:
Thank you, Dr. Fry, Madam Chair.
My name is Tom Dufresne and I am the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada. I've held this position for some 14 years now.
With me are Barb Byers, the executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, and Susan O'Donnell, who is the executive director of the B.C. Human Rights Coalition and is advising ILWU and our members on processes going forward to improve the working life in the workplaces on the coast, not only for women but also for men.
The ILWU represents approximately 5,500 people who work at the Pacific coast ports. We've distributed a backgrounder to all the committee members and the translators; hopefully, you all have a copy.
We welcome your initiative and are pleased to appear before you today. Your session helps to shine the light on our industry, which is beginning to open its doors to women. It's a slow but steady process that will benefit from free collective bargaining and will suffer if free collective bargaining is stifled. We have made some progress, but much more needs to be done.
In recent years, this fact has been underscored. For example, in 2008, the BCMEA, the B.C. Maritime Employers Association, earned the lowest grade possible from the Canadian Human Rights Commission for failing to meet expectations concerning women's participation in our workplace.
I know that your committee is looking at three specific aspects of women in non-traditional jobs: recruitment, barriers to participation, and retention. We will focus our remarks on these areas.
It is our view that the best and most equitable way to recruit new workers to our industry is through a gender-balanced recruiting process, whereby equal numbers of men and women are recruited on a local-by-local basis--a fifty-fifty approach, if you will. That is subject to negotiation on a local-by-local basis, because what's good in one local might not work in another.
For instance, in the Port of Vancouver, which represents about 60% of the workforce in British Columbia, what would achieve the best results there is not necessarily the same as what would be best in Fort Simpson. We also have agreements that represent the Nisga'a in northern of British Columbia and we wouldn't want to go in there and dictate any type of process to them. We work with the bands as well, Bella Bella and Bella Coola, to recruit people to work. They work in their own specific areas and are allowed to travel.
Also, in a couple of locals, we have lists of people who have applied in the past when there was hiring being done. It's our view and our position that those lists should be exhausted prior to opening this up for new hiring. Some of these people have taken the tests in the past. They might not have passed the tests, but they were given a chance to go out and correct whatever deficiencies they might have, to allow them to come in, take the test again, and try to pass.
For instance in Local 502, which is on the Fraser River and represents all of the docks up and down the Fraser River and at Deltaport and Westshore, there's a list of approximately 286 people. Of those 286, 83 are women. We're saying that to cast those 83 people aside and do a new recruitment process to put a bunch of people in the workforce would be unfair to those people, although we are prepared to discuss it, as I said, on a local-by-local basis.
This is a policy that the union has advanced for a number of years in our discussions with our employers. Unfortunately, since the vast majority of additional recruiting is done jointly with the employer, we have not been able to see this policy fully implemented. It is our goal to achieve a fifty-fifty recruitment process, as I said, once these lists are exhausted.
Having said this, I note that there are serious barriers to overcome in order to create the right conditions to increase the participation of women in our workplaces. I'll ask Susan to address these issues.
Thank you.
Did you know that currently there are no provisions for maternity leave at Pacific coast ports, beyond legislated minimums? The same holds true for paternity leave. Also, there are no child care provisions. Waterfront workers do not have any workplace policies that make it easier to care for elderly parents or for dependent adult children.
As you know, these family responsibilities of caring for young and old family members frequently fall to women to fulfill. The absence of these kinds of supports helps to explain why the waterfront is less attractive as a workplace of choice for our daughters, our sisters, and our mothers. The waterfront is less attractive as a workplace for women and men because there are significant barriers that block access to benefits, such as long-term health and dental care, for new workers.
There are other troubling indications of gender inequality on the waterfront that constitute serious barriers to women. From a variety of reports and hearsay, it would appear that the workplace environment drastically needs to change for women and probably for most men. Although many reports have been done, recommendations in these reports have come from a somewhat subjective process. A proper human rights audit needs to be done to ascertain what is and is not going on in 2010.
