Minister accuses EI union of working to rule
The number of jobless Canadians who managed to connect with an agent
when they called Service Canada looking for their employment insurance
cheques reached its lowest level in six years this fall.
Service Canada employees say the decline in staff size is the cause
of the jammed phone lines – and the problems that many unemployed people
are having in getting their benefits applications processed.
The number of jobless Canadians who managed to connect with an agent
when they called Service Canada looking for their employment insurance
cheques reached its lowest level in six years this fall.
Service Canada employees say the decline in staff size is the cause
of the jammed phone lines – and the problems that many unemployed people
are having in getting their benefits applications processed.
More related to this story
But Human Resources Minister Diane Finley suggests the workers in her
agency are deliberately cutting back on service as part of a backlash
against the changes being made by the Conservative government to
automate the EI process.
In a letter to the Charlottetown Guardian dated Nov. 21, Ms. Finley
says it is most interesting that “in the month that we announced we will
be overhauling and improving EI processing to better serve Canadians –
before any changes were introduced – productivity and performance went
from being on par with last year's performance at this time, to the
worst in five years.”
More than 1,000 processing agents have been let go since the spring.
Ms. Finley says they were temporary employees hired specifically to deal
with a balloon in EI claims during the recent recession.
But the Canada Employment and Immigration Union says the number of
processing agents is now well below prerecession levels. And the union
is furious that Ms. Finley would suggest there is a work-to-rule
campaign going on.
“If service levels are the worst that they’ve been in five years, I
can assure you, it is entirely because Service Canada was far too quick
to cut positions on the premise that automation would compensate,” said
Steve McCuaig, the union’s national executive vice-president.
Alyson Queen, a spokeswoman for Ms. Finley, said the Human Resources
Department is engaged in a process of modernizing its systems that will
ultimately allow for better, faster and more cost-effective service to
Canadians.
But Mr. McCuaig said “there isn’t an automated system in the world
that can process applications that are as complex as EI legislation is
and as unique to the applicants and their circumstances.”
Meanwhile, statistics supplied by Ms. Finley to Rodger Cuzner, the
Liberal human resources critics, show the decline in service at the
department’s call centres has been going on for at least six years.
In 2005-06, 58 per cent of the calls about EI from across Canada
actually made it through to an agent. By September of this year, that
had dropped to 32 per cent.
And, in some regions, the drop was much more pronounced. In Edmonton,
for instance, the successful calls fell from 91 per cent to 31 per cent
over the six-year span. In Regina, they fell from 84 per cent to 26 per
cent.
The department denies that it has failed to renew the contracts of temporary employees in the Service Canada call centres.
“Through normal attrition, 84 people have left the call centres since
July of this year and we have not replaced those positions,” Ms. Queen
said. “However, for the record, there have been no non-renewals of term
contracts or terminations within the EI or [Canada Pension Plan]call
centres as a result of financial pressures.”
The union representatives, however, says that is patently untrue and
that hundreds of temporary call centre employees across the country have
been told they are no longer needed. They point to grievances that have
been filed by their members who were let go in September, and memos
from managers telling employees that staff is being reduced as a result
of monetary cutbacks.
source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/minister-accuses-ei-union-of-working-to-rule/article542818/?from=549462
NDP blasts dismal response rate as Tories cut EI call centres
With the Conservative government planning to downsize call centres
that handle employment insurance claims, the New Democrats have obtained
data to show that one in every four calls is being abandoned because
callers can’t reach a representative.
Internal government documents released by the NDP at an Ottawa news
conference Wednesday show that in larger cities like Winnipeg and
Vancouver, nearly a third of the people who called Service Canada about
EI last month eventually hung up because they could not speak to someone
in a timely manner.
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And in the final week of September, more than half of the people who
called about the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security reached
nothing but a busy signal.
“Folks on the other end of the line who depend on the service
couldn’t even get through nearly 25 per cent of the time,” human
resources critic Jean Crowder said. “So one out of every four people who
call can’t talk to anyone about the problem they are having.”
Service Canada employees have received e-mails telling them that call
centres in Vancouver, Montague, PEI, and the Nova Scotia communities of
Glace Bay and Sydney will be reduced in size over the next three years.
Human
Resources Minister Diane Finley has explained that the government hired
extra employees on a temporary basis during the recession to handle the
high volume of EI claims.
“Fortunately, thanks to our economic action plan, more Canadians are
at work now than ever before, so there is not the same need to hire
people to process the claims,” the minister said last month when asked
about the downsizing at the call centres.
“The individuals knew that they were temporary jobs, but service
standards have improved compared to the 10 weeks it took when the
Liberals were in power,” Ms. Finley said.
She has also said Service Canada is moving away from a paper system
to automated processes that will give workers more time to deal directly
with the people they serve.
But Ms. Crowder said the automated system has been in place for five
years and most people already try to file their claims on line.
“Less than 50 per cent of claims can be handled without an employee
involved,” she said. “Even a tiny anomaly in a claim will be rejected by
the automated system.”
Unemployed workers who need help but cannot get help by telephone
will have to wait longer for the money they need to pay their bills, Ms.
