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Order. Good morning, everyone.
I would like to thank the witnesses very much for coming this morning. As you know, we're speaking to the study of the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act. We have put together about four weeks in which to look at this issue.
Usually when witnesses come—I want to thank you for coming on what I know was relatively short notice—they have ten minutes to present. There are three groups here.
Those of you from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union can decide among yourselves how you will do your ten minutes. Then we have the Canadian Labour Congress for ten minutes, followed by Marie-Thérèse Chicha, here as an individual, for ten minutes.
That will be 30 minutes, and after that there will be questioning from the members. That goes in a particular order. I would like to remind you and also remind the members that the timeline for questioning includes the time for the answers.
Thank you very much. I shall begin with Ms. Pageau.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada appreciates the opportunity to address the standing committee on this issue.
The CEP is one of Canada's largest sector unions, representing 130,000 workers in a wide range of occupations across Canada, including occupations in both the private and broader public sectors, such as media workers, workers in the chemical and energy sectors, pulp and paper workers, and telecommunication workers.
The CEP has a long-standing record of defending the human rights of its members and has an especially strong interest in pay equity matters. We are the first union to undertake joint union-management pay equity initiatives in several of Canada's private and publicly owned telephone companies, one of which took 15 years to conclude.
The CEP is grateful for this opportunity to present some comments to the standing committee, with the goal of achieving an equitable wage structure for both men and women in Canadian workplaces, and to explain to you just how inequitable and discriminatory the current act is and how it does absolutely nothing to achieve pay equity.
Sex and gender-based pay inequity is a human rights issue. It is the result of systemic discrimination and societal perception of the value of work traditionally performed by women. Consequently, to consider pay equity a labour issue to be dealt with at the bargaining table is not only detrimental; it's also an inaccurate characterization of the nature of pay inequity. Pay equity must remain a human rights issue and must not form part of a collective bargaining scheme.
There are number of reasons why characterization of pay equity as simply an aspect of labour or employment law should be avoided. First, to characterize it as such undermines Canada's international commitment to human rights, including equal pay for work of equal value. In a labour context, human rights are paramount, and parties cannot legally contract out of human rights obligations. Forcing pay equity into collective bargaining processes and out of the process of human rights risks the erosion, or bargaining away, of whatever pay equity gains have been made by women. The rights of disadvantaged groups and minorities should never be subject to the whims of the majority.
Secondly, the inclusion of pay equity as an issue to be negotiated through collective bargaining ignores the systemic and encompassing nature of pay inequity. The systemic discrimination is reflected not just in the organization of workplaces, but also in the structure and the strength of bargaining units and unions. Bargaining units that are predominantly female may invite the replication of patterns and perceptions, or gender segregation, and the undervaluing of work. This lends itself to an inherent, though sometimes unconscious, power imbalance at the bargaining table, thereby undermining the principles that pay equity attempts to promote.
The CEP advocates a comprehensive and collaborative model of pay equity legislations for all workplaces, whether private or public. While the CEP believes that individuals should have a mechanism available to them whereby complaints can be initiated, the CEP acknowledges that a complaint-based system alone cannot ensure compliance with pay equity. Instead, the CEP envisions a more proactive pay equity scheme. This would include a positive duty on employers to review organizational wage structures and to remedy gender-biased pay practices.
The CEP also believes, however, an audit system would help to ensure adherence to a more proactive approach to pay equity. Audits must be conducted thoroughly and consistently to ensure a seamless continuity of pay equity throughout the federal sphere. In addition, employers must provide realistic and tangible timelines for the implementation of equitable wage structures and payouts for past discriminatory practices.
It is the view of the CEP that pay equity is not a one-time remedy, but rather that it must be examined frequently in the workplace. This is to ensure that employers are complying with pay equity regardless of the economic and social climate, which may serve to inadvertently, yet adversely, affect ongoing pay equity initiatives.
The idea is that concepts of pay equity are not stagnant, and fluctuate with ever-changing notions of equality and emerging trends in the workplaces.
The CEP advocates for greater participation of unions to ensure that the goal of pay equity is attained in the workplace. It should be noted that increased union participation cannot be equated with the union's responsibility for a compensation perspective. The employers pay wages, and are solely responsible for non-discriminatory compensation practices. The inherent power imbalance within the employer-union relationship, and the fact that ultimately employers hold the purse strings, precludes unions from liability for pay equity. This is consistent with union advocacy for equitable wage structures. Furthermore, the thrust with the current legislation, which holds employers solely responsible for discriminatory wage differences, should not be altered.
Finally, our own CEP telephone operators lived through 15 years of game-playing by their employers as a result of inadequate legislation. The CEP fought long and hard to bring pay equity to 4,700 telephone operators, of whom about 18% died before ever seeing a dime.
We all know what needs to be done. As you are all aware, the pay equity task force has exhaustively studied this issue. Several years ago, almost 200 people gave oral presentations. There were 60 written submissions from groups across the country. There were five round tables with multi-stakeholder groups, and the task force looked at proactive pay equity legislation in a number of jurisdictions in Canada to identify best practices. This government does not need to reinvent the wheel on this issue.
