Submitted by Melanie Johannink

Bio/About: I am a recently laid-off Nortel employee, terminated with no severance pay or additional benefits on April 30, 2009.

My take: I was distraught that, after 18 loyal years of working for a company it was allowed to terminate me with no severance. I now have little money coming in to pay our bills. My two small children have given up the extras and now we feed our children cheap meals. We have cut out activities and new clothes in order to put food on the table until I find another job; we are still hopeful, but it is difficult during these hard economic times.

Nortel has $2.6 billion U.S. in cash and many more billions of dollars pending from business sales. It can afford to pay my severance, but instead the company chose to force me onto employment insurance, which provides minimal support. Transition to a new job has become a government liability. With the current acts, companies can walk away from their responsibility and lean on the government for support and leave people on the street. I submitted a petition to the House of Commons to give preferred status to severed and disabled employees and pensioners claims in bankruptcy over the unsecured creditors. Now employment related claims, except from minor amounts, are treated the same as unsecured creditors.

Today we suffer, while the executives of bankrupt companies get multi-million dollar bonuses and corporate bondholders have access to insurance to fully cover their losses. Surely it is not the intent of this Federal Government to allow a bankruptcy judge to wipe out all of Canada's pension benefit and severance standards, built over the past fifty years, at the stroke of a pen? These Federal Acts overrule all Provincial Acts. Protection is being eliminated at precisely the moment when it's needed most, in a time of economic crisis. Companies should be forced to do something to protect the people instead of everyone becoming a government liability.

Are you a Nortel employee who has also been affected? Send us your story: letters@cbc.ca