs for well below the prevailing wage and deprived of the chance to go to school, these individuals decide to fight back, demanding programs that will actually help them move off of welfare and into jobs.

A Day's Work, A Day's Pay traces the personal and political evolution of its three main characters. Juan Galan successfully organizes WEP workers while battling the demons of his own poverty-stricken childhood. Jackie Marte, who drops out of school in order to raise her two children, tries desperately to stay out of workfare, and in the nick of time succeeds in finding a job-training program that allows her to leave welfare for good. Jose Nicolau overcomes his timidity as he learns to organize against workfare, inspiring his peers with impassioned speeches, and testifying to the City Council about sexual harassment of WEP workers.

As the film tracks the three-year effort to pass two critical pieces of legislation, viewers will come to understand the real-life impact that social policy has on human beings. They will also comprehend the effort required for poor and working people to transform themselves from victims of the System to fully empowered citizens who take control of their own lives.
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Streaming - 5 Years, Institutional (Education / Nonprofit) $ 320.00

License Period:  5 years
Running Time:  57:35
Video Encoding:  Medium to High Resolution


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"A Day's Work, A Day's Pay makes a fierce claim for the dignity and rights of the welfare-poor-as-workers."
Rickie Solinger
Labor History

"A brilliant film about poverty, welfare reform, and the spirit of the people who suffer both. We will become a better country,"
Frances Fox Piven
Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology
City University of New York Graduate School

"This remarkable film is about mean social policy and the impressive efforts of grassroots organizations to fight back. Documentaries often fail to tell both the human story and the political story. A DAY'S WORK, A DAY'S PAY tells both."
Peter Edelman, Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center

A Day's Work, A Day's Pay features workfare participants who refused to take the brutality of welfare reform lying down. Drawing almost exclusively on the typically unheard voices of recipients, this beautiful film offers an amazingly authentic picture of workfare and the people who struggle against it. This compelling story of brave low-income individuals organizing effectively for social change should not be missed."
Mimi Abramovitz.Professor of Social Policy
Hunter College School of Social Work, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York

"This powerful film dramatically portrays the real-life impact that law has on human beings. It shows how welfare recipients can be organized to stand up for their rights, and in the process transform themselves from victims of the system to citizens who take control of their lives and futures."
Stephen Wizner, Professor of Law
Yale Law School
Jonathan Skurnik Jonathan Skurnik has produced, directed and shot numerous award-winning documentaries and has recently completed his first two fiction films as writer/director. His three most recent documentaries include: The Elevator Operator, a documentary about a Ukrainian immigrant who runs a manual elevator in Manhattan. It has screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, won Best Documentary at the Urban TV film festival in Madrid and had its broadcast premiere on PBS and Ukrainian TV; the award-winning Spit It Out which was broadcast on PBS in 2007; and A Day’s Work, A Day’s Pay which won the prestigious Harry Chapin award for films about hunger and poverty and was broadcast on PBS and in Europe in 2002. Jonathan is currently directing Ice Music, an hi-def documentary about an ice music festival in Norway; producing Something’s Moving, a documentary about survivors of American Indian boarding schools; and he’s directing She’s A Boy, a documentary about transgender children.

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