Why do we have pogey and foreign workers?

[Argus]

Because liberals.

Why work at a hard, low paying job if you can get pogey? Generous welfare - I mean, employment insurance benefits, with no requirement to seek work or retraining, even for people who repeatedly use the system, is a major problem in this country. And the only response of the Liberals was to buy off the welfare provinces in the Maritimes by further reducing the hours of work needed in a year to qualify. Now you can qualify with less than three months of work, and sit on your enormously fat lazy ass for the rest of the year while companies have to import Mexicans to work.

Westmorland Fisheries, a lobster and crab processing company based in Cap-Pelé, N.B., found itself short of staff last March and applied for permission to bring in 217 temporary foreign workers.

At the time, government statistics show, there were 719 regular beneficiaries of employment insurance with experience working in fish plants living within 40 km of Cap-Pelé.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/john-ivison-dont-blame-foreign-workers-when-the-problem-is-locals-who-prefer-ei-over-working

[Topaz]

What u r talking about is seasonal workers and they r not the only jobs that goes on EI for the winter months and the benefits are judged on the amount  of money one made and with the cost of living they aren't living high on the hog. I do think welfare is different among the provinces. In Ontario, one has to prove they are looking for a job while on welfare and the money is just enough to cover rent, for person, not sure what it is for a family.

[-1=e^ipi]

EI subsidizing seasonal work is one of the stupidest aspects of the EI system.

 

Abolish it and replace it with universal basic income instead.

[Michael Hardner]

2 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

 Abolish it and replace it with universal basic income instead.

Right... so the jobs that pay less than minimum wage will not be filled at all ?  I don't follow.

[Bonam]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

Right... so the jobs that pay less than minimum wage will not be filled at all ?  I don't follow.

If something isn't worth paying even minimum wage for, it's not worth doing. 

[-1=e^ipi]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Right... so the jobs that pay less than minimum wage will not be filled at all ?  I don't follow.

Abolish minimum wage as well. Replace it with universal basic income.

[OftenWrong]

27 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Abolish minimum wage as well. Replace it with universal basic income.

What would prevent thousands of youth who find it hard to get a decent job to simply give up looking, relax and stay home? Why would anyone want to work a menial, dirty job if they no longer have to?

[-1=e^ipi]

21 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

What would prevent thousands of youth who find it hard to get a decent job to simply give up looking, relax and stay home? Why would anyone want to work a menial, dirty job if they no longer have to?

Boredom, incentive to earn money.

 

Having a $5/hour position pays more than an unpaid internship.

 

Also, I never specified the magnitude of the universal basic income. You are assuming that it is necessarily big enough to live off of.

Edited April 7, 2017 by -1=e^ipi

[Bonam]

2 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Boredom, incentive to earn money.

Doing a menial sub-minimum wage job doesn't sound like a great way to alleviate boredom. 

Quote

Having a $5/hour position pays more than an unpaid internship.

Unpaid internships usually involve some manner of intellectual work and the prospect of moving up to a relatively well paid position after a few months or a year, which is very different from a permanent $5/hour job.

As for the topic of seasonal work and EI benefits... I agree with Argus's point of view. People should be  incentivized to look for other work throughout the rest of the year rather than getting EI. Perhaps if they have a bad year now and then EI can be applied but you shouldn't be able to consistently get it for multiple months year after year repeatedly. Seems like some limitation should be put in place in terms of like maximum number of months of eligibility per moving 5 year period or something along those lines. 

[-1=e^ipi]

1 hour ago, Bonam said:

Doing a menial sub-minimum wage job doesn't sound like a great way to alleviate boredom.

You'd be surprised. But if there is a shortage of people wanting to do menial work, then the wages will rise until there is no shortage. So in the case of replacing minimum wage with universal basic income, it could result in higher wages for some menial jobs due to there being a lower supply of desperate people wanting to work at a crap job for minimum wage.

 

I don't see anything wrong with that.

[Michael Hardner]

This is a good discussion but I think there is another thread for universal income.

[Bob Macadoo]

5 hours ago, Bonam said:

Doing a menial sub-minimum wage job doesn't sound like a great way to alleviate boredom. 

Unpaid internships usually involve some manner of intellectual work and the prospect of moving up to a relatively well paid position after a few months or a year, which is very different from a permanent $5/hour job.

As for the topic of seasonal work and EI benefits... I agree with Argus's point of view. People should be  incentivized to look for other work throughout the rest of the year rather than getting EI. Perhaps if they have a bad year now and then EI can be applied but you shouldn't be able to consistently get it for multiple months year after year repeatedly. Seems like some limitation should be put in place in terms of like maximum number of months of eligibility per moving 5 year period or something along those lines. 

I've always agreed seasonal tourism jobs should not be subsidized by a federal program.  If provinces want this seasonal employment that only benefits their province then let them fund it.  Interprovincial exports are another matter.  We benefit from those products (fish & timber).  Then we should just accept that we don't want these seasonal products.  Alberta well companies are having a hard time attracting talent back and thats not seasonal just boom/bust.  If I can find other employment.....I'm not coming back to hew your wood.

