Canada: Government's EI changes hit immigrants hardest

For more than 130 years, workers have celebrated Labour Day in Canada to recognize the hard fought struggles that women and men have undertaken for better working and living conditions.

As we celebrate our past accomplishments, the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance (ACLA) reminds us all that the struggle for dignity and respect in the workplace is an ongoing process. Recent changes to our Employment Insurance will have a tremendous impact on all workers: and we all need to resist these changes.

Racialized and immigrant communities will be hardest hit by recent changes to Canada's Employment Insurance program. Buried in the last budget, the federal government announced a series of changes relating to eligibility requirements on who can collect employment insurance benefits. The changes included the following: 

-Workers who have made more than three claims for EI and have received 60 weeks of benefits over a five year period will be expected to take a 20 per cent cut in their pay if offered a similar job to what they had previously. This change impacts about one in three unemployed workers.

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