Instead of implementing this appalling and regressive act, I call on the Government of Canada to step up to the plate and do what is right and long overdue for the women of Canada, and that is to simply implement the recommendations of the pay equity task force.
Merci.
The Canadian Labour Congress is pleased to make a presentation to this Standing Committee on the Status of Women concerning the government's Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act.
We are very concerned about the implications of this legislation for workers in the public sector and indeed for the future of pay equity in Canada. The CLC has been involved with the pay equity issue for many years. We were full participants in the consultations conducted by the pay equity task force that led to the very thorough recommendations presented in May 2004. As this committee is fully aware, the task force presented a series of measures that would have transformed the federal pay equity regime and made it more effective and fair for women working in the federal sector. This committee made a number of recommendations, very important recommendations, in your 2005 report, Moving Forward on the Pay Equity Task Force Recommendations.
It is unfortunate in the extreme that the government has chosen to ignore the recommendations of both the pay equity task force and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
The government claims that “the current pay equity system in the federal public service is broken”. We agree, but we would argue that the federal pay equity law needs to be fixed by adopting pay equity legislation on the Ontario or Quebec models. The equitable compensation act is nothing like the other pay equity laws in this country. Making pay equity a matter for collective bargaining will not work, and in fact Gisèle, I think, has pointed that out very clearly.
In fact, our unions support effective proactive pay equity legislation because for years we've been unable to bargain pay equity in collective agreements. Only two years ago, library workers in several cities in British Columbia went on strike over pay equity issues. B.C. is one of the only remaining Canadian jurisdictions that does not have legislation in place to enforce pay equity, and yet the federal Conservatives want to throw us back into this kind of regime with essentially no proactive pay equity law.
The government argues that women face lengthy delays in getting pay equity settlements because of divisive court proceedings. Delays certainly have been a major concern, but in general women have been forced to wait years under the current system because employers fight against pay equity plans and take the unions, who represent their members' pay equity claims, to court. The federal pay equity settlement was delayed for years as the federal government fought the Public Service Alliance of Canada through the courts in an attempt to avoid providing pay equity to federal workers. The union finally won in court.
In addition, many of the longest battles for pay equity through legal proceedings have involved private sector workers and their unions facing employers who drag them through the courts to stop pay equity. For example, you've heard from Gisèle about Bell Canada and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union's 15-year battle. Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, 17 years; Canada Post and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, 25 years. But the equitable compensation act only applies to federal government employees. Federally regulated private sector employees, where all these delays occurred, will continue under the old pay equity regime.
Now, how does this exactly make sense?
The government proposes its legislation as proactive pay equity, but simply calling something proactive does not make it so. Proactive pay equity legislation requires employers to examine their compensation systems to ensure that they are paying equal pay for work of equal value. In proactive pay equity legislation, individual complaints are not the trigger to challenge pay and equity. Rather, the approach is systemic.
Let me explain that a little bit further. Proactive laws place the responsibility for eliminating discriminatory wages on employers. Proactive laws ensure union involvement in negotiating pay equity in processes separate from regular collective bargaining. Proactive laws require comparison on the basis of skills, effort, and responsibilities required, and the working conditions under which the work is conducted. Proactive laws do not introduce market forces as a factor for consideration, as does the Conservatives' act. Proactive laws require employers to set aside separate funds—usually about 1% of payroll per year—for pay equity settlements.
Proactive laws establish an expert pay equity body, which is responsible for assisting parties and resolving disputes. None—none—of these features are in the equitable compensation act.
Conservative MPs have repeatedly told us that their legislation “addresses the key recommendations of the 2004 report by setting out a proactive and collaborative system”. That's taken from the Ottawa Citizen of March 7 of this year.
In fact, what the equitable compensation act mandates is the complete opposite of what the task force recommended.
It's important to know what the recommendations really are. One of those recommendations is as follows:
Though there are arguments in favour of placing pay equity legislation in the category of either labour legislation or human rights legislation, we have concluded that it should be characterized as human rights legislation....The problem of wage discrimination arises, however, because they are women, not because they are workers. We believe that characterizing a pay equity statute as human rights legislation reflects this fact.
That's from page 150 of the pay equity task force's final report from 2004.
The equitable compensation act makes pay equity a labour law. The review body is the Public Service Labour Relations Board, a labour law body with no expertise in pay equity. For these reasons among others, the CLC--along with pay equity and equality advocates across the country--is very concerned, and we view the Conservatives' legislation as actually an attack on pay equity and on women's human right to work without wage discrimination.
We've distributed copies of Pay Inequity: Canadian Labour Congress Analysis of the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act for your review. The analysis includes a critique of the requirements in the act to refer to market conditions when doing equitable compensation review, as well as a more in-depth analysis of our concerns about the role of and the penalties against unions for defending their members' rights for equality. We've also distributed the presentation we made to the finance committee in February of this year on the inequitable compensation act.
We urge this committee to continue to press the government for real, proactive pay equity legislation based squarely on the recommendations of the pay equity task force report.