An audit should assess harassment, drugs and alcohol, violence, sanitation, graffiti, etc. Once a clear and current picture emerges, policies and procedures can be designed to improve the environment. There is no point in engaging in a huge recruitment process without simultaneously improving the environment.
The union has attempted over and over again to work in conjunction with the employer. That's the way I'm most used to advising people: having an employer and union working together. But it's not to be in this case, because the employer is not cooperating. So we've decided to put together a table of women who work in the union, and the CLC, and me--an expert in human rights--and seriously look at how we can help our women members succeed. We're also pleased to say that Transport Canada has agreed to fund an audit, which I think is the first most critical thing that should take place before we try to change anything else in the workplace.
It's my understanding that the employer, the BCMEA, has now put forward a proposal to place 200 women at the top of the hiring list. This would create a separate class of worker and would have the effect of bumping everyone else 200 spots down the list that determines access to work. I cannot tell you what a disastrous effect this would have. Queue-jumping is not employment equity; it's discrimination. Human rights law does not allow for placing one person by removing another. Further, the women and many men who are seen to take part in this or to support it could be the victims of retaliation.
We know that the committee has already heard testimony that this approach is counterproductive to the retention of new female recruits. One-step efforts do nothing to stop systemic discrimination. The correct tool is an ongoing, continuous process, such as a 50% hiring goal. Such a process would ensure that an equal number of men and women get to the starting gate. In addition, this inadvisable proposal would bump current female employees out of the active workforce.
I'd like to say a couple of extra things, too. I'm sure you all know that the federal jurisdiction is the only one where we have employment equity, period, so there are probably more women in longshore than anywhere else. Certainly in B.C. you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of women in alternate work.
Employment equity has shown itself to be a really good tool in the federal jurisdiction. I have to say that I've never seen a proposal that says we want a 50% equal rate at the start-up. You may remember that the Supreme Court of Canada said, in Action Travail des Femmes, that one in every four women should be selected, up to 17%, I think it was, so this is a huge going away from those very low numbers.
Tom, I'll hand it back to you.
With the obvious problems associated with this proposal, why would the employer insist on this type of approach of adding 200 people? We'd say that the BCMEA's solutions would conveniently achieve a goal the employer has had for a long time: to gain control of the dispatch system and to diminish seniority rights. It would seem that the employer is prepared to do anything to achieve this goal, even at the risk of perpetuating gender inequality on the waterfront.
So what are the answers? What does the ILWU propose to overcome the barriers that are keeping women from working on the waterfront and staying there once they join our workforce? Let me give you a sense of what the ILWU has been doing.
We are working actively with Susan and the B.C. Human Rights Coalition to address issues raised in a report commissioned by the largest ILWU local, Local 500 at the Port of Vancouver, to try to get to the bottom of gender discrimination on the waterfront. During the current round of bargaining, we've also tabled proposals to address the absence of maternity, child care, and eldercare benefits, and access to benefits for new workers.
There has been a public outcry, and justifiably so, about barriers that prevent women from working on the waterfront. These issues will be addressed much more quickly if we're allowed to bargain solutions at the negotiation table.
Concerning recruitment on a local-by-local basis, our workplaces are vastly different from one another; I already went through this. In recognition of these differences, we have proposed to collaborate with the BCMEA on a local-by-local basis to search for the best way to bring more people into the workplace and more women into the workplace.
For our part, we can see immediately recruiting at least as many women into the workplace as the BCMEA's proposal for 200. Our approach would respect the seniority rights of our current employees and the goal of fifty-fifty hiring. Unfortunately, the BCMEA's agenda is such that they rejected this approach out of hand.
On raising employment standards for women in the workforce, we also have put forward a proposal. Approximately 1,000 women are working in administrative jobs in the offices of the BCMEA's member companies, jobs that have low wages and few benefits. The ILWU has made it a priority to organize these women into the union membership in order to raise their wages and working conditions. We pledge to do that.
The union has also spent a vast sum of money in arbitration to try to protect the work of some our sisters out on the waterfront. Currently one of those cases has run the union a cost of almost $1 million. I'd just like to say that the employer has fought us at every turn on that arbitration to try to set that aside.
I'll give the last word to Sister Byers from the CLC.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
Again, I apologize for Mr. Smith's absence. He is ill and unable to make it today. Ms. Marynuik and I will continue on behalf of the BCMEA.
I am the vice-president of marketing and information services for the BCMEA. I've been involved with the waterfront for 33-plus years, so I certainly am familiar with how the waterfront works, inside and out.
I'll tell you a little bit about the BCMEA. We represent some 66 member companies, about half of which are direct employers of ILWU longshore labour in the Asia-Pacific gateway. When I say Asia-Pacific gateway, I mean from Prince Rupert south to the Fraser River, including Vancouver Island.
As for our customer member profiles, we have in our membership stevedoring companies, container, bulk, break-bulk, and cruise ship terminal operators, and global shipping companies and their local vessel husbandry agencies. Our members call at and/or operate just about all of the terminal facilities in the Asia-Pacific gateway.
BCMEA represents its customer members in the functional areas of collective agreement negotiations--we're just in the process of negotiating a new agreement with the ILWU--labour relations and human resources facilitation, government advocacy, recruitment, occupational training, safety training, and dispatch of the ILWU workforce labour pool.
That's a little bit about us. I'm now going to turn the presentation over to Eleanor Marynuik, our vice-president of human resources. What Eleanor will do for you this afternoon is give you some personal insight with respect to her experiences as a woman on the waterfront.
Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be here at the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
I was trying to think of what to say in the seven or eight minutes I have before you and decided that the best use of my time would be to illustrate or set the scene of the oppressive atmosphere on the waterfront.
Imagine, if you will, driving to a dispatch hall, a hall located on the fringe of one of the most depressed areas in Canada, an area noted for poverty, drug use, the sex trade, and crime. As a matter of fact, this is called Canada's poorest postal code. This is where you come day after day in the hopes of getting work--not to actually get work, but just for the chance that you will go to work.
Now, imagine yourself arriving at the dispatch hall, hoping first of all to get a parking spot in the lot, because if you don't, you have no choice but to park in the neighbourhood and walk to the hall. Imagine walking through the parking lot to get to your side of the hall to register yourself for work. As you're walking, you see a number of men congregating outside the hall prior to dispatch. This is where they congregate because this is their social network. For a woman, this is intimidating, not so much for what is said to you as you walk by, but for what is not said; it's the staring and the conversations that stop as you walk by.
You quickly walk through the hall by entering a separate entrance to register your availability for work. Casual workers are on one side and union workers are on the other. The two don't meet. You are again greeted with even more men waiting to be dispatched; it's a sea of men. You look around hoping to find other female workers to gravitate towards until dispatch is completed--safety in numbers. When the dispatch is completed and you didn't make a job for this shift, back you go through the parking lot again, with the intimidating behaviour of stares, and down the street to your car.
Imagine this scenario with the added complication of others in your family that you've had to make arrangements for while you leave the house in the hopes of getting work. Again, it's not that you're leaving the house to actually go to work; it's just for the chance that you will go to work that day.
So now a decision has to be made. Do you call it a day or come back again in the afternoon and start the process all over again? However, if you live in Vancouver--40 minutes one-way in the suburbs of Vancouver, which most people do--the decision is easy. On busy days in Vancouver, up to 1,000 workers a day congregate at the hall during three different dispatch times with the hopes of being dispatched for work.
Why, in this day and age of computerization, would anyone have to come to a hall in the hopes of getting work? Why can't a woman or anyone with family responsibilities be able to log in on a computer and register for work? This 50-year-old dispatch system, where one must be physically present in order to make oneself available for work, is just one of the barriers that impedes women from entering the longshore workforce.
Two years ago, under Andy Smith's regime, I was brought in as a labour practitioner and was appalled with what I saw on the waterfront. I can honestly say that with the labour practices that were in existence and the way women were treated, I felt that I was transported back in time to the 1960s. I knew it didn't have to be this way.
