Management had threatened to lay off 2,000 employees if the workfare workers were not approved.

But he, too, has been surprised to find workfare workers in the same post for years.

The Mayor, he said, is violating a promise to provide the 34,000 workfare workers with training that leads to permanent jobs.

The workfare workers are now back at home, looking for jobs, awaiting their next assignment, or both.

First, it points to valuable services provided by workfare workers, for which the city would otherwise have to hire regular employees.

And I watched as bosses looked the other way while workfare workers were allowed to keep - to steal - things.

State law bars cities from using workfare workers to replace regular employees or to do their work.

While city officials said there was room in other agencies for the hospitals' workfare workers, several critics of the program doubted it.

It was the nation's first informal polling of workfare workers about unionizing.

Acorn is even holding an election in which the city's 35,000 workfare workers will vote on whether they want a union.