Thank you. Merci beaucoup.
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I would like to begin by thanking the Committee for inviting me to share my thoughts on the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act.
My name is Marie-Thérèse Chicha, and I am a professor at the School of Industrial Relations at the University of Montreal. I chaired the Committee which prepared the draft bill which eventually led to the Pay Equity Act in Quebec. I also had the honour of being a member of the Federal Task Force which produced the report entitled: “Pay Equity: A New Approach to a Fundamental Right”. I am appearing before the Committee today as an individual, and thus I am not representing the University of Montreal. I am also an expert on equality issues, and specifically, pay equity, for the International Labour Organization in Geneva.
My objective this morning is to review some of the salient aspects of the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, in relation to wage discrimination issue and the intended objective.
Gender-based wage discrimination refers to the practice of not giving equal pay for work of equal value based on gender. That principle is enshrined in Convention No. 100 of the International Labour Organization, which was adopted in 1950. Therefore, this principle has been recognized internationally for some 59 years now. This is not a new issue, and one might expect, since the problem has been around for 59 years — and perhaps even longer — that it would have been resolved by now.
However, what we are seeing is that there still exists a significant wage gap between men and women at this time. The 2006 census showed that the wage gap between men and women ranged from 72 per cent to 85 per cent, depending on age, and that this percentage is changing very slowly.
So, that is a very surprising result, given the enormous progress made by women in terms of their educational level and uninterrupted attachment to the labour market, factors which tended to penalize them previously but should no longer be in play.
So, why does there continue to be a wage gap? It is certainly due, in large part, to wage discrimination between so-called female-dominated and male-dominated jobs.
I think it would be useful to provide a quick overview of the causes of wage discrimination, in order to have a clear understanding of the need for well articulated, very specific legislation that directly addresses the problem.
The main cause of this gap is the invisibility of women's work. Assessment methods and compensation systems underestimate the different features of female jobs. For example, there is a belief that women's work involves no physical effort, no risk and no danger. As a result, in terms of assessing and setting compensation for women, such factors are not considered.
It is also believed that the underlying requirements of female jobs, such as caring for children, empathy and good interpersonal skills are innate factors. As a result, they are not considered for the purposes of compensation.
All of these different factors mean that female jobs are undervalued and, by that very fact, undercompensated. They are undervalued because the evaluation methods used in the corporate world are methods that were designed primarily for male-dominated jobs. They involve upward responsibility or working with very sophisticated or heavy equipment, such as trucks, dollies, and so on. These evaluation methods do not consider the special characteristics of female-type jobs.
Obviously, if the evaluation methods on which compensation systems are based are inherently biased--
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I will summarize what I just said. The visibility of the specific characteristics of female work has an effect on the evaluation methods used by employers. These evaluation methods, on which compensation systems are based, will therefore result in wages which are discriminatory and which are lower. Pay equity was designed to resolve that specific problem.
What is the best model for achieving pay equity? A number of models have been tried. At the international level, Canada is considered to be a laboratory for the various pay equity models that exist. We started out with a complaint-based model, which is the current model and which was, in any case, the model used to develop the Canadian Human Rights Act.
As my colleagues have just pointed out, that model has been a source of dispute. When complaints were filed, settlements would only be achieved some 15 or 20 years later. Many people never saw any money at all, because they had already died by the time the case was settled in court. In fact, it was an ineffective model which ultimately did not do people justice. It was also extremely costly. You may recall that the court case involving the Public Service Alliance of Canada cost between $3 and $4 billion, including the back pay that was owed.
In light of the enormous costs of the complaint-based model, a number of jurisdictions have adopted what is known as the proactive model. Manitoba was the first to do so, followed by Ontario, which also extended it to the private sector, whereas in Manitoba, it covered the public and parapublic sectors. Quebec then did the same, and also extended it to the private sector. Quebec used the Ontario model and improved it using--
Let us just say that it is a proactive model. The federal task force that I sat on considered that model to be the most effective for achieving pay equity. I will start by describing its main components and then compare it to what is proposed under the current act.
Here are the main points. In a proactive model, pay equity is an obligation for all employers and it is their responsibility to enforce pay equity in the workplace. That is the first feature. Unlike the reactive model, which is complaint-based, the proactive model does not wait until a complaint has been filed to ensure that pay equity is achieved.
The second feature has to do with a specific timeline. When a complaint is lodged, we do not want to wait 20, 25 or 30 years for pay equity to become a reality. As recommended by the Task Force, a proactive model provides for a three-year timeframe for the work to be completed—in order to determine what wage gaps exist, for example—and three years to then pay compensation to the individuals who have been discriminated against.
The third feature is that the Task Force laid out a step-by-step program. That program included determining the predominance of different jobs—in other words, which male and female jobs should be compared and what the best method of evaluating them would be. The evaluation method must always include four factors, as we just saw: qualifications, responsibilities, the conditions in which the work is carried out and effort. I won't go into detail with respect to all of the steps, because you have all of this in your copy of the Task Force report.
