EI

[Topaz]

The oppositions are hitting hard in question period to the Tories about a national standard for which Canadians would need to work to get EI. The Tories say no, that they have given 5 extra weeks at the end of the EI. My view is if a person loses their job through no fault of their own then they should get EI, even if they worked the 45 days. Where else are they going to get help in these days of a recession? maybe they could make national standard 4-500hours unless we are having large jobs losses, then the 45 days would kick in. Yesterday the PM and the Min.of Fin. both quoted from the Global and Mail and I hope TODAY they also saw the following...... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/globe-...article1159135/

[M.Dancer]

My view is if you have only worked a month and a half in the last 12 months you are unemployed for a reason, most probably due to your own faults....

Back in the old old days it used to be 20 weeks....I had a friend who would work 20 weeks in the winter, get fired, take the 6 week penalty, collect over the summer and fall, work a few weeks under the table...get a job in winter....repeat ad nauseum.

Mind you he considered it his right cause he paid into UI....

Personally I would like to see people bonused....for every 5 years without collecting they get a nice reimbursement ....

[Muddy]

My view is if you have only worked a month and a half in the last 12 months you are unemployed for a reason, most probably due to your own faults....

Back in the old old days it used to be 20 weeks....I had a friend who would work 20 weeks in the winter, get fired, take the 6 week penalty, collect over the summer and fall, work a few weeks under the table...get a job in winter....repeat ad nauseum.

Mind you he considered it his right cause he paid into UI....

Personally I would like to see people bonused....for every 5 years without collecting they get a nice reimbursement ....

I would be rich if your plan was retroactive!

[madmax]

My view is if you have only worked a month and a half in the last 12 months you are unemployed for a reason, most probably due to your own faults....

Good thing that it is only your opinion... Many people laid off then find another job, only to be caught in another downturn and even less opportunity for another position. Maybe you live a sheltered life.

Back in the old old days it used to be 20 weeks....I had a friend who would work 20 weeks in the winter, get fired, take the 6 week penalty, collect over the summer and fall, work a few weeks under the table...get a job in winter....repeat ad nauseum.

Mind you he considered it his right cause he paid into UI....

Personally I would like to see people bonused....for every 5 years without collecting they get a nice reimbursement ....

Oh, I see, you are old. Most people don't know what UI is, and more people are unable to claim EI.

M. DinosaurDancer

Seriously, you do not collect EI if you get fired. And if you do get fired, finding your next job is a pain in the ass. Many management staff get "Fired" and often with a handsome golden handshake (Not always, and a good lawyer helps). That is often what they are living off of. Anyone else fired is Screwed....without a case, so EI won't be a factor 9 weeks, 12 weeks or 20 weeks or 50 weeks.

Your friend sounds crooked. Many crooked people believe in false entitlements.

[Moonbox]

I'm with Dancer. If you only work a few weeks a year and aren't able/willing to find work after that then you can apply for welfare. Welfare is for the chronically unemployed. EI is for people who usually work but need help covering their mortgage payments in between jobs should the unfortunate happen. If someone lost their auto parts job in Guelph who's been working there for 20 years, I honestly wouldn't mind helping them through the recession. If someone lost a series of jobs and they have a history of not being able or willing to find work, then they can line up a the soup kitchen and apply for welfare.

[madmax]

I'm with Dancer. If you only work a few weeks a year and aren't able/willing to find work after that then you can apply for welfare. Welfare is for the chronically unemployed. EI is for people who usually work but need help covering their mortgage payments in between jobs should the unfortunate happen. If someone lost their auto parts job in Guelph who's been working there for 20 years, I honestly wouldn't mind helping them through the recession. If someone lost a series of jobs and they have a history of not being able or willing to find work, then they can line up a the soup kitchen and apply for welfare.

Get ready for dealing with all the Linemar fallout after a few years. There is no such thing as working stablity in a place for 20 years. It is now normal to have held 3 to 5 jobs in a 2 year period. In the midst of this can be gaps.

