EI between calls for union hall members

The hiring hall rule

To collect EI regular benefits you have to be available for work and looking for it. Service Canada treats work through your union hiring hall as work in your usual occupation, and gives hall members a set time to rely on the hall ¹.

If you're in good standing with your hiring hall, you can limit your job search to the hall for 3 weeks from the date you became unemployed, plus 1 week for each year of experience in your occupation with that hall, to a maximum of 16 weeks ¹.

After that, you're expected to widen the kind of work you look for and search outside the hall and your usual industry. Staying registered with the hall then counts as one of your job-search activities, but it's on you to look for other work too ¹. That can mean other occupations, even less desirable work or work at a lower rate of pay ². You get a short time to change how you search before benefits are stopped, and each claim is looked at on its own facts ¹.

When union rules say no non-union work

EI doesn't excuse you because your union's rules bar non-union work. The courts have held that union threats or pressure to leave or refuse a job are a personal matter between the claimant and the union ³. If the union tells you not to take other work while a grievance is pending, you're not seen as available either ⁴.

That's a real squeeze for some members. If your local has rules about non-union work, talk to the hall before your weeks run out so you know where you stand.

Short calls while you're on claim

• You keep 50 cents of your benefits for every dollar you earn, up to 90% of the weekly insurable earnings your benefit was based on. Above that, every dollar comes off ⁵.
• Work a full week and there's no EI for that week, whatever you earn. That week isn't taken off the weeks left on your claim ⁶.
• Report your gross pay, before deductions, for the week you did the work, not the week you got paid ^5,7.
• When a short call ends, apply again. If your claim started in the last 52 weeks and has weeks left, Service Canada reactivates it ⁸.
• Work after your claim starts may let you set up a new claim when this one runs out. Starting a new claim instead can sometimes pay more or last longer, but the weeks left on the old claim are lost ⁸. Ask Service Canada before you choose.

The clawback at tax time

If your net income for 2026 is over $86,125, you repay 30% of the lesser of your net income over $86,125 or the regular benefits paid to you that year ^11,12. The line is 1.25 times the year's maximum insurable earnings, which are $68,900 for 2026 ^12,13. For 2025 the line was $82,125 ¹⁴. It's worked out when you file your tax return ¹¹.

You don't repay anything if you got less than one week of regular benefits in the 10 tax years before ^11,12.

Records of employment and applying

• Apply as soon as you stop working. If you apply more than 4 weeks after your last day of work, you may lose benefits. Don't wait for your ROE: documents can follow your application ⁸.
• Your employer issues an ROE when your pay stops. A layoff becomes an interruption of earnings after 7 days in a row with no work and no insurable earnings from that employer ¹⁵. Filed electronically, with weekly, biweekly or semi-monthly pay, the ROE is due within 5 calendar days after the end of that pay period ¹⁵.
• Check your ROEs in My Service Canada Account, under "Records of Employment" ¹⁶.
• The one-week waiting period is waived for now. Under temporary measures, there's no waiting period for new claims that start between March 30, 2025 and October 9, 2027 ¹⁰.