Another important feature is the joint participation of workers, their representative and the employer in what is called a pay equity committee. The two parties get together to develop a program: they determine the best applicable method of evaluation in that specific workplace, the method to be used for comparing wages, and so forth. This is not a negotiation; it is work carried out by both parties jointly on the pay equity committee.
The employer has an obligation to provide all the necessary information to committee members, to allow them to carry out their work. That means information on wages, and all the necessary data in order to measure the wage gap and correct it. That is an important obligation.
The Task Force also recommended the creation of an independent entity, to be called the Pay Equity Commission.
I will just quickly run through the primary differences. One major difference is that in the Act, achieving pay equity is rolled into the collective bargaining process. However, a fundamental right cannot be included in the collective bargaining process because, when negotiations occur, there are necessarily compromises to be made. For example, you cannot say that you're going to reduce wage discrimination by 5 per cent and leave it at 95 per cent because, in exchange, workers will have a shorter work week. That would be as ridiculous as maintaining a certain level of discrimination against visible minorities in the workplace, in exchange for a shorter work week, for instance.
A fundamental right, an equality right, cannot be subject to compromise. If it is part of the collective bargaining process, that will lead to endless conflict and we will find ourselves right back at square one, with disputes lasting 10 or 20 years.
One of the advantages of pay equity, as mentioned in relation to the proactive model, is that it allows you to avoid disputes. This model, which sets out all the benefits of pay equity, is discussed in one of the documents that have been distributed to you.
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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There's also access to experts. You can't send pay equity to a body that knows absolutely nothing about it. That's a very serious issue. At least with proactive legislation it goes to an expert.
I want to make a quick comment about our sisters in Quebec.
Within the last couple of years, the Quebec government has done a study on their pay equity legislation. It's been implemented for a period of 10 years. One of the big concerns was that employers were saying, “If we implement pay equity, businesses are going to close and people will be out of work, so we might as well pay women a little less and keep them employed.” The study in Quebec found the exact opposite. Businesses did not close. It also found that if employers were not forced to implement pay equity, 85% of employers would not do it.
Those are very serious issues. I would recommend that our sisters from Quebec share that, because it's a very good study.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much for being here again to discuss an issue which may, one day—perhaps soon—be resolved if we are given the means and the tools that enable us to do that. Along the same lines as what my colleague, Ms. Neville, was saying, I would like quote you what the government said about the former system. It said at the time that: “The current complaint-based pay equity system has resulted in a lengthy, costly and contentious process which does not reflect the realities of the Canadian labour market”.
I would like to know how the new system improves that, if it does, and if it would have been easier to implement a system like the one in Ontario and Quebec. There was nothing preventing us from doing that here.
I am going to ask the “killer question”. Why did the government not rely on the many recommendations that your organization made repeatedly? Do you know the reason? Is the new legislation, as currently drafted, not inconsistent with the Government of Canada's international obligations and commitments?
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I want to go back to this idea of, you know.... In some respects, we're lucky that this doesn't refer to pay equity, because it's not. We should be really clear that it is not. It's probably more about
inequitable.
On the question of individual women having the resources to be able to fight a case all the way through against their employer.... This is not about the employer and the union sitting down and figuring out where the inequities are. This is about an individual person, or a group of women, having to take that on. That's not easily done. How many women, in any of the cases that we've quoted this morning, would have been able to stick with it? That's one thing.
The other thing is that the offensive part of this—there are many offensive parts—is the comparisons to the market. Isn't the market what got us into this problem in the first place? The market doesn't look at the value of a job. They say, if this group of workers over here is being paid poorly, then why would we pay this group of workers who do similar jobs over here any better? We're going to go out and say workers in the federal sector have this wage rate. The comparison is not with men and the value of comparable jobs done by men. The comparison is with women in the private sector—non-union, in all likelihood—who are paid less. Shouldn't the solution be bringing up those other women's wages rather than driving everybody else's down?
I mean, why is it being done? Obviously I'm not privy to....
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As I was saying, the government does respect the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. That certainly is much respected by this government. That's the main reason why we took this action to update this outdated complaint-based pay equity regime.
We have heard from people that, in many cases, women waited 15 years or more. We've heard that from you this morning. We want to get away from that. We want to stop that.
This was the act that we felt was going to give improvements for women. We're looking for accountability. The employer and the union would both have accountability to see that this happens, instead of just the employer.
I agree; what woman has the resources to go through 25 years of divisive court action against their employer? This act is to get away from these types of things.
We've heard a lot of different comments here this morning, and Ms. Chicha, you've said that the existing model is inefficient and expensive. The complaint-based model is not going to work. We have introduced what we feel is a proactive model. Certainly the working group did recommend a proactive model.
Can you just make some comments on some of the statements I've made here this morning? Do you think this is going to make a more timely decision-making process? Is it going to make that possible for women so they are not going to have to go through such lengthy individual processes that are so costly to them?
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As I understand it, you are asking me whether the model proposed in the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act will correct the problems associated with the complaint-based model, since it is considered to be a proactive model.
