{"id":18501,"date":"2020-05-27T09:30:03","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T13:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/employers-cant-use-sub-plans-to-top-up-employees-laid-off-due-to-pandemic-146338"},"modified":"2020-05-27T09:30:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T13:30:03","slug":"employers-cant-use-sub-plans-to-top-up-employees-laid-off-due-to-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/05\/27\/employers-cant-use-sub-plans-to-top-up-employees-laid-off-due-to-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Employers can\u2019t use SUB plans to top up employees laid off due to pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kelsey Rolfe<\/span> | May 27, 2020 <\/p>\n

Employers with registered supplemental unemployment benefit plans aren\u2019t able to use them to top up laid-off employees who are receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an online question and answer session on the CERB, the federal government confirmed that due to the \u201csimplified design\u201d of the benefit, the provisions existing under the employment insurance system that allow employers to top up workers\u2019 EI benefits don\u2019t apply to the CERB, which provides a flat $2,000 each month.<\/p>\n

Canadians who were laid off on or after March 15 and would have normally become eligible for EI were automatically moved over the CERB. \u201cIt has supplanted the EI system for the next several months,\u201d says Stephanie Kalinowski, a partner at Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP. \u201cSo because of that, the top-up becomes a problem. Had employees who were laid off been receiving EI as they would have in normal circumstances, the employers could have created SUB plans and had them registered with Service Canada and been able to offer some additional assistance to their employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: Feds adding $2,000 benefit for Canadians out of work due to coronavirus<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

She says her firm had several employer clients who registered SUB plans with Service Canada in mid-March as they started to plan for the economic impacts of the coronavirus on their business and are now feeling frustrated they can\u2019t support their staff.<\/p>\n

While the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy<\/a> allowed many employers to support laid-off employees, employers like municipalities and universities aren\u2019t included or don\u2019t meet the revenue decline requirements. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean they are continuing to operate as normal and are not having to lay people off,\u201d says Kalinowski. \u201cThere are a lot of employers who have to do layoffs but still have the ability and would like to help employees increase their income by more than $500 a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well, she notes, the CERB and CEWS programs create a two-tiered system of compensation for laid-off workers. \u201cSome employees who are laid off can get up to 75 per cent [of their salary] or $847 per week through the wage subsidy. And there\u2019s this other chunk [of Canadians] whose employers don\u2019t qualify for the wage subsidy, who are going to be getting substantially less in many cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: Feds introduce 75% wage subsidy to help employers keep staff during coronavirus<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, says the CERB loophole is affecting about 50,000 of his union\u2019s members, particularly those in the automotive sector whose employers \u2014 General Motors of Canada Co., Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. and FCA Canada Inc. \u2014 have established SUB plans as part of their collective agreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got the [Big Three] auto parts companies saying, \u2018Look, Jerry, we want to pay SUB but the government won\u2019t let us,’\u201d he says. \u201cUltimately, I have no idea why the government would take hundreds of dollars out of the pockets of workers when it doesn\u2019t even cost them a nickel. It doesn\u2019t make any sense. . . . We have SUB plans that are fully funded, they\u2019re negotiated for this exact reason and [workers] can\u2019t have it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The union has launched a campaign to ask the federal government to allow employers to top up the CERB. In mid-April, it also wrote a letter to Carla Qualtrough, minister of employment, workforce development and disability inclusion, signed by Dias and the heads of three bargaining units representing autoworkers.<\/p>\n

Read: Contract, self-employed Canadians worry about end of coronavirus support<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe emergency income assistance programs launched by your government this week, while having helped address an unprecedented backlog in employment insurance claims, have disrupted long-standing income security practices developed by employers and unions over many decades,\u201d said the letter.<\/p>\n

According to Unifor, GM Canada and Ford have also written to Qualtrough.<\/p>\n

In a statement to Benefits Canada<\/em>, Marielle Hossack, Qualtrough\u2019s press secretary, said employers that want to top up their employees on CERB could use the provision, established in mid-April<\/a>, that allow workers to earn up to $1,000 per month and still receive the benefit.<\/p>\n

Read: Feds expand CERB to workers earning up to $1,000 per month<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cProtecting the health and safety of Canadians, jobs and our economy, is our top priority,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThat\u2019s why our government has taken action to support workers and their families with the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, which provides $2,000 a month for 16 weeks to eligible workers. We recently improved access to the CERB to allow workers to earn up to $1,000 during a four-week pay period, which represents 50 per cent of the amount of the benefit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployers who wish to increase their employees\u2019 weekly earnings while they are unemployed have the flexibility to top up CERB benefits up to this amount in lieu of a SUB plan. All Canadians workers will maintain their EI entitlements, once they exhaust their CERB eligibility. Our priority is to make sure all Canadians have the support they need and we will continue working with our partners across the country to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The extra monthly income wouldn\u2019t come close to what many employees would receive under their employers\u2019 SUB plans, says Dias. \u201cA CERB [payment] is less money than many manufacturing workers would have made on EI, so they\u2019re getting a double hit. Instead of being on EI, you\u2019re getting $500 a week, instead of the EI maximum rate and then topped up. I have skilled trades members that are out $400 a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its online Q&A, the federal government noted that Canadians who receive more than $1,000 per month \u2014 including top-ups from their employers \u2014 would have their CERB clawed back commensurately.<\/p>\n

Read: Coronavirus emergency response benefit doesn\u2019t go far enough, say gig workers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The clawback has put some Unifor members in a difficult position, says Dias. Multiple employers had begun using their SUB plans to top up laid-off employees before the government made it clear they wouldn\u2019t be able to do so. \u201cThe issue of the SUB plans during CERB was a little up in the air at the beginning, so we have a lot of members who were laid off and collecting CERB and SUB. Then the employers had to stop. In essence, there are thousands of members who, at the end of the day, are going to have an overpayment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dias says he\u2019s supportive of the CERB program, but wants to see this loophole closed. \u201cI understand what the government is trying to do \u2014 nobody\u2019s been more supportive than me. We did a lot of work with the government telling them they have to move forward with the CERB, they have to move forward for workers who are casual, part-time, precarious workers so they can feed their families. I support it . . . but this is a policy that\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kelsey Rolfe | May 27, 2020 Employers with registered supplemental unemployment benefit plans aren\u2019t able to use them to top up laid-off employees who are receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. In an online question and answer session...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}