Gov't, employer campaign could signal _new restrictions

UIC indifferent to jobless crisis

_ By SEAN GRIFFIN

Over the past winter, the number
of people with unemployment
4msurance problems that have
come into Colin Snell’s office at
Carpenters’ Centre has climbed
dramatically.

For Snell, a business agent for
Local 452 of the Carpenters’ Union
and the local’s UIC advocate, large
numbers of men on unemployment
insurance is a fact of life — par-
ticularly over the last hard winter
When the jobless rate for many
trades in construction exceeded 30
Percent, and hasn’t come down.
But that’s only half of the grim
Picture,

The other half in the Unem-
ployment Insurance Commission—
now integrated with the goverment
department as the Employment
and Immigration Commission —
Which, in the face of the worst
unemployment since the 1930’s, is
looking to reduce its rolls by every
Means possible.

Now jobless workers can wait for
Months for benefits, held up by
bureaucratic technicalities. Or
they can find themselves cut ar-
bitrarily off their claim, on the
pretext that they have ‘‘restricted
the possibilities” of finding the job
that never existed in the first
place.

And now Colin Snell is forced to
tell long time carpenters that

Even for those who do qualify,
the wait for benefits is usually a
minimum of four to six weeks. If
their claim is an old one, resulting
from a spell of unemployment the
year before, the wait is even
longer.

“Tf a worker is on and old claim .

which runs out, it takes the UIC
two weeks — and those are two
weeks without benefits — to inform
him. Then he has to wait at least
another six weeks for the first
cheque to arrive,” Snell em-
phasizes.

“‘How’s someone supposed to go .

for two months without income?
Again the only thing he can do is go
and apply for welfare.”

Characteristic of the govern-
ment’s relentless cutback on the
unemployment insurance program
is its handling of the rate-indexed
qualifying period. The qualifying
perios is to be reduced when the
unemployment rate reaches a
certain level — but it hasn’t hap-
pened.

In Region 1, encompassing
Vancouver-Victoria, the qualifying
period for entitlement to benefits is
supposed to be reduced from 12
weeks to 10 when the unem-
ployment rate exceeds 8.4 percent.
But it remains at 12 weeks,, even
though the jobless rate was 8.7
percent in the region in January.

Snell reasons that the govern-
ment is using its own time lag in

Canadian workers are paying

more for

unemployment

insurance — and getting less. "7

they’ll have to apply for welfare
because they haven’t been able to
find the 12 weeks work that would
have entitled them to an unem-
ployment insurance claim.

Even a year ago it was different.
But that was before the Trudeau
government passed Bill 27, the
Employment and Immigration
‘Reorganization Act which, among
other things, increased
Significantly the number of weeks
a worker had to be employed in
order to qualify for benefits.

That was before even the
government was compelled to
admit that unemployment in this
country had reached crisis levels
_ — forcing ever more people on to
Unemployment insurance.

“We knew that when the
regulations. were changed that it
would mean a lot of problems for
Workers,”’ Snell says. ‘“That’s why
we fought so hard against them.”

But although the demand to stop
the changes was heard throughout
the labor movement, Ottawa
Wasn’t listening. It increased the
qualifying period from the ‘‘minor
attachment” period of eight weeks
to a period of from 10 to 14 weeks
And tied it to the regional unem-
Ployment rate.

At the time, it was estimated that
50,000 people would be disentitled.
But with the jobless rate where it is
how — particularly in the con-
Struction industry — that un-
derstates the case by a substantial
Margin,

Now, with increasing frequency,
Union members are coming into
Shell’s office with a problem many

ve never faced before. Even
though they may have worked all

eir lives, unemployment has
been so bad over the past year that
they haven’t been able to get 12
Weeks work. For them the UIC has
‘Nothing. They’re forced to go to
Welfare.

compiling statistics to keep it at 12
weeks. ‘“‘The regulations indicate
that it is based on the average for
the previous two months,” he says.
“And since the figures for March
won’t be available until April, and
the average not announced until
May, we probably won’t see any
change until then — and only if the
government is prepared to abide
by its regulations.

“But you can be sure,” he em-
phasizes, pointing out to the
example of his own union, “that if
the Unemployment Insurance
Commission is going to keep up the
qualifying period at 12 weeks for as
long as it can — just to keep
thousands of people off the rolls.”’