I have two comments. First of all, the starting point for the Federal Equity Task Force was that same realization—in other words, that the complaint-based model doesn't work. So, we agree on the fact that this model is ineffective. The government is proposing a proactive model. However, there are a number of differences—two major ones, I'd say—between a proactive model and what this legislation contains.
First of all, a proactive model is a detailed, specific model which eliminates one of the reasons for the time involved and the cost of dealing with these complaints, which is confusion about the terms and exactly what pay equity means. In a proactive model—Section 130 of the Quebec statute, for example, details all the different steps to be followed in order to, as much as possible, avoid disputes about interpretation and, therefore, delays and escalating costs. However, that does not seem to be the case with the current act, which sets out no specific criteria and, in certain cases, only creates confusion with respect to certain data. Therefore, this model may be considered proactive, but it does not attain the desired outcome, in the sense that it does not help to avoid the problems of interpretation or the confusion I described. There is a tremendous lack of clarity in this statute.
Second, a proactive model is not based on the collective bargaining process. This model is, however. In that respect, it will not improve things, because a fundamental right, by its very essence, is not negotiable.
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When you're dealing with pay equity as the issue, you're going to be bringing in people who are experts in that kind of bargaining, who are focused on it, and who are going to be dealing with getting rid of the gender-based discriminations that exist in many classifications. I've hung around pay equity stuff for a long time, and it took me a while to figure out the effort piece. I could never get my head around it.
Think about it this way: if a man on a construction site goes and picks up two 50-pound bags of cement and hauls them off to whatever he's doing, that's considered to be “effort”. A woman who works in a grocery store picks up hundreds of five- to ten-pound bags of groceries in the course of a day, but it's not seen as “effort”. Same thing with a woman who works on a keyboard, whose hands are constantly moving, and who may get carpal tunnel syndrome—that's not seen as “effort”, because I guess she didn't sweat or grunt and those sorts of things.
The reality is that you have to go at these things and take out the gender biases, and that takes expertise and help. So that helps.
The other part of it is that the union, from our perspective, has the responsibility of going out and talking to their members about this. The union would have access to all of the information that would be necessary. But it needs to be done separately, because you'll get into negotiations and the employer will eventually give you a “final offer”, and then you will have to choose between continuing to talk about pay equity or workboots or some health and safety issue. That's what will happen.
In the federal sector, the interesting thing is: how is the union responsible when there are legislated wages and wage freezes imposed? How can the union be responsible for negotiating something when they don't have the ability to negotiate it?
There are all sorts of things. Women will not benefit from what's in front of us now. They will benefit if we actually take the advice of the people who worked for a long time on this.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
When the government tabled its budget, at the beginning of the year, it said it had consulted Canadians. In your presentation, Ms. Pageau, you mentioned extensive involvement—200 people made oral presentations, 60 submitted written briefs, and so on.
You also say that you find this legislation to be appalling and regressive. I take from this that you believe the government did not listen to you. You probably are thinking that you made good suggestions, but that the government paid no attention to them. Later on, if we have enough time, I would be interested in knowing how you reacted when you learned that pay equity would be dealt with in a federal budget bill. After that, I will put the same question to all of you.
You all referred to the settlement with Bell Canada. How much time did it take to achieve that settlement? I worked for Bell Canada at the time and I have a very clear recollection of the whole process. Ultimately, we accepted the offer. I was a unionized employee and was one of those who accepted the offer. And it was a negotiation. When you are trying to get someone to accept something that is hard to swallow, often you will try to tempt them with goodies. That is exactly what happened. Because most of the employees were women, pay equity was very important to them. We suffered significant losses in other areas, but because pay equity was important, we reached a settlement.
I want to come back to my colleague's question, because the Minister said that what he was proposing would not take as much time. What is your interpretation of what the Minister said?
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In my opinion, it will not take much more time, because women will not be in a position to pay and to challenge their employer, since the union could be subject to a $50,000 fine. Pay equity is supposed to be negotiated, but if things don't work out and there are complaints, well, you ladies are on your own. That's what the legislation says.
I cannot imagine how a woman earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year could afford to pay for a lawyer or an expert to represent her, collect information and appear before the various courts or organizations being proposed by the Conservative government. I cannot imagine that happening.
Let us talk about what happened at Bell Canada. That is one of the reasons why the legislation doesn't work. At Bell Canada, a study was carried out. The study involved all three parties, including the employer. When the results came out, management was very proud of what had been accomplished. However, when it saw what wage increases for operators were going to cost, all of a sudden, the study wasn't worth anything anymore.
It has turned into a game in the different courts. We had no idea. Fifteen years later, we paid millions of dollars to lawyers on both sides. How can that be proactive?
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the speakers for coming and presenting today.
First of all, I want to reiterate the comments of my colleague--that is, in my belief, we are all trying to achieve the same goal. We have a different lens in terms of how we're going to achieve that, but I think the Conservative government does want proactive pay equity legislation. Again, it's a different world lens that we see in terms of the way we're going to reach that particular goal and what is the best method to achieve it.
