Line Sirois, Coordinator of the Unemployment Action Movement, Côte-Nord, Quebec
Workers' Forum: What is the situation of unemployed workers in your region at this time?
Line Sirois: The situation is extremely difficult. It continues to drag on and is affecting many of the region's workers. The phone keeps ringing, people are very affected because they can't even qualify for employment insurance right now. Our committee had a report done by Segma Research, interviewing employers to get a picture of the seasonal employment situation on the North Shore. It revealed that the average number of hours worked is 585 hours, while the current requirement to qualify for 14 weeks is to have worked 700 hours.
The situation is so unacceptable that now Indigenous communities are calling us to ask about what is going on. They too are required to work more hours to receive less employment insurance. They're going through the same situation as us. People are being forced to leave their community to be able to find work and get employment insurance.
The communities that are calling us are people who do not have roads. They work for the Indigenous community. Before, it would take them 420 hours to qualify for employment insurance and now the requirement is 525 hours. It's a little less than for us on the Upper North Shore, but still too much for them because the community is the only employer. They're 500 kilometres away from the nearest village or town. To earn a living, they have to leave their community. Within the community, the sole employer is the Band Council. The Band Council used to get them to work their hours, but now they're not able to give them enough or when they can, they, like us, are caught up in the seasonal gap and spend months without income.
That's the state of the hemorrhage.
What we are going through right now can be seen in all of Canada's regions. It's just as dramatic in Nova Scotia and in other regions. Here, we're talking about an official unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent. That's impossible, because we have about 23 per cent of seasonal employment in the Upper North Shore alone. The unemployment rate is being brought down through our being paired with large centres.
During the employment insurance forum, I was asked to speak to the minister about seasonal employment. She was there on zoom. She didn't tell us anything other than that there's a block somewhere, that there can be a reform but nothing immediate and that it will take a long time. Meanwhile, our people are hungry. They need employment insurance in order to live, or else they will have to leave the region. On the North Shore, more people leave than come to live here. In the city, schools are being built, here they're closing. We must take action. Seasonal employment is part of Canada's economy. We cannot shy away from it and pretend that it doesn't exist.
We have a law that's built on prejudice. We're told that our people can find work, that it's a given that "these people," as they call us, are not looking for work.
WF: When Service Canada cut the hours of EI agents a few weeks ago, the minister said it was an essential measure to ensure a balanced budget.
LS: Yes. And that's what I said, that what is the government doing about people's budgets? How can you balance your budget when the money isn't coming in? I have files that have been on hold since August 2022. How do you balance your budget, do you go on welfare? Besides, this falsely lowers the unemployment rate, as people are no longer on EI. They're no longer part of the data.
WF: What work is the Unemployment Action Movement, Côte-Nord, currently doing to defend people and transform the situation?
LS: We've carried out actions. We'll continue to inform people. It is always the people who decide upon the actions they want to undertake. We're going to meet with workers because someone who is unemployed is first and foremost a worker who is out of a job at the moment. We're working with the unions, we're working with MASSE, we have formed a large alliance with Eastern Canada and we'll continue to apply pressure, that's for sure.
We, the Unemployment Action Movement, Côte-Nord, have formed a large alliance with people from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and even with people from Toronto. We have a large alliance, the Interprovincial Alliance, which includes several other provinces facing the same problems as us. We're about twenty groups from all over Eastern Canada.
We won't give up. We won't let up.
(Translated from the original French by Workers' Forum)
This article was published in
Number 5 - February 17, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2023/Articles/WO10053.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca