The feds have moved the EI goalposts. In rural N.L., that's quite the pinch for seasonal workers
Seasonal workers banked on one set of rules, and now may be facing fewer benefits than planned
Doretta Strickland is a seafood plant production worker in Triton, N.L. The nature of her work is seasonal, so she relies on employment insurance to supplement her income in the off-season.
But on Sunday, she learned won't be getting the money she was counting on for this winter.
The federal government announced Sunday that because the provincial unemployment rate outside St. John's had dropped from more than 14 per cent earlier this year to 12 per cent, the qualifiers for accessing EI had also changed.
On top of adjustments in the number of weeks payable for regular benefits, workers now have to reach a minimum of 490 hours worked to qualify, instead of the previous 420.
Bad timing for those in fisheries, says plant worker
Strickland says the logic doesn't work for many of the province's seasonal workers who have already finished work for the season.
"Our plant is closed for the year," said Strickland. "There's nothing we can do, really. Where are we all going to find work now in a small community?"
The drop to 12 per cent also means that the federal government has raised the number of "best weeks" of a workers' income used to calculate EI from 14 to 16. A worker's EI benefits will now be calculated by totalling the amount earned over the 16 weeks in which they made the most money and dividing that by 16. The worker's weekly benefit will be 55 per cent of the resulting number.
Adding an extra two weeks of lower income — or potentially no income — would drop the average weekly income amount and result in a smaller weekly benefit.
Strickland said the federal government should know "the ups and downs of the fishery."
"They should realize that we can't have 16 weeks to divide by. We just can't," she said.
Jessica McCormick, president of the Newfoundland Labrador Federation of Labour, said it's a hard blow for fishery workers after an already challenging season, which began with a tie-up to protest low crab prices.
"Fish harvesters and plant workers … contribute significantly to our provincial economy and they do very difficult labour," said McCormick.
"Ensuring that they have access to these kinds of programs is critically important to our provincial economy as well as to, you know, the pocketbooks of those individual workers."
Provincial Labour Minister Bernard Davis says the timing of the announcement — a Sunday afternoon in September — is the biggest issue.
"In many cases the fish plant will be closing, or the tourism operator will have closed," said Davis.
Davis said he recently met with a business owner on the south coast of Labrador who said if they had known the changes were coming, they would have tried to give their employees more hours of work to mitigate the issue.
N.L. regions not practical, says union president
McCormick says there are many details about the EI qualifiers that don't speak to the landscape of work in the province.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, there are two economic regions in which people can qualify for EI: the St. John's area, and the rest of the province. McCormick says the economic needs of those outside the metro region of St. John's can't all be painted with the same brush.
"The economic reality in those communities varies greatly depending on, you know, whether you're on the north coast of Labrador or you're in a rural community on the island," said McCormick.
In a letter sent to the federal government on Tuesday, Davis said the two economic zones should be reclassified.
"Employment and Social Development Canada should review El Region 2 to develop sub-regions that better reflect local labour market realities instead of the use of a singular region as currently is the case," wrote Davis.
Interim PC Leader David Brazil says the letter indicates a breakdown in communication between the federal and provincial Liberals.
"We've seen this four or five times in the last couple of months, letters being sent after the fact after a decision has been made," said Brazil.
"Even if you're not cousins in Ottawa, you should have a mutual respect that you should be engaged in whatever decisions are going to be made that directly are going to impact your citizens. And that apparently hasn't happened here."
Ripple effect
Strickland warns that when money is low for those in her rural area, the effects will reach elsewhere, like the province's health-care system. People aren't going to be able to afford their prescriptions, she said.
"That's the first thing you're probably going to give up, right?" she said.
"Then there's going to be a lot more sickness, and our healthcare system don't need anymore sick people."
In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday, federal Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan wrote he'd spoken with Greg Pretty, president of the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union.
"MPs have been meeting with [Employment] Minister [Randy] Boissonnault and our teams are working hard to find a solution. People are rightly anxious about this. It's their income and their security. We're not wasting any time here."
Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Click here to visit our landing page.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