I want to talk in terms of this as proactive rather than complaint-based, and within the union negotiations. I sort of look at experience. I would disagree that there will be an ability to negotiate this away at the bargaining table. You look at joint health and safety, you look at many things that the employer and employee have joint responsibility for. This is creating a joint responsibility, it's creating the conversation with the people who need to have that conversation, the people who understand the jobs they're doing. Plus it's putting in a mechanism whereby it has to be reviewed. It has to be reviewed with the length of the contract.
I actually have sat on both sides of the table in terms of negotiations. I have a lot more faith in the negotiation process, and I'm hearing that it's an effective mechanism to accomplish this goal.
I also have a lot more faith.... I know that we talk about the Public Service Labour Relations Board not having the expertise. Well, do you know what? I think to ingrain equity into Canada, we need to be gaining expertise in all sorts of areas, and not just very small groups of people.
So in terms of the Public Service Labour Relations Board, we all need to be gaining expertise in terms of the method and the methodology. Perhaps the union has not effectively done their job at the table, so if the person to bring that forward....
I don't believe they're going to go forward without support, but to not go forward with either the employer or employee, in terms of the complaint, is appropriate, because maybe the union hasn't been doing the job and maybe the employer hasn't been doing the job.
Those are my comments. Again, I truly believe we need to ingrain equity and we need knowledge across Canada. I'd like to talk about that union-employer relationship. I think it could work.
Being as we have this legislation, why don't we talk about how we can make it work to move forward?
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First off, what you need to understand is that in joint health and safety, which you raised as a reference, those are experts. That is stuff that's done away from the bargaining table. Sometimes some of those things come to the bargaining table, but it's after the experts have dealt with it. That's a reality.
On the other part of it, I want to go back to a question that was asked earlier. We've just seen how pay equity was submerged in this federal budget bill. This is exactly what can happen at the bargaining table. It becomes submerged somewhere else. There's a reality there.
If we want to advance women's wages, then we have to have separate proactive pay equity legislation that's modelled on what the task force put forward, not something that's complaint-based, not something that women take on by themselves, and not something, quite frankly, that unions are prevented from helping them with.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ladies, I would like to thank you for being here today.
I have been listening to comments made on both sides of the table. I know Ms. Davidson; she is an honest person. I think she is sincere when she says that her government is doing this to ensure that women achieve pay equity. At the same time, I wonder how the current could have been transformed to the point where that would seem to be true. If the government had really been sincere about pay equity, it would have given women the opportunity to defend themselves, it would not have abolished the Court Challenges Program and it would not be imposing a $50,000 fine on the unions when a women has to defend herself when she is unsuccessful in achieving what she is entitled to through negotiations.
Were you consulted when the government decided to include this bill in the budget legislation? Have you heard of any individuals or organizations that were? What prompted the government to respond in this way to what is such an obvious problem? Working at a school of industrial relations does not mean you are left-wing or right-wing. It is simply a matter of logic.
I think my colleagues are sincere. They believe that their government is also acting in good faith.
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I guess now we'll have two systems that don't work for women.
Gisèle will still deal in the federal private sector with...because nothing has been done to improve that system. Nothing's been done to make sure it meets the requirements of the task force.
Quite frankly, we'll have a way to keep public sector wages down, and there are a lot of women employed in the federal public sector, we know that. There are certainly some business groups who have lobbied to try to keep public sector wages down, because obviously it's competition with them. If you're a woman working in a private sector, non-union environment and you don't get very much in wages, don't get any benefits, if you have an opportunity for a better job in the federal sector, obviously you're going to go there.
Quite frankly, I think this law is mean-spirited toward women who work for the government. I don't mean the government in terms of political parties, I mean the government, the people who try to provide services on a day-to-day basis. It's just mean. It's penalizing women through their paycheques.
:
I don't have those specific figures, but surely we could find them.
There would be a huge expense, obviously, to the taxpayers and to the unions. Gisèle would certainly know from the Bell Canada case.
In our office, one of the executive assistants to our president was an EA at the time. She had come out of the old Communication Workers of Canada and was on the stand for 18 months. That's no small amount of money for lawyers.
So it's a huge cost. It's a huge cost for the union. It's a huge cost for the taxpayer who's paying for the employer to stop this. Or, quite frankly, if you have your service with Bell Canada, you're paying for them to fight it.
But think about what the cost is for each of those women. It's sinful. It's absolutely sinful that those women weren't going to get paid. And as Gisèle said, many of them died. How long do we have to wait?
:
The emotional cost was unbelievable.
I can tell you first-hand how many calls I would get from operators who were ill, or who were living below the poverty level because they were still waiting for the pay equity adjustments to their pensions. I had spouses call and say, “My wife died, but please keep me informed.”
As for the actual financial costs, I can tell you, and I make no bones about this, the cost of achieving pay equity at Bell for the union was well over $5 million.
Let me put it into perspective. I'm at the hearings, and I don't make lawyers' wages. I had one lawyer, sometimes two. Bell Canada, every day, had five to seven lawyers, who were much more expensive than my lawyer. It was estimated that Bell Canada spent anywhere between $3 million to $5 million a year on legal costs.
