UPDATED May 13, 2004

PRESS RELEASE ON RECENT EI CHANGES

"The EI Act needs major improvements not politically motivated band-aids" states Carl Pursey, President of the PEI Federation of Labour

While the PEI Federation of Labour encourages any improvements to EI, even minor ones announced solely for election purposes, there is still such a long way to go to even get the Employment Insurance program back to the point it was 10 years ago when the Liberal government gutted it.

'' Tuesday's announcement is almost an insult to the unemployed on Prince Edwards Island.'' says Pursey

Less than 40% of unemployed workers are eligible for EI, thousands can't qualify because of the high number of hours needed, more are getting less because of the divisor rule and almost $45 billion dollars has been stolen from workers. This is the real picture, this is what the Martin government has to deal with

"We are asking ourselves, where are the Island MP's on these questions. We gave them the information on the negative impacts of the cutbacks on workers, their families and their communities. Why are they not standing up for Island unemployed workers'' asked Pursey

The degradation of the EI program has caused major hardships for our province and for the federal government to use minor improvements to the Act to try to get the public to forget the controversy swirling around them is despicable.

We are including with this press release a copy of the PEI Federation of Labour's submission to the Prime Minister's Seasonal Worker's Task Force to show where we think the government should be going with the EI Act to make it truly serve Canada's unemployed.

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