I have a background of 31 years in the airline industry. Three of those years were spent as the manager of ramp operations. In 1995 I was the first woman in the industry to be appointed to this position. I managed 13 supervisors and 750 station attendants who belonged to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the majority of whom were men. They were aircraft mechanics, station attendants, clerical workers, and aircraft cleaners.
Ramp operations are very similar to the longshore industry. It is physical work, loading and unloading cargo, either by hand or by using machinery. We had a number of women station attendants who were afforded the same opportunities as men in the areas of training, work assignments, and promotions. It was a transparent process. The women were not marginalized in the workplace, such as the ILWU does today.
Don't get me wrong--we did have our issues, but we worked through them. The biggest difference was the union's willingness to deal with these issues. They didn't bury their heads in the sand and pretend issues were not real, as it is with the ILWU.
As an example, with the influx of women, the union was not opposed to harassment training sessions. They felt it necessary to educate not only men, but also women, on harassment.
I bring forward my experience only to draw the parallel between two male-dominated industries and how different they are, different as to how women are treated and how unions behave towards women.
As a labour relations practitioner at the BCMEA, I personally have walked numerous times through that parking lot at dispatch times. I have felt that same intimidating behaviour that our longshorewomen experience and have questioned why this is happening.
I have heard first-hand the fear, hopelessness, and frustration of existing longshorewomen. Shortly after I joined the BCMEA, a longshorewoman contacted me by phone. She had no one else to turn to and said that because she wasn't one of the old boys on the waterfront, her issues were not important and they were not dealt with by the union.
I saw first-hand the fear she experienced of being caught talking to me. She was so fearful, in fact, that we met in a park. She was constantly looking over her shoulder, fearful that a union member would see her with me and report her to the union. I heard all about the harassment and retaliation if these issues were to be brought forward. After a few meetings with her, I became very aware of how the waterfront had desensitized her.
Today she is no longer a longshore person. I can think of no greater travesty than a woman having to quit an industry over harassing and intimidating behaviour that is condoned by the union. I say “condoned” because they do nothing to prevent it.
We can no longer tolerate the sins of the past in the area of recruitment, a practice that is not transparent and fraught with nepotism. As an example, on the list Mr. Dufresne speaks about, in Vancouver, 411 out of 758 are relatives of members who are currently longshore, and only 41 of them are women. Now, Mr. Dufresne has said they wanted these lists exhausted prior to doing a fifty-fifty hiring. It's very difficult: we will not get to employment equity if we follow these lists.
Training is another area controlled by the union, with our antiquated dispatch practices that require one to be physically present in order to make oneself available for work and systemic sex discrimination experienced by women on the waterfront. To perpetuate this history would be the second greatest travesty in this industry.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for your attendance here today, Mr. Vurdela, Ms. Marynuik, Ms. Byers, Mr. Dufresne and Ms. O'Donnell.
Ms. Marynuik, hearing you speak reminded me of the story of Oliver Twist. It was very bleak, and I could see the difficulties women who work in these occupations may face, especially when they have to get to the docks in the morning, and so on.
It reminds me of when we, the 60 or so women who work in Parliament, arrive here. We experience the same thing. So, it does not just apply to people who work on the docks. When we get to Parliament, we realize that it is a men's world, that things are changing at a very slow pace and that we ourselves have to make that change if we want to improve the situation.
What I find strange is that both sides seem to want to have more women working as longshoremen. However, you have different ways of going about it. The union would like to implement measures to better welcome women into these occupations. The employers seem to want to hire a group of 200 women with no experience and no training, who do not know what they are getting into, simply in order to increase the number of women working in this field. However, the request was made after the union filed a harassment complaint. I am having some difficulty understanding and following the issue.
Ms. O'Donnell, can you tell me what you felt as you listened to Ms. Marynuik's testimony?
:
This is the base reason for us filing the human rights complaint that we did file. We have tried to bring the union along with several proposals that have been tabled and would address the long-standing issues of recruitment, transparency of access to training, and basically the ability to secure employment without having to physically attend at the dispatch. This discriminates against those people who have family status issues--primarily primary caregivers.
