Perfunctory Consultation on Employment Insurance Reform
Reform Must Be Based on the Demands of Workers and Their Organizations
In
a press briefing, September 1, 2021, during the federal election,
activists for the rights of the unemployed spoke to the kind of changes
needed to the Employment Insurance system.
A
perfunctory federal government consultation on Employment Insurance
(EI) reform, described as the modernization of the EI
regime, concerns all Canadian workers. It was launched in August
2021, shortly before the federal
election was called and began with an online questionnaire which now
closes on October 8. However, far from
modernizing the EI regime in a manner which favours the working people,
the premise of the reform is the needs of the labour market. This is
not an acceptable basis for reforming the EI system in a way that
benefits workers and society.
The goal of Employment Insurance should not be to adapt workers and
the EI system to the vagaries of the labour market, but to protect
workers by providing a decent Canadian standard income to those who
have been victimized by it. The labour market is an instrument in the
hands of global private interests competing with each other for
maximum profits at the expense of national, regional and local
economies. It treats workers as disposable. Keeping EI eligibility and
benefits conditional on contributing to this "labour market" means that
the massive exclusion of unemployed workers from the Employment
Insurance system will continue.
The statement announcing the consultation, signed by the Minister of
Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion and two
commissioners of the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, confirms
this. It reads: "It is in the shared interest of workers, employers and
the Government of Canada to revitalize and modernize
Canada's Employment Insurance (EI) system so that it can respond to the
changing nature of work, and truly complement the needs of the current
labour market."
In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has, amongst other things,
dramatically demonstrated the failure of the EI system to protect
workers in crisis situations.
A socially acceptable EI system reform must have as its starting
point the long-standing demands of workers and their organizations, in
particular the organizations working in defence of the unemployed,
whose aim is precisely to ensure humane living conditions for all
unemployed workers when they are thrown out of production.
Workers' Forum calls on all concerned, organized and
unorganized, to speak out against this reform and demand that EI meet
the needs of working people not private interests for whom workers are
disposable. In this issue, Workers' Forum is publishing an
interview with the Coordinator of the Unemployment Action Movement
in Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec, which provides information on the current EI
rules and reiterates the demands put forward by the movement in defence
of the rights of the unemployed.
This article was published in
October 6, 2021 - No. 92
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08921.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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