Raise the Hammer

Thanks so much for weighing in Undustrial about the poor bashing. I wish people could really understand how the system works for those workers who have lost their jobs. The calls are starting to come into places like the Peer to Peer Mentoring Project, those workers whose EI benefits are running out, with no jobs in sight and facing the future on welfare and they are in a panic.

At present there is not much we as a community can do for them, accept to hold a hand out in solidarity, that we understand your fear and anxiety. There are also many workers out there who cannot even get access to EI, this is particularly true for those caught in the precarious job market, where one can lose your job assignment for addressing legitimate health and safety concerns.

In this story:

http://www.thespec.com/article/714088

These words captured me:

Devastated and embarrassed, the 50-year-old unemployed former call-centre worker scraped his way back, but just barely.

"I was living on the street, at the Salvation Army, with only the clothes on my back," he said.

"It was embarrassing, walking around with the same clothes for a week."

AND:

"Rooming house tenants are some of the most vulnerable," Crowe said.

Donnelly moved into the building in April 2009 and says he was not warned it could be closing months later. He paid $365 a month.

He was collecting employment insurance and did not have the money for first and last month's rent in a new place when the rooming house was shuttered the first week of July, so he ended up on the street.

Donnelly said he went to the building on June 4 and was advised by construction crews that all items in the rooms had been thrown out. He lost all his clothes, videos and family photographs.

"My nerves were shot, it was life altering," he said.

COMMON SENSE:

give proper notice people deserve to be treated with dignity