Welfare is for when the person working for many many many years, finds out that EI does shit, retraining finds one well trained and educated, and that of those unemployed, the numbers continue to go up while jobs are hidden and few. Then, the long time working employee sells home, downsizes, downsizes again, liquidates Or is bankrupt (Pick one), and after using up available capital, maybe trying self employment or starting a small business (See bankrupt again), discovers there is no EI and no home to hang onto. It is welfare and once there, yes, that means you have hit a low, however, most people will avoid using Welfare from pride, and their situation gets worse and worse until they either break down and apply or something else more tragic occurs.

Having watched some of the effects of the downsizing of the past, a couple recession and then this one, there is no difference in human behaviour.

Applying for welfare is 10X worse a situation then applying for EI, and the abiltiy to continue level or forward momentum is possible while using EI. Once on Welfare you are tainted and labelled. It is also one of the first places that Second Career Graduates go, when trained and no jobs are available.

EI is a system of coverage and is normally strained at this time.

EI reform has allowed massive surpluses to be squandered by the very businesses that got a free lunch from the government and large entitlements.

When a recession such as this, and we are NOT near the end, as two well informed MLW posters have indicated .... then the possibilities of the in and out of work scenario are likely to continue for a few years.

People with 20 or 30 years of consecutive service have been in businesses or industries that did not get hard hit by the recession of the 80s and 90s.... however, the circumstances that they face today are the same as those who felt them in the 80s and 90s. The only major difference is that the companies that aren't going bankrupt are leaving and the Jobs are NEVER coming back.

Here is a place for those 20 year workers from Guelph...

Hand them this job

http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/join/index.html

Its hard work, but very rewarding.

[M.Dancer]

I would be rich if your plan was retroactive!

Indeed....I'be been with the same firm going 17 years. I have also been unemployed but never by quitting or being fired. In the 27 years I have been out of schools, I have maybe been unemployed for 6-8 month. And even when I was unemployed I scrambled to work. I don't know if the rules have changed but in the 80s (when my friend was part of the UI Boating team) you could earn 25% of your UI benefits above your benefit and not be clawed back. So I did what seemed responsible and reasonable. I tool a part time night job. It was crappy pay but...I could still claim that I looked for work and honestly claim on my employment applications that I was employed and not just another UI bum.

I made $211 a week on UI and earned about $65 a week part time...so I netted about $260...which was more than ample and only $60 a week (gross) less than what I was making when I got layed off...

[Argus]

The way EI used to work, it was for regular, full-time workers. You worked month after month, year after year, and if you lost your job and couldn't find another, the "insurance" would take care of you, paying a high rate, something like 80% or more of your salary for up to a year.

The Liberals changed that, turning it into, in essence, largely a federal welfare income suppliment for people who have never and will never work anywhere near full-time hours, for seasonal workers, and youth who don't want to work crappy jobs. Because they so greatly expanded the payouts, they started cutting back on how much of your salary you could collect, then how long you could collect it, and in part, used the geographical differences in employment rate to help justify that. For the most part, the areas with the higher payouts are where EI has taken the form of an income suppliment for seasonal workers, like fishermen.

Ironically, the Liberals cut back so much that the EI account was actually in heavy surplus, but they just put that money into the regular spending kitty.

So forgive me if I find all this self-righteousness by the Liberals to be more than a tad dishonest and hypocritical. It strikes me as the result of a bunch of guys sitting around a board room table trying to figure out what they can use as an "Issue".

[M.Dancer]

Seriously, you do not collect EI if you get fired.

I should hope not. You don't get fire insurance if you burn your own house down.

Your friend sounds crooked. Many crooked people believe in false entitlements.

Those were the rules back then and what he was doing was not uncommon.

[Moonbox]

Get ready for dealing with all the Linemar fallout after a few years. There is no such thing as working stablity in a place for 20 years. It is now normal to have held 3 to 5 jobs in a 2 year period. In the midst of this can be gaps.

Here is a place for those 20 year workers from Guelph...

Hand them this job

http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/join/index.html

Its hard work, but very rewarding.

That's basically what I'm saying though. If you have a long history of work and you've paid EI for ages it should be there to support you. If you've shown a long history and willingess for work then I don't have any problem with it. You can extend EI to former Linamar employees without extending it to EI abusers, and there are MANY. You don't have to have some simplistic and utterly inflexible number of hours required to work as the qualification.

