Current "workfair" welfare programs are as ineffective and demeaning as workhouses in Victorian England, a noted progressive writer and activist said yesterday.

Frances Fox Piven, a City College of New York professor, urged an Emerson Hall audience of about 50 to fight the current welfare system, which she said intimidates and demoralizes recipients.

"Throw your spirit and energy into denouncing such programs," said Piven. She criticized a labor security bill, proposed by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), which includes a national workfair program. Such programs require participants to fulfill educational and employment requirements in order to receive payments.

Workfair programs "call for women to attend a whole rigamorole of activities in order to collect their grants," Piven said. "They're going to make women work for their welfare benefits."

Piven is a co-author of "The Mean Season," a recently published book that, she said, tells of the attack on the welfare state by "conservative-business interests."

The imbalance between the rich and the poor in the United States is on the rise, said Piven. "Not only is the middle[class] shrinking, but the poverty level is up," she added.

During the hour-long speech, Piven made several references not only to the current Harvard-Radcliffe Clerical and Technical Workers attempt to unionize but also to the Tent City of homeless people at M.I.T. A representative of the Tent City, where 20 homeless people are currently living, asked Piven to address the group. She declined, citing a prior commitment.