Bell Canada purposely dragged this on, as Ms. Byers just mentioned. Our key witness was under cross-examination for 18 months. That's 18 months on the witness stand while not being able to speak to anybody about the case. Think of what that did to her and how it looked.
So the system is completely broken. The women of Bell Canada, the ones who were left living, yes, they received some moneys and their pensions were adjusted. However, out of the 4,700, about 18% were gone. We did manage to negotiate that Bell Canada would not retain that money. It did go into the women's estates. However, it was the operators' money, not the estates' money.
I have to say, listening to the discussions today, being part of this committee, many times our opposition colleagues do their jobs and they very passionately oppose most of what the government does, and that's their job. With you ladies here as witnesses, I believe you want to bring an objective contribution to this discussion.
So I appreciate ' recognizing that we all want to see pay equity for women. We are not interested in being mean-spirited or appalling and regressive. And when I hear you talk about what has happened--women having to sit for 18 months and be cross-examined--that is regressive, that is mean-spirited, that is appalling.
Our goal is to not have that happen. We want to see pay equity achieved and this government truly wants to see it proactive. We believe there is a role, and it's a positive role, that the unions can play in it.
I really want to understand where you're coming from. Do you believe the union doesn't have the expertise in order to recognize when there are inequitable compensation situations?
The reason I ask that is because my colleague made a very good comparison to safety. We all have a basic human right to personal safety. That is not negotiable. You talked about some expert groups that look at work scenarios. Is safety ensured? We have to talk about this; we have to work it out.
I would say that this falls into the same thing. We have a basic right to be treated equally as women. Nobody can discriminate against me as a woman. And yet as a union, you have such a powerful role to play in helping women. If you recognize that something is not being achieved and that women aren't being treated fairly, you have such a positive role to play.
Do you feel that you don't have the expertise, that you can't do it?
:
Good morning, ladies. Thank you for being here.
After everything that I have been hearing today and for a while now, I must say that I am pleased that Ms. Demers has acknowledged that we all want to work together to gain a better understanding. I am having some trouble understanding the arguments, as someone who does not come from a union background, has never been a member of a union in her entire life and who always believed that a union was there “to defend the rights of the workers it represents”. What I understand from this legislation—the role of the employer was mentioned—is that the union has to be involved in order to ensure that pay equity for women is part and parcel of the collective agreement, so there is no more discrimination and that this right is laid out in black and white. As you stated, it is a fundamental right of women to receive the same salary as men. We all agree on that around this table. As I see it, the union is there to act as a “watchdog” with the employer, to ensure that women receive a level of compensation equal to that of men. When I hear these kinds of reactions, I am a little taken aback, because that is not how I had understood, and continue to understand, this legislation. I have no desire to do anything that would harm the cause of women—quite the opposite. I am a member of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women because I want to advance that cause.
We also have to think about the ones coming up behind us—our children. I have two daughters aged 20 and 21. When I talk to them about the status of women and everything that we do here, they look at me as if to say they don't see any problem, even though it is a well-known fact, as all of us here are aware, that they will still face this issue 20 years from now. I am having trouble understanding. Pay equity is not a negotiable right, any more than other rights are, but I can tell you we certainly did not intend—at least I did not, and I never saw it that way—for unions to be… We all know that the employer pays the salaries, but the union has to be there to ensure that this fundamental right of women is acknowledged. I think it is appropriate for them to sit down all together to ensure that women have equal status and are given the same rights. That is something I would like to do--
:
I think it's to catch the unions coming and going, if I can use that English expression. We're prevented from helping anybody. We'll be fined if we help you. But, by the way, you're equally responsible when you get to the bargaining table. You can't have it both ways.
So it works that way. If we really do want to do something for women, if we are all on the same page, this law isn't going to do it.
By the way, there's no timeline in here that's going to get women any faster settlement. Even if they wanted to take up the time, they're not going to get any faster settlement than the hundreds of women who have gone before them. It's not going to do anything. In fact, if it were going to do anything, you'd see us saying, “This is great. This moves things ahead. This is exactly what we wanted. This is exactly what we've asked for.”
We've praised legislation when we thought it was going to advance people's justice and dignity in the workplace--we have--but this isn't going to do it.
:
I would like to address the question of the positive impact of pay equity on workplaces and on the market.
When I chaired the commission that developed the Quebec Pay Equity Act, the President of the Conseil du patronat du Québec came to meet us during our hearings. He told me that, as long as he had anything to do with it, this legislation would not pass. But the legislation did pass. When I bumped into him a few years ago, completely by accident, he said that he now realizes that many employers support the legislation and are in fact very happy with it.
When I give training sessions to corporate managers of human resources—I have given them in 300 or 400 different firms—they tell me that, thanks to this legislation, their compensation system is more coherent, their business is better managed and has a better reputation, and is thus better able to attract talented people with the right skills—something that is very highly valued in today's job market.
So, the impact is extremely positive in terms of their competitiveness.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome, witnesses.
I want to go back to an issue raised by Ms. Mathyssen earlier.