You can use prior work history, recent employment history and current economic conditions all factor in to eligibility. 9 weeks of work being eligible for EI is too simple and opens the doors for massive abuse for the system.

[Bryan]

When a recession such as this, and we are NOT near the end, as two well informed MLW posters have indicated .... then the possibilities of the in and out of work scenario are likely to continue for a few years.

People with 20 or 30 years of consecutive service have been in businesses or industries that did not get hard hit by the recession of the 80s and 90s.... however, the circumstances that they face today are the same as those who felt them in the 80s and 90s. The only major difference is that the companies that aren't going bankrupt are leaving and the Jobs are NEVER coming back.

Here is a place for those 20 year workers from Guelph...

Hand them this job

http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/join/index.html

Its hard work, but very rewarding.

We most definitely ARE near the end, if not already on our way up from the bottom. Employment is up, retail sales are up, small business startups are WAY up, the markets have had the fastest growth in history in the last two months, consumer confidence is up, oil prices have risen sharply too.

Besides, it's those long term employees who essentially lose their entire industry that the EI reforms that the Conservatives have announced are for. If you need to be retrained for another career, you can now collect EI for up to TWO years while undergoing that training instead of the previous one year. That opens up a lot of doors that were simply not available to them before. They also will not have their severance pay counted against their start date if they are using that severance as a re-education expense. To me, that is how such a system should work; help and even reward those who are proving themselves to be genuinely trying to get back into the work force.

This is a hell of a lot better proposal (for everyone) than "just give more people more money". Give a man a fish....

[Keepitsimple]

Here's some interesting ideas from Monte Solberg who used to handle the EI Potfolio for the Conservatives.....I suppose it just makes too much sense to be politically palatable:

When I was the minister responsible for employment insurance my wonderful team made some good changes to EI, but we didn't fix what really needed to be fixed. Sadly we didn't change the system that makes it easier to qualify with better benefits in some regions versus others. In many cases those benefits are both outrageously easy to get and horribly destructive.

Thus tens of thousands of workers in Atlantic Canada and Quebec have been collecting EI every year for at least 10 years running, and many only work for 12 weeks before receiving EI for the remaining 40 weeks. Typically they receive no training during this time even though acquiring new skills is the only way that they can hope to escape the whole suffocating system. Instead they receive regular cheques just for being themselves.

It's sort of a depressing version of lottery for life.

What I should have done is implement my hidden agenda, which I have written on a napkin that I keep in my sock. This is so I'm ready to go when the people of Canada come to their senses and make me their Emperor.

Yet hidden within the folds of this tattered capitalist manifesto are sprawling ideas including a plan to fix employment insurance from the ground up.

No longer will it be insurance against the horrible inconvenience of having to get a job. My new unemployment insurance will impose higher premiums on employers who frequently lay off workers, longer and richer benefits for workers who only draw on it once or twice in their lives, and extra benefits for those who complete training as they move out of dying industries.

Over time the overall premium rates would fall, giving employers an incentive to hire more people, and workers would see their after-tax income grow.

It would dramatically improve productivity, save billions of dollars, and strengthen society in one fell swoop. Now that's a handsome idea!

Link: http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnis...594741-sun.html

[madmax]

So forgive me if I find all this self-righteousness by the Liberals to be more than a tad dishonest and hypocritical. It strikes me as the result of a bunch of guys sitting around a board room table trying to figure out what they can use as an "Issue".

I forgive you.... and I have to agree with your analysis. You are often self righteous.....but its good to have some other self righteous company every now and again.

Edited May 31, 2009 by madmax

[ironstone]

My view is if you have only worked a month and a half in the last 12 months you are unemployed for a reason, most probably due to your own faults....

Back in the old old days it used to be 20 weeks....I had a friend who would work 20 weeks in the winter, get fired, take the 6 week penalty, collect over the summer and fall, work a few weeks under the table...get a job in winter....repeat ad nauseum.

Mind you he considered it his right cause he paid into UI....

Personally I would like to see people bonused....for every 5 years without collecting they get a nice reimbursement ....

I coudn't agree more with you.The problem I have is with those people that go most of their working lives only working the bare minimum with the goal of living off UI most of the time.Something has to change.