Let's put a couple of things to rest, if we may. The official proposal the BCMEA tabled with ILWU, and in fact the basis of its human rights complaint, does not include some 200 women being immediately recruited and thrust into the union. We all understand, to Mr. Dufresne's point, what a disaster that would be. That's simply not the case. We have never advocated that officially. We have never put that in a proposal. It's not in our human rights complaint. It is simply not part of the piece.
What we're talking about is this initial recruitment piece where we say to the union, “We cannot go off your lists”. In fact, they are illegal. They are full of nepotism. They are full of relatives. We can't discriminate against relatives and we can't discriminate for relatives. We simply can't use these lists.
What we're saying to the union... The example that Mr. Dufresne decided to cite is the one place where we have worked together. We have an ad in the paper, we have people apply, and we simply pick the best people. What we are suggesting in order to bring forth a critical mass of women, to begin to change the culture Ms. Marynuik is speaking about, is that we need to recruit, for the time being, on a fifty-fifty basis. If in fact... Our statistics show that if men and women start in the process on an equal basis, as we're suggesting, they do equally well. There is no issue once women get into the workforce, once they are appropriately trained, and once they have the ability to get work. This is where we have to make the changes.
We have tried on a repeated basis to talk to the ILWU. We have a trail of meetings and suggestions and proposals that have gone on and on. What we get from the ILWU is ongoing intransigence: “why can't we do things the old way?” and “why can't we just do what Mr. Ready has suggested?”
:
On these lists to which Mr. Dufresne refers, the people on the lists have no official status within the waterfront. Official status within the waterfront occurs when an individual is issued what's called a registration number. So after they've gone through the recruitment process and the bit of training we've articulated, those people who are selected after that process are issued a registration number.
From this number you are paid, and from this number you start to gain and retain seniority, such as pensions, benefits, and the like. So once you have this number, you have status. It would be the equivalent, Ms. Mathyssen, if you were hiring for a position in your office, of taking in a bunch of resumes and applications, and then having someone tell you several years later that the next person you hired had to be off that list. That's simply beyond the pale, per se, from the perspective of having status; they simply don't.
That's what we dispute: that they don't have status. Besides which, the lists are full, as we mentioned, of relatives and full of family-status individuals, which essentially says that we can't go off them. We would just like a fair and equitable playing field and to start again in this process.
:
Yes. On what happened in the north, there was some log loading being done, and it was being done by the Nisga'a tribe. They set up their own corporation to load logs. We went in there and signed an accord with them. We've done this in the past with Bella Coola and Bella Bella.
We went in there and signed them up to the BCMEA-ILWU collective agreement. It was an agreement that they would work under the terms and condition of the ILWU-BCMEA collective agreement and earn the same money that people in the Lower Mainland were earning. We sent up trainers, who trained them on how to operate the cranes and how to load the logs safely and properly. We just do monitoring on their training. All the rest of that work is done by the Nisga'a.
In Bella Coola, we sent in trainers. Some were topside--the crane operators. The rest of the work was distributed by the band council. They picked people. There's no use in just taking a whole bunch of people and saying, “Here, go load logs”. It's a very dangerous job, right? You have to be trained in how to do it properly, safely, and efficiently. If you're not efficient, people aren't going to come back and load them. So that's what we did.
Under our conditions... Mr. Vurdela refers to benefits of about 40%, so what happened in that case, because the Nisga'a didn't require the benefits under the collective agreement, was that the money was set aside in a fund. Every few years, they come forward with a project and approach the BCMEA and the ILWU jointly to access those funds to buy an MRI or to put a roof on a sports complex or something like that. Dollar for dollar, they earn the same money that is earned by people who are longshoring on the B.C. coast, on the Lower Mainland or anywhere else.
This will be very quick because I only have the five minutes, but in the past... The study is looking into the participation of women in non-traditional occupations. To a great extent, I would include politics in that as well. Recently I was engaged in a debate about women in politics. You'll find that many countries in Europe are now fundamentally trying to change the system of how they elect people in order to get people engaged.
