Spokespersons of Defence Organizations of the Unemployed Speak Out |
As far as the pandemic is concerned, it has brought its share of extra work. We have all had an appalling overload of work. There were a lot of program changes, especially at the beginning. Everyone acted in good faith but it was a shaky start. Service Canada closed its doors for a while. Now they offer their services but in a very limited way so everybody is turning to us. We had a big increase in the number of people we had to assist. We had to answer questions from just about everybody. We had to learn the programs very quickly. Once the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) was in place, things calmed down. We provided a lot more one-on-one help than usual. That's not usually our main work. We are funded to do collective defence but since March our focus has been on assisting individuals. We have managed to get through it and respond to everyone. No one wanted to go through a crisis like this, but it's here and we have to deal with it. We were able to rise to the challenge. I am proud of my team, a small but strong team. We can see that the work we've done for all these years was not for nothing.
Fernand Thibodeau,
Assistance and Support for Workers in
Seasonal Sectors
(Northern New Brunswick)
On December 7, we went to place Christmas trees in front of the employment centre office with black bells to illustrate the black hole problem. The situation of our people has improved a little bit with the federal government's emergency programs but we must not forget that the problems of employment insurance are not solved, including, among others, the problem of the black hole. In the region where we are active, the Acadian Peninsula, Baie-Sainte-Anne, Pointe-Sapin, etc., between 60 and 70 per cent of people work in seasonal industries such as fishing, fish plants, peat, forestry, and tourism.
One problem we have is that the EI offices have reopened, but they are limited in their services. They assign you an agent who calls you back within 24 to 48 hours. Very often when people who need to apply for EI try to open their file on the internet, they can't open it, or it says that their file has expired. Many don't get their Record of Employment from their employer. They come to us for help to apply for EI. There are people who are illiterate, who have learning disabilities, and there is a lot of fear of making mistakes in their application because employment insurance is extremely judicialized. I myself have completed about 400 employment insurance claims for people. I have to do this at home because our committee does not receive funding from the provincial government. We are all volunteers. We also help people on other issues, such as ensuring that seniors get what they are eligible for at the provincial level with regard to COVID-19, helping people renew their licence plates, among other things. I can honestly say that this year if the ASTS committee hadn't been there for people it would have been a nightmare.
Also, the pandemic has shed light on what we have said for several years, that the EI program is outdated. We want the government to work with us to carry out a complete reform of EI.
Line
Sirois, Action-Chômage Côte-Nord
On December 7, we held a press briefing in front of the Service Canada offices in Forestville. We did what we have always done, we brought a Christmas tree decorated with black holes. We were with the CSN. We summoned the media, and we asked that the measures that the Trudeau government put in place temporarily for the pandemic become permanent measures. In this temporary reform, the Trudeau government set the number of hours of work required to qualify for employment insurance at 420 hours. We don't want to go back to requirements of up to 700 hours of work to qualify as is happening in our region. The government has said that it must consult before reforming EI. Yes, everyone must be consulted, but in the meantime the temporary measures put in place because of the pandemic must become permanent measures. We want in-depth reform, and we don't want it to end up as an election promise.
At the moment the unemployment rate is going down. We have told reporters that no matter whether the unemployment rate goes down or up, the hours of work for our people who depend for their living on seasonal work will not change. The lower the official unemployment rate, the more hours a worker has to work to qualify and the fewer weeks of benefits they are entitled to. Conversely, the higher the unemployment rate, the fewer hours a worker has to work to qualify and the more weeks of benefits a worker is entitled to receive. We want this to stop. We want to eliminate the unemployment rate as a criterion for establishing the required hours of work and the number of weeks of benefits. We want to establish the same number of hours and the same number of weeks of benefits for everyone such that it is enough to, among other things, eliminate the black hole phenomenon, which is a big problem in our area.
In our work under the conditions of the pandemic, we give a lot of information over the phone. We don't receive many people at the office because we are able to settle matters by phone. We get a lot of calls from people who are still waiting for their EI benefits, who have not yet received an answer from Service Canada. The transition did not go very well between the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and EI starting at the end of September [CERB ended at the end of September, replaced by temporary EI measures whose eligibility criteria were less stringent than usual -- WF Ed. Note]. There appears to be a shortage of labour at Service Canada.
We are continuing the battle to defend the rights of all the unemployed.
(Translated from original French by Workers' Forum. Photos: MEPAC, A.S.T.S., Action-Chômage Côte-Nord)
This article was published in
Number 85 - December 17, 2020
Article Link:
Spokespersons of Defence Organizations of the Unemployed Speak Out
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