The BC Forestry Minister has reached out to Ottawa for help for forestry workers that have lost their jobs from closures and curtailments and the union that represents the workers like what Doug Donaldson is doing but it’s how severance packages effect EI that has their boss concerned.

While on the NL Morning News, Marty Gibbons, President of the United Steelworkers 1-417, was asked what he thought of Donaldson, reaching out to the federal government for help. “Absolutely support it and actually we were advocating for this to happen.”

“One of the major issues that we’re facing in a lot of our operations that have been permanently closed is the fact that these members are receiving severance packages. So, what this means is they’re immediately ineligible for EI until the money from the severance package is actually used up.”

Gibbons says laid off workers are facing one of two options, pull out their severance and pay around fifty percent in tax or starve because they’re not getting EI.