[OftenWrong]

4 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

You'd be surprised. But if there is a shortage of people wanting to do menial work, then the wages will rise until there is no shortage. So in the case of replacing minimum wage with universal basic income, it could result in higher wages for some menial jobs due to there being a lower supply of desperate people wanting to work at a crap job for minimum wage.

 

I don't see anything wrong with that.

Sure they would... by your reckoning eventually the wages would rise the be the same as a tradesman or even a medical professional.

Nonsense. All this idea leads to is more of the same problem. Even worse, since it amounts to state communism.

[kimmy]

21 hours ago, Argus said:

Westmorland Fisheries, a lobster and crab processing company based in Cap-Pelé, N.B., found itself short of staff last March and applied for permission to bring in 217 temporary foreign workers.

If Westmorland Fisheries can't get people to work for them, they should try the Free Market approach-- increase their wages.

 -k

[-1=e^ipi]

3 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

Nonsense. All this idea leads to is more of the same problem. Even worse, since it amounts to state communism.

No, for state communism you would need a 100% tax rate. You can have less than a 100% tax rate and still have a universal basic income.

[eyeball]

19 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

EI subsidizing seasonal work is one of the stupidest aspects of the EI system.

 

Abolish it and replace it with universal basic income instead.

I agree.

Pogy is more a subsidy to employers nowadays but it was intended to address national security i.e. to protect our food supply when it was created.

[eyeball]

11 hours ago, Bonam said:

Doing a menial sub-minimum wage job doesn't sound like a great way to alleviate boredom. 

Unpaid internships usually involve some manner of intellectual work and the prospect of moving up to a relatively well paid position after a few months or a year, which is very different from a permanent $5/hour job.

Where the hell does an economy that demands people pay their own way in the world get off on relying on free labour to keep so much of it afloat?

In addition to an annual guaranteed income we should also recognize the value of volunteer labour - which is pegged around 20$ an hour on average - at tax time through deductions and grants.

[PIK]

They have gotten away with for yrs. Make good money fishing and sit on pogey in the winter.

[Argus]

9 hours ago, kimmy said:

If Westmorland Fisheries can't get people to work for them, they should try the Free Market approach-- increase their wages.

 -k

While I have had this same response in the past, and while it is, in certain cases, valid, I'm not sure it is in this particular case. You're talking about a fish processing centre which pays the kind of wages fish processing centres do. And if there are all those people who have worked similar jobs recently sitting on pogey it seems to me that they ought to be getting off their asses and going to work.

I am a firm believer in capitalism on both sides, which also includes places having to increase wages to attract workers. But this process is distorted when you have a system whereby people can simply work for a couple of months and then take the rest of the year off. How much more would the fish processor have to pay in order to get these people off their far more comfortable life of sleeping in and not working? Possibly too much for it to be able to survive in noncompetitive with other, foreign fish processing places.

 

[Argus]

16 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

You'd be surprised. But if there is a shortage of people wanting to do menial work, then the wages will rise until there is no shortage.

Unless that is distorted by an alternative job - employment insurance - with far better working conditions. In that case the rise might have to be such that nobody would then want the product, because it would cost too much.

[Argus]

It seems to me that any employer who is in need of workers should be able to list their requirements with the local EI offices. Then anyone who is in need of work would be required to take a similar type job (at similar type salary) to what they've been doing or forfeit their pogey.

 

Edited April 7, 2017 by Argus

[Newfoundlander]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

It seems to me that any employer who is in need of workers should be able to list their requirements with the local EI offices. Then anyone who is in need of work would be required to take a similar type job (at similar type salary) to what they've been doing or forfeit their pogey.

 

 

If you're on EI then you are suppose to be in contact with the EI and provide proof you've been applying for jobs. This doesn't seem to happen.

[Newfoundlander]

One thing that should probably be happening  - I've only thought about this recently and not in a whole lot of detail - is allowing those on EI to take a lower paying job but then giving them a top up so that they'd be getting paid the same amount of money as if they were just on EI. You'd only receive the top up until your EI was set to expire. There are people who'd be fine with working a minimum wage job or any job that was lower pay than their previous job, but if working means less money than not working well then what are you are going to do? Even if a job is lower pay and not in someone's particular field doesn't mean it can't be meaningful employment and help them in their hunt for another job. Even though the government would still be paying out money through EI it'd end up being a big savings if they were only making up the difference between the job's salary and what the person was getting on EI. 

EI has a number of dumb policies that prevent people from working. I knew of someone who had been laid off and was then accepted through EI to go back to school to do a diploma program. They were unable to go back as a student without some help from EI. So they were approved through EI, the school accepted them, but they couldn't start the program until 6 months down the road. This person had only ever worked in lower paying jobs and was interested in working before their program started. However, if they accepted a new job then EI wouldn't provide any assistance for them to go to school, even though they were approved. The person at the EI office told them their best bet was to work under the table until the time came to start school. 

[eyeball]

So, as long as we're on the topic of carrying ones own weight in this goofy economy of ours, how about that Bombardier company?

Perhaps if the little guy acted properly and did what was expected of them the companies they work for would too.

Whatcha think?  Are workers expected to show a better example for their betters or should be it the other way around?

And don't get me started on the examples of work ethics that politicians set.

Edited April 8, 2017 by eyeball