So I'm an "essential" part time worker(grocery store). Wasn't intending to be there as long as I have been, but it turns out a global pandemic will kaibosh a lot of plans.
I've never been on great terms with my boss(numerous reasons, up to and including 'treats his employees like wage slaves')and recently he's reduced my hours to an *extremely* inconvenient amount.
My weekly average of hours worked went from 22-28 down to 15-18. Not enough to qualify for CRB, but enough to brutalize my finances.
So I'm looking at making 800-1000 this month, since pay periods worked out in my favor so I get 5 of them in December.
But that's.... not liveable. By a good stretch. My union has basically told me that they can't force him to give me better hours since the reduction wasn't to a degree they considered alarming enough to warrant intervention.
I can't *quit* my job because then I won't qualify for anything, but there's nothing I qualify for right now anyways, and the job market where I am is brutally oversaturated on the general labor side of things. I keep hearing stories of places hiring like 3x as many people as they have openings and then firing everyone who isn't borderline superhuman at the job after a week or two. Right now, the only idea I have is to go to a job that is *very obviously* going to shut down if/when we go back into full lockdown again so I can collect CRB or EI.
Is there any word on wage assistance for people who aren't making liveable wages as an "essential" worker? Even half-CRB payments would be a godsend and would give me the ability to start setting myself up to go to school, which was the original plan.
Is there some workaround I don't know about? Some reduced-CRB/EI program for people in a position like mine?