Crowder said.
The government, she added, “should reverse the decision to cut the
staff at EI processing centres so Canadians are not left waiting for the
benefits they deserve and need in these tough economic times.”
source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/ndp-blasts-dismal-response-rate-as-tories-cut-ei-call-centres/article619007/
EI queue has ballooned since Service Canada staff cuts
Hundreds of thousands of unemployed Canadians are waiting for the
federal government to process their claims for employment insurance – a
queue that newly released documents show has doubled since 2007 as
Services Canada reduces its staff.
In October of 2007, there were 181,931 people waiting for their
claims to be processed, according to documents obtained by The Globe and
Mail using federal Access to Information legislation. By October of
this year, that number had climbed to 360,481 – and according to past
seasonal trends, is likely to be higher now.
More related to this story
Growth in the waiting list for benefits parallels a decline in
temporary and permanent staff in the processing centres, with numbers 13
per cent lower than in October, 2007. Hundreds of additional processing
agents were hired during the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009 but
those people, and others, have since been let go or left without being
replaced.
The result has been a system in turmoil, as documented in a series of
Globe stories over the past two months. Unemployed people are unable to
get through by telephone to find out what is delaying their benefits.
The newly released documents reveal wild fluctuations in temporary staff
at Service Canada’s call centres where the phone lines as so jammed
that just one in three calls is answered.
Many of the unemployed are turning up at Service Canada centres
instead and are extremely frustrated. Service Canada workers in a number
of cities are reporting receiving threats of violence.
One woman who waited for months for an answer is Lorena Delim, a
health-care aide who went on maternity leave a year ago when her son was
born. The baby died in August – a tragedy Ms. Delim cannot bring
herself to discuss even four months later.
She immediately told Service Canada that the boy had passed away.
Because of her fragile emotional state, she was advised to convert some
of the remaining months of her maternity leave to disability leave.
Weeks later, she had received no cheque for the period after the
baby’s death but she did get a letter from Service Canada telling her
she had to pay back more than $500 in benefits.
Ms. Delim tried repeatedly to telephone a government agent to set
things straight but could not get past the message machines. More than
once she went into the local Service Canada centre in an attempt to
resolve the issue. “They e-mailed for the processing centre to call me
back but I never heard from them again,” she said in a telephone
interview.
Ms. Delim eventually turned to Winnipeg’s Unemployed Help Centre to
see if the staff there could get through to Service Canada on her
behalf. In the week before Christmas – three weeks after she had
returned to her job – she was finally told she would be getting benefits
for September and October.
Although the number of people who, like Ms. Delim, are waiting has
spiked in 2011, the 248,659 EI claims filed in October were about the
same as in Octobers past, the documents obtained by The Globe show.
The documents did not give figures for November and December of 2011.
But the records show that the number of Canadians waiting for their
first benefits cheque annually jumps by as much as 100,000 during those
months as a result of seasonal fluctuations. So the real number of
unemployed Canadians currently waiting for their first EI payment could
be approaching 500,000.
In response to questions from The Globe, the Human Resources
Department said it works to “maintain a flexible and sustainable
workforce capacity comprising both permanent and temporary employees,
working on a full- or part-time basis.”
Human Resources Minister Diane Finley says fewer people are needed because her department is moving to a more automated system.
But Service Canada workers point out that the system became automated
four years ago. And they say the depletion of their ranks means any
claim that requires human intervention is taking additional weeks and
even months to process.
“I liken this to a ticking time bomb,” says Neil Cohen, the executive
director of the Community Unemployed Help Centre in Winnipeg.
“We have clients who are dealing with depression issues who have
talked about suicide and those threats have to be taken seriously [as
do]threats of violence against Service Canada workers,” Mr. Cohen said.
“The federal government has just ignored the problem.”
source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ei-queue-has-ballooned-since-service-canada-staff-cuts/article4247846/
Service Canada employees told to keep mum on complaints office
There is an office within Service Canada where jobless people who
have waited undue lengths of time for their first employment-insurance
cheque can complain about the delay – but Service Canada employees are
not permitted to tell them about it.
It’s called the Office of Client Satisfaction, and it promises to
work to “resolve any issues brought to its attention.” But call centre
agents who field questions about EI claims say they have been warned by
their bosses not to mention its existence to the frustrated people on
the other end of the line.
More related to this story
“The only way they are allowed to give information about it is if the
client specifically says, ‘Do you have information about the Office of
Client Satisfaction,’ ” said Steve McCuaig, the national vice-president
of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union. “So how are they
supposed to ask for something they don’t even know exists?”
It’s a bind that the agents find themselves in more often as the work
force assigned to process claims shrinks to meet federal budget
restraints, and the number of EI claims that take more than the maximum
28 days to be decided increases correspondingly.
Even though the jobless rate went up last month, Service Canada's
work force is expected to decline even further as Human Resources and
Skills Development Canada trims costs to meet deficit reduction targets.
So the lines at Service Canada which are already jammed with anxious EI
claimants are likely to get even busier.
