March 12, 1957
THE FISHERMAN
Page 7
Fishermen's Jobless Insurance
Union Proposes Corrections
Plan Should Provide Full Integration
Year-Round fishermen
The final exception to the proposed general rule that fishing contributions can be counted only for purposes of seasonal benefit concerns those whom the Commission proposes to call "year-round fishermen."
The Commission's memorandum states "subject to certain restrictions, such year-round fishermen can be allowed to qualify for regular benefit when unemployed, irrespective of the time of year when unemployment occurs. This rule, however, has to be applied only to year-round fishermen;
(a) who have become "involuntarily unemployed,
(b) in whose case it can be clearly demonstrated that they have been laid off because of lack of work, and
(c) who are not in a position to control their own employment and unemployment as most seasonal fishermen and self-employed fishermen can do.
"It is proposed that for this purpose a person shall be considered a year-round fisherman if his contribution record at the time of claim shows at least six fishing contributions in each of four consecutive calendar quarters. These may be any four consecutive quarters out of the last date of his claim, 111 allow for periods when he may have been sick or engaged in insurable employment other than fishing. Such a claimant will be considered for regular benefit if he has become unemployed because of a layoff for lack of work from a vessel whenever the involuntary nature of his unemployment can be proved."
In respect to this group the Commission correctly adopts the principle that a hired fisherman, a fisherman who does not control or own a boat and is therefore able to prove that a period of unemployment is involuntary, dependent solely on a lay-off for lack of work, should be permitted to draw unemployment insurance "irrespective of the time of year when unemployment occurs."
The Commission also correctly believes that when such a hired fisherman applies for benefit it will be able, as a practical admin-
Final Article of Series by UFAWU Spokesman
• This is the final article of three prepared by UFAWU research director William Rig-by on the proposed plan for giving commercial fishermen limited unemployment insurance coverage.
The first article outlined the regulations drafted by
the Unemployment Insurance Commission (Feb. 26).
Last week's article continued the discussion, raising some of the Union's basic objections to aspects of the proposal. This week, William Rigby continues his critical examination of the federal plan and outlines the Union's al-
ternative proposal for inclusion of fishermen under Unemployment Insurance legislation which would remove some of the inequities' and place them on a more even footing with other workers.
The Union and The Fisher-mart welcome any questions
from readers on the plan or the Union's proposals for overcoming weaknesses in the government scheme.
The alternatives presented by the Union have been detailed in a brief which is now before federal minister of labor Milton Gregg.
istrative matter, to distinguish between such a person and a self-employed fisherman, even though in both cases the fishing contributions are of the same color and not in any way distinctive.
Why Special Condition?
Such* being the case, the question apses: Why is it necessary to introduce the. special qualification that a hired fisherman must also have at least six fishing contributions in each of the four consecutive calendar quarters?
Let us take two different hired fishermen. The first has a total of 41 stamps in four consecutive calendar quarters, with the distribution between quarters, five, 10, 13 and 13 stamps. The second has 30 stamps, divided between the same calendar quarters as follows: six, 10, six and six stamps.
These two mexi may apply for regular benefit at the same time, in the same community. The fisherman with the lesser number of stamps will qualify for regular benefit, the man who had more contributions will be rejected.
The example we have chosen is a very real one and similar cases will constantly arise in the circumstances of the industry in all provinces.
It would appear that the sole reason for the four consecutive quarters condition is that, as the Commission's statement quoted above would indicate, the terms "seasonal fishermen" and "self-employed fishermen" are being erroneously identified.
A seasonal fisherman (one who regularly participates in only a single fishery confined to a particular season) may be a self-employed fishermman. In this
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case, any special restriction for such fisherman will affect him without the need for a special four consecutive quarters condition. ■
But a seasonal fisherman may also be a hired fisherman (all those salmon seiners in B.C. who own nothing but their clothes when they go aboard a vessel, and are employed in fishing only during the salmon season). The seasonal salmon seiner is in exactly the same position as the seasonal salmon cannery worker or the seasonal salmon packer working for wages or seasonal workers in other industries.
If unable to obtain other employment outside salmon fish'ng, he will either have insufficient stamps to qualify for regular benefits or perhaps he will at times barely qualify but never, under the present Act, for two years in succession.
If however, he combines his seasonal hired employment in fishing with employment in other industries there is no justification for making it more difficult for him to qualify for benefit than for applicants from other industries, having in mind that he will have to prove that the reasons for his unemployment were involuntary.
Our Proposals
To remedy the defects of benefit proposals advanced by the Commission we submit suggestions which would provide:
Full integration of unemployment insurance for fishermen with the regular Unemployment tInsuranee plan; 2 A means of establishing the active fishing season for self-employed fishermen that is applicable to all provinces, fisheries and individual fishermen yet administratively practical and simple; 2 Elimination of the very seri ous injustices and anomalies that would follow adoption of the commission's proposals in their present form. We have no objection to the Commission's proposal to have fishing stamps designated by a
special color or in some other distinctive way. On this basis we propose:
• The first question to be considered when a fisherman applies for unemployment insurance is whether the claimant is a hired fisherman "or not.
• If the applicant, at the time of his claim, is a hired fisherman, laid off for lack of work from a vessel which he does not own or control, proving the involuntary nature of his unemployment, he will be required to meet the same qualifications for benefit as applicants from other industries.
No additional restrictions are required in such case and no additional restrictions are in effect in other countries where hired fishermen are covered by unemployment insurance legislation.
• Any fisherman who is not a hired fisherman at the time he submits a claim between April 15 and December 31 (the active fishing season as presently defined in the Commission's own proposals) shall, unless he can qualify for benefits without counting fishing stamps, not be entitled to draw regular benefit, if other-
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wise qualified, in any calendar week in which he had a fishing contribution in the previous calendar year.
Meet Problem
We submit that these proposals meet and answer the difficulties foreseen by the Commission while avoiding the inequities that would follow from the Commission's own proposals.
The advantages of our proposal may be summarised as follows:
J We accept as the foundation for our plan that all fisher-
men may qualify for the same benefits as other' contributors; they are fully integrated into the Act; not merely accepted as halfway entrants;
2 Nevertheless the self-employed fisherman will not be able to draw regular benefit in any week that his own fishing record shows he might be fishing. This removes all the anomalies created by the conception that there is a season to fish and a season to draw and this season is the same for all fisheries in all provinces.
Fishing contributions* derived from winter fishing become just as valuable for future benefits as other contributions, and nothing is lost by fishing in the winter at a time which, under the Corn-
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