Problems with the Employment Insurance measures

Workers speak about their concerns | PIERRE CHENIER*

The $82 billion aid package for Canadians announced by the Trudeau government on March 18, to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, includes $27 billion for direct supports to Canadians. Some of the measures concern Employment Insurance (EI) and it is already clear that they are inadequate.

Beware of the fend-for-yourself aspect of federal economic response to COVID-19

Our Security Lies in the Fight to Defend the Rights of All | TML Weekly

This past week the federal government made a series of announcements which it says are aimed at coping with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Government ministers have repeatedly stated that their aim is not perfection but speed and asked for the cooperation of the public, if implementation does not go smoothly. Overall, an impression is created that the government has everything under control and Canadians can rest assured they are being looked after.

Billions in state funds for transportation corridors to serve US-dominated empire-building

Federal government marches further into dead end of nation-wrecking. The working class is determined to affirm its right to build the new! Report from WORKERS’ FORUM

Transport Canada has announced another $2.1 billion of state funds for the Trade and Transportation Corridors Initiative to serve the global oligopolies and their control of the Canadian and international economy.[1]

A Ministry press release on July 4 states the Trade and Transportation Corridors Initiative is “[to] build stronger, more efficient transportation corridors to international markets…. Canadian businesses will be able to better compete, grow and create even more jobs well into the future.”

Leaders’ debate on the economy: Narrow appeal of private interests

Renewal Update (September 18) – A debate said to be on the economy with three party leaders was hosted last night by the Globe and Mail. It is one of several debates for the 2015 election, all organized by private interests. If an informed electorate is the bedrock of democracy as is often claimed then, on a scale of one to ten, the debate didn’t even hit the charts. If the debates define the election issues and provide the framework for how the people are to participate as the ruling circles and their monopoly media like to repeat, then we have only the say so of the political parties themselves and their particular champions amongst the media. They are the ones telling us who “won” the debate and why. As one pundit put it – it was not the voters. We concur. The voters are no more in charge of their economy as a result of the debate than they were before it took place.

The fight for regional employment in Eastern Quebec and the Maritimes

Interview by TML Daily with Yannick Proulx, President, Regional Council, Quebec Workers’ Federation, Bas-Saint-Laurent-Gaspésie-Iles-de-la-Madeleine

Residents of Percé on the Gaspésie protest the EI reform. Their banner condemns the “black hole” seasonal workers suffer, the period when these workers are without an income from EI or their jobs.

TML: Tell us about the work of the Regional Council at this time.

Yannick Proulx: In our region, the question of employment is a crucial one and our situation is complex. The situation with regards to Employment Insurance (EI) for example, is a source of great insecurity. The Harper government’s reform is aimed at seasonal industries and these are of utmost importance to our region in the forestry industry, tourism and fisheries.

50,000 reasons to love Montreal

Published in opposition to the despicable and chauvinist articles of Sun Media Corporation, itself owned by Quebecor, “10 things we hate about Montreal,” allegedly published in response to an unlinkable Richard Martineau piece on 10 reasons to hate Ottawa.

National Mass Action in Montreal demands repeal of anti-social changes to Employment Insurance

Protesters pledge to block cowardly attack against workers and their regions

ON APRIL 27, more than 50,000 people from across Quebec, joined by a contingent from Hamilton, Ontario, converged in Montreal for a militant demonstration against the Harper government’s anti-social changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) program. A demonstration on this same issue was also held in Edmunston, New Brunswick that day.

Halifax May Day 2013

AS ACROSS Canada and around the world, MAY DAY 2013, the international day of working class unity and struggle, was celebrated in Halifax with the 7th annual rally and march, beginning at 5:00 pm at Grand Parade. In a province where a social democratic government upholds monopoly right and abdicates its social responsibility to uphold public right, workers’ slogans and demands held the federal and provincial governments and monopolies to account.

International Women’s Day 2013

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Interview with Ivy Shaw*, Retired Postal Worker, Halifax

FROM MY OWN PERSPECIVE, and this is my personal opinion, I think that not only women have to get out and vote at election time but they also have to run to change the culture of what is happening across Canada.

Day of Action demands justice for the unemployed

Thousands of workers give resounding NO! to anti-social changes to Employment Insurance. The theme of the Day of Action was “Harper, NO! All Out to Block the Reforms!” 

Head of the demonstration in Montreal on February 23

Scene from the demonstration in Ottawa on February 23

(TML Daily) – On February 23, close to 20,000 people took part in demonstrations across Quebec to demand the immediate repeal of the anti-social changes of the Harper government to the employment insurance program, with other actions in New Brunswick, Ottawa and at the constituency office of Harper’s Minister of Anti-Human Resources Diane Finley in Simcoe, Ontario.

