The about 600 Employment Insurance workers across Canada who may soon be facing the breadline themselves are "angry" with the way they've been treated by the government, says Jeannie Baldwin, Public Service Alliance of Canada's executive vice-president for the Atlantic region. "The workers are really angry. They are angry at the behaviour of this government, how they've treated the workers through this whole process," said Ms. Baldwin, whose union represents the Service Canada workers.
She said that workers in Nova Scotia found out about the decision to concentrate Employment Insurance work in 22 instead of 120 centres nationally in an email sent out by a regional director just before the end of the day on Friday Aug. 19.
While no Service Canada branches will be closed due to the change, the reorganization is part of a plan to modernize the way Employment Insurance is administered, said Alyson Queen, a spokesperson for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley.
"There is significant opportunity for us to be much more cost effective and efficient in our operations," she said, adding that frontline services to Canadians won't change.
The workers who are affected collect information and finalize Employment Insurance claims, said Ms. Baldwin. They currently work behind the scenes in call centres and community offices.
In the affected branches, unemployed people will still be able to go in and use an electronic kiosk to file an EI application, but if there are any problems with the claim, Service Canada will not be able to resolve them on-site. Instead, the claim is passed onto a centralized representative who will call the claimant back within 48 hours. If an applicant needs specialized help, they will have to call a 1-800 number.
"In the past, if someone was desperate you were always able to go back and see what happened with the claim and if you could help that person out. This time, you don't know where the file is, you don't know who's working on it," said Ms. Baldwin.
The government has signaled that it will try and cover any job losses through attrition but Ms. Baldwin said that in the Atlantic Region there is a practical limit to the tactic: "there are not enough people who are going to retire."
Aside from attrition, Ms. Queen said that the government is also looking at re-training and transferring employees to other branches.
Ms. Baldwin said that details on retraining and potential new jobs, have been sketchy so far.
"How do you tell a person they're going to be retrained and reassigned when you can't even tell them how they'll be retrained or what kind of work they'll be doing? You're telling them now that they've got no job," she said.
Ms. Baldwin also noted that employees based in Gander, Nfld., say they have been offered new jobs, but they're in St. John's, a more than four-hour drive away. Further adding to the uncertainty is whether or not employees who do choose to relocate will have a job in 2014.
HRSDC's goal with the modernization is to raise the level of automated processing to 70 per cent of claims, from its current level of 44 per cent. The department stated in a release on Aug. 19 that past initiatives to modernize processing have reduced costs by 30 per cent.
"Over the next three years, we will improve how EI claims are processed by introducing further automation to what is an outdated and paper-based system," Ms. Queen said.
This next round of modernizations is expected to lower the cost of EI claim processing by another 15 per cent.
Ms. Queen said that HRSDC told employees internally that the department anticipated about 600 people would be affected by the changes, but that number could change.
"Frankly, however, it's too early to speculate on what the specific changes will be," she said.
The modernization plan is a result of the strategic review that HRSDC, which oversees Service Canada, underwent last year, confirmed Ms. Queen.
As a result of the review, the department announced it would save $80.5-million in 2011-2012, $140.7-million in 2012-2013 and $274.9-million in 2013-2014, the year before Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) promised to balance the budget.
"It is important to reiterate that Canadians expect their hard-earned tax dollars to be used as effectively and efficiently as possible," said Ms. Queen.
On the East Coast, employment insurance workers will now be consolidated into two locations, Bathurst, N.B., and St. John's, Nfld., said Ms. Baldwin. She said that many of the workers in the Bathurst office are term employees, leading her to think that soon enough, these branches will be closed too in a further round of consolidations.
Right now, the moves are taking well-paying jobs out of small communities and consolidating them in urban areas, Ms. Baldwin stated.
"The modernization of Canada's Employment Insurance system must not be conducted at the expense of workers in remote areas, their families and their communities, said NDP EI critic Claude Patry (Jonquière-Alma, Que.) in a statement to media Aug. 31.
Ms. Baldwin said she thinks that the changes at Service Canada are just the start of hard times for jobs in the Atlantic region, and government workers generally.
"It's sad, this is only the beginning of it, only the beginning," she said.
She added that she is worried about jobs at Fisheries and Oceans, which announced on June 7 that 275 positions, including a Search and Rescue call centre in Halifax, N.S., will be eliminated. Fisheries and Oceans also underwent a strategic review last year and promised to save around $85-million over the next three years.
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Marine Atlantic Inc. also underwent strategic spending reviews in 2010, though both agencies have not announced any job losses.
Every department and agency is also currently preparing for the government's Strategic Operating Review. Announced in the 2011 federal budget, it aims to cut the department's operational spending by five per cent to 10 per cent across the board. Currently, the annual operational budget is $80-billion a year.
The goal is to eliminate the federal deficit, which is an estimated $32.3-billion for 2011-2012, according to the budget.
"I really believe that they have a bigger vision here, it's unfortunate though that it's on the backs of workers and those who are unemployed, who as far as I'm concerned are the most vulnerable," said Ms. Baldwin.
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Source: Hill Times
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