The list started out with the focus being primarily on workfare (and therefore its name), but workfare is only the tip of the iceberg, the most visible and obnoxious aspect of welfare reform.

In the long run another devastating aspect of welfare reform, in the US, is an appallingly short lifetime limit on welfare eligibility.

US workfare managed to get itself "exported" around the world under the disguise of "active social policy," "activation," "social political paradigm shift," "community wage" and other clever terms to hide its true origin and its ideological debt to a distant past, the Victorian work- and poorhouse. Time limits might do the same unless massively rejected and exterminated on sight, as should have been done with workfare.

However, welfare policies are an ever-moving target as demonstrated for instance by UK Channel 4's recent series Benefit Busters (autumn 2009), with which Channel 4 has the audacity to claim that the labor market is "the new welfare state"! Does it get any more insane than that? Wait and see! You bet it will. Until people decide that enough is enough and start to revolt against it.

One important purpose of the Workfare-Fight list, therefore, is to create much needed solidarity and support among welfare recipients, activists and organizers across borders via the net.

To subscribe to the list, send "subscribe workfare-fight" (without the quotation marks) in the body of a mail to: listserv AT vian.dk

• The Workfare-Fight site was created in September 1998.
  
• September 2008. Added Music page for links to YouTube videoclips. Why? That's a long story and not at all necessary to know in order to enjoy the clips. New links will be added regularly.
  
• September 2008. Never forget Ewen Coker from Christchurch, New Zealand, and if you've never heard about him it's about time now that he is no more.
  
• September 2008. AOL addresses are no longer accepted for subscription, because AOL prevents my mailserver from delivering mail to their customers and doesn't reply to mails about it.
  
• October 2009. If anyone needs to get in contact with me for private reasons or out of interest for the Workfare-Fight list this email address can be used for the time being. (If you don't see the link for the script-protected email address you need to turn on JavaScript in your browser.) Only the address that is part of the script at any one time will be valid.
• December 2009. The listserver and other list-related addresses are working again - finally.