Tenaris workers - Jack's got your back

The union representing workers at Tenaris Algoma Tubes is reassured today by support from federal NDP leader Jack Layton.

Layton and Sault MP Tony Martin met with Tenaris employees, some of whom have been laid off since January and are running out of employment insurance benefits.

"They're losing their homes, their families are breaking up out of stress," Layton told members of the media gathered in Martin's office on Queen Street. "If we can get a billion dollars to help some of these people, by golly, we're going to do it."

Tony Martin said that many of the laid-off workers at Tenaris have been hired back for an expected three-month period, but there's no guarantee they'll work longer than that.

Some will not be hired back in the foreseeable future, Martin added.

"If you listen to [Sault Mayor John Rowswell] when he spoke to the prime minister at the bushplane museum a couple weeks ago, the recession never touched Sault Ste. Marie," Martin said. "In fact it has. It's touched Sault Ste. Marie very deeply and very personally and some of those stories that were told here this morning are representative of a larger story that's happening out there to all kinds of families."

Layton reaffirmed his party's support for changes to the Employment Insurance Act that would see more Canadians able to access benefits for longer periods of time and at higher rates.

"It still has to go through the final votes in House of Commons and unfortunately the Liberals tried to stop it with an election vote just on Thursday," the NDP leader said. "We decided we weren't going to stand in the way of a billion dollars getting to tens of thousands of families including people that we've literally been meeting with over the last couple of days."

"I think the bill that's coming through will provide some short-term relief for some of the people around Canada but still it doesn't do enough," said USW Local 9548 President Todd Frayn after a meeting he and some of his members had with Layton this morning.

"Like Jack said, it's ... an insurance and it's something we have to pay into," Frayn said. "We should be entitled to some of those benefits and we're not."

Martin also addressed an accounting error that Ternaris made that resulted in all of its employees having to pay income taxes that were not deducted from their original pay cheques.

For most employees, the amounts they have to pay Canada Revenue Agency range from $2,500 to $3,500, said Frayn.

"Every employee is having to pay for this mistake that was first made by the company and then not caught by the Canada Revenue Agency's internal audits," he said.

Now, on top of the difficulties many workers are having paying their bills and keeping their families together, they have yet another big bill to pay.

Frayn said Local 9548 members have reported to him that Canada Revenue Agency has been helpful and cooperative in setting up payment schedules, but this really isn't helping workers who are trying to live on 55 percent or less of their annual income, the going rate for EI.

"It's still another bill they have to pay," he said.

Frayn also said the company has rebuffed union requests for a meeting on this issue.

Layton said he and Martin will be bringing the stories they heard today, without identifying personal information, to the House of Commons in an effort to pass the Employment Insurance Act changes currently on the table passes as soon as possible.

They want to see the funds promised by that amendment distributed quickly.

After the meeting at Martin's office, Layton and Martin dropped in at the Algoma Farmers Market, where Layton picked up some handcrafted items, homemade Halloween-themed chocolates.

Layton bellyached about not being able to take the food he wanted to buy here on the plane with him.