Unemployed Workers Week
Advocacy Organizations Highlight Urgency of Defending Rights of Unemployed
Marking unemployed workers' week in Lac St. Jean, October 25, 2021.
October 25-31 is Unemployed Workers
Week across Quebec.
On this occasion, advocacy organizations working with unemployed
workers are highlighting the need for immediate measures and a thorough
reform of the employment insurance system, to ensure that workers have
a decent, Canadian-standard income that allows them to live a dignified
life. One of the main interventions is to denounce the
arbitrary and discriminatory nature of the eligibility criteria for
employment insurance, which results in barely 40 per cent of unemployed
workers being entitled to benefits.
 In a video produced for the Week, the Unemployment Action Movement, Montreal, states:
"Less than half of workers will be protected if they are unemployed,
despite having paid into employment insurance benefits during all their
working years.
"[...] As soon as you quit, you're no longer entitled to benefits.
We have several cases where people who resigned because of harassment,
because of practices by their employer that run counter to the law,
will end up with absolutely nothing when they leave their job. [...] At
present, only salaried employees, people who pay into employment
insurance, are protected. This excludes self-employed workers,
on-demand workers, commonly referred to as gig workers. Eligibility
criteria for employment insurance are very stringent. This is something
we've been denouncing for over thirty years. To have access to
employment insurance, you have to have worked a certain number of hours
in
the last year. This is to verify whether you are part of the labour
market. This criterion of number of hours worked in the last year has
more than doubled over the last 25 years. The system is difficult to
access for workers with precarious jobs. One can just imagine someone
working part-time at minimum wage ending up with 55 per cent of
nothing. [Benefits are set at 55 per cent of the claimant's wage during the period prior to their job loss -- WF Ed. Note.]"
 One
example of such arbitrary measures is the adoption, in late September,
of so-called transitional measures by the federal government as it
prepares for a comprehensive reform of the system. One of these
measures includes the establishment of a national, universal threshold
for benefit eligibility of 420 hours of work. Advocacy organizations
support the introduction of a national threshold of hours, even though
many are calling for it to be lowered. However, they remain critical
about the fact that the number of weeks of benefits is to be based on
the number of hours worked and on the official unemployment rate of the
region in which the claimant lives. Concretely, this means that for
420 hours of work, the claimant will be entitled to approximately 14
weeks of benefits. This means, amongst other things, that seasonal
workers will not be entitled to a sufficient number of weeks of
benefits to cover the period before their seasonal work kicks in. They
will be without income during a period of time that the unemployed call
the
"black hole."
Activists also point out that the consultation process announced by
the Trudeau government for the system's reform is a sham consultation
to justify inaction and the maintaining of the unacceptable status quo.
Already, the federal government's questionnaire initiating the
consultation is full of loaded questions. For example, it asks whether
respondents are willing to pay more in contributions to the regime if
eligibility for benefits is made easier. Or whether respondents think
that increased eligibility for benefits would worsen the labour
shortage problem.
Commenting on the consultation, the Autonomous and Solidarity Movement of the Unemployed (MASSE) writes:
"The government continues to cultivate a vagueness around this
second phase. Will workers and unemployed groups have the opportunity
to make their voices heard in an impartial process where the terms do
not disadvantage them from the start? In the end, the same groups that
file briefs and recommendations every year will file the same
criticisms and demands. Why would one expect anything different from
this process? [...] For MASSE, one thing is certain: the establishment
of an accessible, fair, universal and non-discriminatory employment
insurance system can no longer be the subject of eternal debate."
 MASSE
and its member organizations have also used social media to elaborate
various aspects of an employment insurance system that would protect
all the unemployed. In particular, a virtual discussion was
organized on October 26 to discuss a financially viable reform of the
system that would cover the needs of all the unemployed. One of
the proposals put forward was the restoration of federal government
contributions to the EI fund. The federal government ended its funding
in 1990 as part of its austerity measures under the hoax of reducing
the budget deficit. Another proposal dealt with the use of the EI fund
for “support measures” that are supposed to help the
unemployed find work. Often these are used to deny workers’
benefits. The participants agreed that the funds contributed by
workers and employers to the EI fund should only be used for benefits
for those who are without work. “Support measures” should
be entirely separate, not linked to EI eligibility, and funded
independent of the EI fund.
Although they vary according to organization, the demands of
unemployed workers' advocacy organizations all seek to establish a
single, universal national threshold of hours worked that allows for
the maximum number of unemployed workers to access benefits;
significant increases in the amount of benefits and their duration; the
inclusion of
self-employed and on-demand workers; an end to the total exclusion of
workers who lose their jobs through so-called voluntary departure or
who are fired; and access to regular employment insurance benefits in
the case of having lost one's job, irrespective of whether one received
maternity and parental benefits.
The fight for the rights of unemployed workers is a just struggle
that is an integral part of the struggle of the working class for its
rights and for a new direction for the economy, one which serves the
needs of the people, not narrow private interests. Employment insurance
cannot be based on the vagaries of the labour market. It must be a
social program to protect the unemployed from an economic system that
neither capable nor designed to provide employment and a livelihood for
all.
Workers' Forum firmly
supports the work of the defence organizations of unemployed workers to
ensure that they have what they need and are entitled to in order to
live a life in dignity.
This article was published in
October 29, 2021 - No. 101
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO081012.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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