[madmax]

Indeed....I'be been with the same firm going 17 years. I have also been unemployed but never by quitting or being fired. In the 27 years I have been out of schools, I have maybe been unemployed for 6-8 month. And even when I was unemployed I scrambled to work. I don't know if the rules have changed but in the 80s (when my friend was part of the UI Boating team) you could earn 25% of your UI benefits above your benefit and not be clawed back. So I did what seemed responsible and reasonable. I tool a part time night job. It was crappy pay but...I could still claim that I looked for work and honestly claim on my employment applications that I was employed and not just another UI bum.

I made $211 a week on UI and earned about $65 a week part time...so I netted about $260...which was more than ample and only $60 a week (gross) less than what I was making when I got layed off...

Well then, that is ALOT more money then today. Take a $10 job, and $400/week, get your 55% that is hmm,

$220... $9 more then you made almost 3o years ago. Up until January of 2009 you could make 25% of your claim. Which is yeah about another $65...

Considering you didn't stay on it in the Hey day, and your Boating Team friend probably didn't compete for the entire 30 years you have known him, I can't say as there was a chronic problem, and you say it was a great deal, but you didn't stay on it.

I really cannot say that the 500,000 people recently laid off decided it was time to kick back and collect EI.

Being it is a great scheme and all.

[Keepitsimple]

The way EI used to work, it was for regular, full-time workers. You worked month after month, year after year, and if you lost your job and couldn't find another, the "insurance" would take care of you, paying a high rate, something like 80% or more of your salary for up to a year.

The Liberals changed that, turning it into, in essence, largely a federal welfare income suppliment for people who have never and will never work anywhere near full-time hours, for seasonal workers, and youth who don't want to work crappy jobs. Because they so greatly expanded the payouts, they started cutting back on how much of your salary you could collect, then how long you could collect it, and in part, used the geographical differences in employment rate to help justify that. For the most part, the areas with the higher payouts are where EI has taken the form of an income suppliment for seasonal workers, like fishermen.

Ironically, the Liberals cut back so much that the EI account was actually in heavy surplus, but they just put that money into the regular spending kitty.

So forgive me if I find all this self-righteousness by the Liberals to be more than a tad dishonest and hypocritical. It strikes me as the result of a bunch of guys sitting around a board room table trying to figure out what they can use as an "Issue".

Argus - why do you insist and telling things exactly as they are? You know some of our posters just can't deal with facts.

[Muddy]

I was sure if you got fired because your job was extinc ,like auto workers ,you could receive Unemployment insurance! Mean while I still have not had one individual or groups of people knocking on my door looking for work since long before the recession started. What does that tell us?

[Keepitsimple]

I was sure if you got fired because your job was extinc ,like auto workers ,you could receive Unemployment insurance! Mean while I still have not had one individual or groups of people knocking on my door looking for work since long before the recession started. What does that tell us?

That's not being fired - that's being laid off - big difference....and indeed, you are eligible to be considered for EI. Fired means you did something bad. Laid off means there's not enough work to keep you.

[Borg]

A person should be able to collect unemployment insurance - but only to the extent / amount they have payed into it.

Prevents habitual claimants

Borg

[madmax]

We most definitely ARE near the end, if not already on our way up from the bottom. Employment is up

Unemployment hits 15-year high in OntarioThe sheer number of Ontarians who are out of work has reached 670,700 – the highest level ever.....The province also experienced heavy losses in construction.

Since October, the number of Ontario workers in manufacturing has tumbled 14 per cent and fallen 9.3 per cent in construction, StatsCan reported.

May's job losses come on the heels of a surprisingly positive employment report in April.

That month's net gain was largely attributed to a jump in Canadians opting for self-employment, a trend that some economists have dismissed as "disguised unemployment."

I think Bryan.... you need to get away from party talking points...

[Moonbox]

The economy is still crapping and it's worse than most people think.

[Argus]

Here's some interesting ideas from Monte Solberg who used to handle the EI Potfolio for the Conservatives.....I suppose it just makes too much sense to be politically palatable:

Link: http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnis...594741-sun.html

You mean like this part?

In many cases those benefits are both outrageously easy to get and horribly destructive.

And you think Solberg had in mind making it EVEN EASIER, only making it easier everywhere instead of just in certain locations?