What the increase in the
qualifying period has not ac-
complished in disentitling jobless
people, the workings of the com-
mission itself, often do. After
several weeks on_ benefits,
claimants are frequently called in
for an interview to determine
whether or not they are making the
necessary job searches or are not
“restricting their availability for
work.” :

The questions are often loaded,
the situations contrived. If a
claimant answers without
checking every word, and says that
he can’t work out of town or won’t
work for less than the going rate, it
frequently leads to his being cut
off.

A typical letter states: “We find
you are not entitled to benefits . . .
as you failed to prove that you are
available for work. You are.not
considered available for work as
you have placed restrictions on the
employment acceptable to you to
such an extent that your prospects
of finding work are severely
reduced.” :

Snell points to the case of a
millwright who was cut off when he
said he wouldn’t go to work in the

UNEMPLOYNEN T
INSURAtCE

as

et tll
Go away! The unemployment rate is only 8.4 percent!

Yukon on a job which paid less
than union rates and provided no
room or board. He’s married with
a family and has a home in Van-
couver.

The union appealed the case —
and won. In fact, Snell has won the
overwhelming number of cases
that he has appealed. It’s a
measure of just how arbitrary the
UIC is in cutting people off
benefits.

‘When a union appeals a case,
the UIC almost invariably backs
off,”’ he notes.

But for every union member on
whose behalf an appeal is laun-
ched, there are 10, 20, or perhaps
more, who have also been the
victim of an arbitary UIC decision
— but don’t have someone to go to
bat for them.

“Most of the people who have
been disentitled just accept it,”’ he

says. ‘‘They don’t know the Act or
the procedures for launching an
appeal. And immigrants are taken
particular advantage of because of
language difficulties.’

In short, it’s getting tougher and
tougher for working people,
whether they’re being laid off for a

month, or if their plant or mill-is
shutting down, indefinitely, to get

the unemployment insurance
benefits they should be entitled to.

With every increase in unem-
ployment, the government hedges
in the program with new restric-
tions and applies the present
regulations more arbitrarily. That,
coupled with a saturation ad-
vertising campaign against
unemployment
‘‘cheaters”’ is with one objective:
to convince the public that a
“good”, liberally-administered

COLIN SNELL
unemployment insurance.

jobless facing increasing problems with

insurance.

scheme is excessively costly, is
subject to abuse — and should be
cut back.

The clamor for _ further
restrictions has already been
raised. Michael Walker, director of
the Vancouver-based big business
think-tank, the Fraser Institute,
has ‘termed the‘present program
“liberal” and advocates, a means
test‘as a prerequisite for benefits.
Predictably, his suggestion has
been echoed by Socred minister
Bill Vander Zalm.

-But how liberal is Canada’s
unemployment insurance scheme?
Actually, it isn’t liberal at all.
Compared to the programs in
operation in other industrialized
capitalist countries, it comes out as
an inferior plan.

Last year, the prestigious W. E-

Upjohn Institute published the
International Review of Unem-
ployment Insurance Schemes,
compiled by researchers Saul
Blaustein and Isabel Craig. It
showed that the amount of benefits
paid, and the duration of benefits,
are both less than those in West
Germany, Britain and even the
US.

Worst of all, the rate of employee
contributions paid into the UIC by
Canadian workers is among: the

‘highest anywhere.

In short, Canadian workers are
paying more for unemployment
insurance — and getting less. Yet
employers and goverments want to
cut back the program even more.

Behind the campaign, of course,
is the pressure to bring wages
down. For if the unemployed can’t
get benefits, they’re forced to take
any job at any wages — even below
the minimum. In fact that was the
burden of Employment and Im-
migration minister Bud Cullen’s
remarks to the Montreal Chamber
of Commerce when he proposed
curtailed minimum wages in
addition to further restrictions on
unemployment insurance.

With current unemployment
levels, this country needs an ex-
panded unemployment insurance
program — one that will pay in-
creased benefits for the duration of

“unemployment.

But above all, it needs govern-
ment initiatives for massive job
creation programs throughout the
economy — and it needs them now.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 24, 1978—Page 3