Before I was elected to Parliament last year, I was a lawyer. I practised for 25 years. In fact, some of the cases you mentioned—the Bell Canada case, the Air Canada and Canada Post cases—were worked on by the firm that I practised with for 25 years, both for the employers and for the unions.
I can tell you, Ms. Pageau, that for many years, the number one client of that firm was public sector employee unions--number one in terms of billings--and the same fees were charged to the unions as to the employers.
You mentioned that these cases went on for years and years, at an enormous cost, I think you mentioned, Ms. Byers. I can tell you it's in the millions and tens of millions of dollars, both to the union members and the employers and the taxpayers.
Why would you want that money to go to the legal profession? The system here is good work for lawyers; I can tell you that from personal experience. Why would you want the money to go to them, rather than into the pockets of the women whom you represent, or stay in the pockets of the taxpayers?
And why would you want to delay the justice that you seek to have done for women? Isn't the old system of forcing women to litigate to get their rights later—10, 15, or 25 years down the road—a worse system than having it negotiated up front, even if it has to be done through some kind of a subcommittee process with the experts on these matters that all of you have in your unions? Isn't that a better way to handle it than having these things litigated over 25 years?
:
And you've already used up your three minutes, I'm sorry.
We've finished with our third round, and I suggest every one of the panel be given a minute to wrap up.
It sounds to me, just putting together what I heard from everyone, as though the Conservatives have said they agree with the objective. So I don't get a sense that people are in disagreement with the objective. In my opinion, the disagreement with the process and how to get there is fundamental to what is happening. Everyone thinks there are different ways to get there.
You've made some extremely good points. I think the reason there's a difference in how to get there lies in the fundamental issue of understanding that pay equity is extremely different from same salary. In other words, even if you said that everyone in a particular place, even if they're men and women, will get the same salary, if it is in a category in which women have traditionally been the worker, then that is inherently undervalued. The whole issue of pay equity is that it began at the time when only men were in the workforce. When women came into the workforce, their jobs were valued as purely women's work. They were valued at a totally different rate. So secretaries were paid very differently and their work was valued lower than janitors' work because of an inherent gender discrimination at the time because women were not encouraged to be in the workforce.
To bring that together, to right that historic wrong, if you even say that all people will get the same salary as the women in the pool, it still doesn't bring up the value of the work that was traditionally done by women. That, I suppose, is what pay equity is about, and that is why it's defined as a right, because inherent in it is the issue of a traditional gender discrimination that undervalued the work traditionally done by women versus the work that was traditionally done by men.
I think everyone has made very good points and I would ask you, therefore, to do a one-minute wrap-up each, starting with Ms. Healy.
You didn't say a word, so I thought I'd give you a chance.
:
You know, if we are all on the same page--wanting to actually have equal pay for work of equal value for women not just in the federal sector but in the federally regulated sector--then, in terms of the objective of how to get there, this law is not well thought out. It was not consulted with.
Anyone who is an expert, as we've had here, on pay equity would have told you that this law misses the mark in every conceivable way, that we will find ourselves a year from now, or five years from now or whatever, in exactly the same position.
Women will have lost hope, quite frankly. I think it's the responsibility of people in this room to give people hope that, yes, they can improve their wages and working conditions.
If we are all on the same page, as Barb said, and if all parties are sincere about implementing pay equity for women, two things have to happen.
First, it has to stay as a human rights issue; it cannot be separated from human rights because it is a gender issue.
Second, the work has been done, it has been studied, and recommendations have come forward; all we need is the goodwill of all parties to implement what we know will work and finally put an end to this discussion.
Thank you.
Then we begin with business and the report. We agreed at the last meeting that we would stay until 1:30. As you may see on your agenda, it is going to go to 1:30.
Before we get into the report, the first order of business is that there is an outstanding motion by that had been presented on May 6, and we need to deal with it now. Do you all have it?
I will read the motion:
That the Standing Committee on the Status of Women call on the Minister of State for the Status of Women and the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to ask Statistics Canada to measure and value unpaid, “invisible” work, like it did in the 1992 General Social Survey.
[Translation]
That the Standing Committee on the Status of Women call on the Minister of State for the Status of Women and the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to ask Statistics Canada to measure and value unpaid, so-called “invisible” work, as it did in the 1992 General Social Survey.
[English]
Okay, good. That was 1992, then. I had to work that out in my head, and I'm not that fast.
:
Your French is excellent. Thank you.
Madam Chair, we introduced this motion because Canada made a commitment in Nairobi, back in 1985, to abide by the United Nations Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, under which governments were to collect statistics on the status of women, and ensure that these data, broken down by gender, recognize the paid and unpaid contributions of women, particularly in such areas as agriculture, food production, reproduction and domestic activities.
The last time this was done was 1992. In our opinion, that was a very long time ago. Women's contribution has probably been very extensive since 1992. It is important that a statistical study be carried out once again. However, in order for that to happen, Statistics Canada must cooperate with Status of Women Canada. The Minister of State for the Status of Women has to agree that this study should be done, in order that the invisible work done by women be reflected in the GNP and GDP. We need to know everything that has been done by women in recent years.
That is my rationale for introducing this motion, Madam Chair.