Number of workers receiving EI falls

Six of ten workers do not receive EI benefits. A high number of claims are being rejected.

STATISTIC CANADA’S latest survey of workers across the country receiving Employment Insurance (EI) is for December 2012. In that month, across Canada, the number of workers receiving regular EI benefits fell for the third time in four months, down 8,300 (-1.6 per cent) to 517,000. According to Statistics Canada, the number of unemployed workers in January 2013 – one month later – was 1,322,800. This means that roughly 39 per cent of the unemployed workers in Canada receive EI benefits.

Harper’s EI changes: Demand a new direction for the economy!

February 23 – Day of Action Against Anti-Social Changes to Employment Insurance

“For a just and universal EI system”

THE HARPER DICTATORSHIP’S CUTS to Employment Insurance are another assault on the right to be. The most vulnerable are workers in the regions and small towns where moving to a job means going to a big city or far away to resource extraction boom camps. That workers are forced to defend the pittance of Employment Insurance shows that the economy serves a privileged wealthy minority and not the people and society. That workers are threatened with a denial of EI forcing them to leave their hometowns is a sign that this economy is in need of renewal with a new pro-social direction.

Harper’s anti-social changes to EI

NEW REGULATIONS to Employment Insurance (EI) took effect on January 6, 2013 and are the target of a National Day of Action on February 23. (For the calendar of events, see here.) People are demanding a repeal of these anti-social changes and a rendering of account of the Harper dictatorship. A government that willingly cuts off the already meagre unemployment benefits that less than half of all unemployed workers have access to and uses the EI program to lower the living and working conditions of all workers is not fit to govern.

The changes ensure that workers’ living and working conditions will generally fall putting downward pressure on the standard of living of all Canadians. The Harper dictatorship is very candid that these rules aim to reduce unemployed workers’ benefits. In the backgrounder that accompanies the rules, the government says it expects 8,000 EI recipients will be immediately eliminated from receiving benefits while others will receive less resulting in a “savings” of $12 million the first year and $33 million every following year.

More rallies against anti-social changes to the EI program

Militant rally February 12 in front of the Guy-Favreau Complex in downtown Montreal which houses the Service Canada Centre and the Quebec regional Employment Insurance offices

RALLIES are continuing in Quebec and New Brunswick against the anti-social changes of the Harper government’s to Employment Insurance (EI).

Nearly 300 people held a militant rally February 12 in front of the Guy-Favreau Complex in downtown Montreal to denounce the Harper government’s recent changes to Employment Insurance (EI), which they say are destroying EI.

The rally demonstrates that, contrary to the media and government disinformation, the changes affect all workers, including those in large cities, not just seasonal workers in the resource sectors such as forestry and fisheries.

According to a report in TML Daily, most at the rally were workers, including striking workers from the MAPEI plant in Laval which produces chemical products for the construction industry and locked out workers from the Maritime Hotel in Montreal, members of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN) and the Quebec Federation of Labour (QFL), lecturers from the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and several groups fighting for the rights of unemployed workers.

‘No the second deportation!’ – Madelinots condemn Harper’s anti-social EI changes

Over 4,000 Madelinots demonstrate on Jan. 13 against Harper’s EI changes

By TONY SEED

CANADIAN workers and regional populations from many parts of the country are saying a resounding NO! to the anti-social changes to the EI program of the Harper government.

One of the most remarkable and militant demonstrations against the EI changes took place on January 13 on Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, 90 miles northwest of Prince Edward Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

An ocean of people – over 4,000 Madelinots, one third of the population of the island – demonstrated in front of the local office of Service Canada in the port of Cap-aux-Meules chanting and waving placards such as, “No to the Exodus of Madelinots! (Non à l’exode des Madelinots).” The total population of the island is 13,000.

All out to rescind anti-social changes to Employment Insurance

Forums to be held throughout Nova Scotia

BEGINNING this week, the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour is organizing a series of public town hall forums on the Harper government’s changes/cuts to Employment Insurance (EI), how they will affect all Nova Scotians and strategies for fighting back.. Forums are being held in Lunenburg, Dartmouth, Wolfville, Sydney and Antigonish, with more forums being organized in other communities (see schedule below). They will run into March. However, unlike New Brunswick and Quebec or on the National Day of Action (Feb. 23), no demonstrations are planned.

Commentary: The groundfish moratorium and globalization

HALIFAX (December 18, 1999) –  IN JULY 1992, the federal government imposed a so-called five-year moratorium on the catching of groundfish species – cod, flounder, haddock, etc – within the 200-mile limit off Canada’s east coast. The moratorium was renewed indefinitely. For appearances’ sake, an “annual review” was mandated for 1997. The last seven years of the groundfish moratorium in the east coast fishery have been seen to be an unprecedented attack on the position of working people in this industry.