Many of the angry claimants are turning to their local MP for help.
“Why should they have to call an MP when they've got me on the
phone?” said one Service Canada call-centre agent. “I tell them we are
late, but can’t take their complaint? Crazy. Who wouldn't go nuts at
that? We deliver bad news but aren't accountable to it.”
Another agent, however, said there would be little point in directing
someone whose benefits have been delayed to the Office of Client
Satisfaction because that office can only turn to the same overworked
processing agents who are fielding complaints forwarded by the
call-centre staff.
Until July, those processing agents were required to return calls to
people who had complaints about their claims within two days. That has
been increased to five days because the agents could not keep up with
the volume of calls. And Service Canada staff say even the five-day
deadline is not being met.
The Human Resources Department was asked for basic information about
the Office of Client Satisfaction on Tuesday, and to explain why
call-centre agents could not divulge its existence to clients – but no
responses were provided.
Jamus Dorey of Nova Scotia applied for employment insurance on July
24. His claim was not processed until Sept. 24, and he received his
first EI cheque on Sept. 28.
“It went on and on and on,” he said. “I would call almost every
second day for the full eight weeks and not one person from Service
Canada actually called me back.”
Mr. Dorey found a job in October. But as the single father of a young
son, he says he is very glad he had his own savings to get through two
months with no income.
Throughout the days and weeks that he was trying to get answers out
of Service Canada, no one told him about the Office of Client
Satisfaction. It was the staff working for Rodger Cuzner, his Liberal MP
who also happens to be the party’s critic for Human Resources, who told
him there was an office within Service Canada where he could make a
complaint.
Mr. Dorey said he called the Office of Client Satisfaction and was
told someone would get back to him in a week. The claim was approved
shortly thereafter, but he attributes the resolution to Mr. Cuzner’s
intervention.
source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/service-canada-employees-told-to-keep-mum-on-complaints-office/article542838/
Calls to EI complaints office skyrocket
The secretive Office for Client Satisfaction where jobless Canadians
can launch complaints about the handling of their employment insurance
claims is not so secret any more.
New documents released this week by the Conservative government show
that the office received 9,488 “comments” between April 1 and Dec. 7 of
last year.
More related to this story
That is a considerable increase from the period between 2007 and 2010
when the office averaged a little more than 3,000 comments a year. The
number jumped to about 6,000 in fiscal year 2010-11 – an increase that
Service Canada attributes to a higher volume of EI claims.
But, in the current fiscal year that ends on March 31, the office is on track to hear from more than 12,000 Canadians.
The volume of comments ballooned in November when The Globe and Mail
published a story quoting Service Canada call-centre agents who said
they have been warned by their bosses not to mention the office’s
existence to jobless clients who are frustrated with the time it is
taking to process their EI claims.
“Since November 2011, the extremely high volumes of client feedback
have led to delays in processing some of the more complex files,” say
the documents, which were provided in response to questions from Jean
Crowder, the NDP human resources critic.
Ms. Crowder said she believes the increase in calls to the Office for
Client Satisfaction (OCS) can be attributed to the fact that people are
becoming aware of it. “And cuts to services are forcing people into
looking for alternatives,” she said.
In response to questions about the recent spike, Service Canada said
additional resources have been added to the OCS, and the department’s
website “has been updated to encourage clients to direct their request
to the appropriate program.”
Service Canada staff say they have been unable to keep up with the workload after hundreds of workers were cut last year.
Human Resources Minister Diane Finley recently authorized the
temporary rehiring of more than 100 employees who had been laid off from
the EI processing centres, as well as the reassignment of workers from
other divisions within Service Canada, to deal with a rising mountain of
claims.
In October, more than 360,000 people were waiting for their EI
benefits to be processed, a backlog that has since grown, and some
unemployed people are waiting months for their first cheque.
Frustrated claimants have jammed the phone lines at Service Canada
call centres. But many of the agents who deal with those callers say
they have been told not to tell them about the Office for Client
Satisfaction.
Don Rogers, the national president of the Canadian Employment and
Immigration Union, which represents call-centre agents and claims
processors, said Service Canada workers in some parts of the country are
allowed to give out the number for the OCS while workers in other
regions are strongly dissuaded from doing so.
“But we have been encouraging folks, if they are not happy with the
wait times, that the best thing to do is to register your unhappiness
with the Office for Client Satisfaction,” he said. “That’s why it’s
there.”
The documents provided to Ms. Crowder also show high levels of
absenteeism among Service Canada staff, especially at the processing
centres. While the average Canadian worker takes between seven and eight
sick days a year, EI processing agents take an average of nearly 12.
Mr. Rogers said his members are experiencing high levels of stress
and anxiety. “You can imagine when it takes a member of the public days
to get through [on the telephone]with a query that they may be unhappy
when they finally get through and speak with someone,” he said.
Ms. Crowder said she is hearing anecdotally from Service Canada
employees about the difficult environment in which they work. “They are
hearing people threatening suicide,” she said, “they are hearing threats
of violence and all that kind of thing.”
source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/calls-to-ei-complaints-office-skyrocket/article549462/
