Fish-plant workers in northeastern New Brunswick are worried that they will not have enough hours to qualify for employment insurance this year after only four weeks into the crab season.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans cut this year’s crab quota by 63 per cent to conserve stocks and a month into the season 98 per cent of this year’s quota has been caught.

The drastic cut to the snow crab quota means the plants on the Acadian peninsula have less crab to process and fewer hours for the region’s 2,500 fish plant employees to work.

Blondine Savoie, a union organizer, said few workers will have enough hours to qualify for employment insurance because of the quota reduction.

‘If you don’t have your hours in between the two seasons, the crab and the herring, you end up being like in a black hole … where you got no money coming in.’— Gary White, union representative

Savoie said the federal government must come to the assistance of the fish-plant workers because they are being impacted by their decision.

“The government is going to have to come and help the workers. They’re the ones who is controlling all the whole fishery,” Savoie said.

“They’re the control on that. They cut it down, what are they going to do with the people that are unemployed? People that want to work? People do want to work.”

Gaetane Paulin, a northern fish-plant worker, said she is stressed about finding work for the rest of the season. She said it will be difficult to fill the void that will be left when hours at the plant she works at in Caraquet dry up.

She’ll travel to Cap-Pelé in southeastern New Brunswick in August to work in the herring season.

But Paulin said she doesn’t expect to get enough hours to qualify for employment insurance despite working in the two different communities.

Other workers will have a couple more weeks of work processing crab from Nova Scotia.

‘Black hole’ for workers

The number of hours required for a person to work in order to qualify for employment insurance benefits varies on the region a person is living. According to the federal Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, workers in northeastern New Brunswick must work 455 hours before they can qualify for regular employment insurance benefits.

Gary White, a union representative, said hundreds of workers are in the same situation as Paulin.

“If you don’t have your hours in between the two seasons, the crab and the herring, you end up being like in a black hole … where you got no money coming in,” White said.

The provincial government has one program to help fish-plant workers find similar jobs in other parts of the province and another that focuses on re-training.

The northern fish-plant workers say they’ll need far more help than that.