The President of the FFAW is vowing that people will take to the streets if changes made to employment insurance qualification criteria aren’t soon reversed.

Greg Pretty says phones at the FFAW’s office are ringing off the hook now that seasonal workers in rural parts of the province have learned that the federal government has adjusted minimum qualifying criteria to 490 hours for regular claimants and $18,912 for harvesters.

That means seasonal workers could see their benefits end a full seven weeks earlier, meaning many will be left without any income between February and the start of the crab fishing season.

Pretty outlined the union’s concerns to federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan yesterday and he plans to do the same with federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc. Pretty says the impact on seasonal workers will be devastating and the changes must be reversed.

He says if a short-term solution is not found then he says people will “take to the streets” in protest to send a clear message to elected officials.