Am I looking at something similar here, to the effect that you want to change the system by which you've hired people over some time? Because the other side of the issue is that you can encourage women to get involved in politics by financing of campaigns, educating young women, advocacy, and that sort of situation. So you have two sides to getting people involved.
One of the issues you brought up was that you had to be physically present in order to answer a call. Now, I apologize; I don't quite understand how that works, as opposed to someone who is home all the time and who wants to get involved and is unable to do so. Is this the type of systemic change that you want to see? My question to you is that in the list you have currently, my colleague makes a good point about seniority, and there seems to be a fundamental way of... Given the problems you have with it, would you agree that the list he's talking about is a good thing in order to allow more women in politics?
It is part of my mandate with the union and with the CLC to try to develop better procedures in terms of education, but it is the employer's responsibility; the environment is the employer's responsibility. The employer has sole liability for the environment of harassment in the workplace.
Having said that--that's a legal proposition and somewhat mechanical--I will say that the union does take the position that we have some responsibility for the conduct of our members. One of the reasons that we want to do an audit is that we want to see what kinds of specific behaviours we need to concern ourselves with.
What I hear over here is that people are scared. I've heard that from other people, too, when they come into the process. Well, why are they scared? How are people conducting themselves? What programs can we design to stop it? That's part of my mandate.
But we have another problem and that is that human rights law is not punitive law. One of the big difficulties for unions and human rights law is that the employer--and not just this employer--often comes to harassment from a perspective of discipline, and then the union is compelled to go in and grieve for the perpetrator. The complainant is forgotten. So what we want to do is design a program that helps our union members relearn how to conduct themselves in the workplace, and if--
:
Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome to all of you.
First of all, Mr. Vurdela, it seems to me that the argument regarding hiring families does not hold water. It makes no sense because the major railway companies—CN, CP, VIA—would not have become what they are if, at the time, families could not have been hired. That is why the railways became so strong and grew so big.
In the automobile sector, there was family hiring also. People held jobs for 25 or 30 years at that time. Today, perhaps things have changed, but I think that the argument is less and less obvious and valid. I think that the longshoremen have reached the point where they will have to put some policies into place. As far as I know, management rights are not a matter for the union. It must be the employer's responsibility, I assume. So when I say put policies in place so that women can go to work in that sector, there can be a great many options.
Earlier, Ms. O'Donnell raised the issue of daycares. Is the employer prepared to set up daycares in the workplace in order to make it easier for women to work there? I don't know if you are prepared to do so. I know that employers always bring up the costs involved, but witnesses from the oil and gas sector, which is growing significantly, told us about employers who have made all kinds of arrangements and accommodations for women.
I feel that the longshore needs arrangements of that kind and employers are in the best position to respond to that situation. Are they ready to do so? I do not think that the solution is to take 200 people and put them at the head of the line. That would not solve the problem. A process must be put in place to ensure that we eventually have a structure that allows women to be hired and makes the job easier for them at the same time. I could use the example of the automobile sector where, 15 years ago, there were only men. Today, because the union and the employer put policies in place, things are different. For example, with harassment, you emphasized that there should be a policy that could solve the problem without being punitive. I don't know if your collective agreement has such a policy, but this requires both the employer and the union to take on some of the responsibility. Both have to work on solving problems of harassment or discrimination.
I do not know if you want to set up structures to encourage daycares in the workplace, a non-discriminatory situation, and training for these women. I feel that major work is needed because not all women have easy access to your training programs. In fact, they may have children and may have to leave work earlier or arrive later.
We know that longshoremen's schedules are completely different from those in other occupations. The employer waits for the ships to arrive before calling people into work. If no ships arrive, no one is called. When the ship docks, they get out the list of workers and call them. Mr. Dufresne, you said earlier that you call people. So, as Ms. Marynuik was saying, it is not simply an issue of going to a place, Vancouver, for example, to get a job. You stated, and I would like to hear your comment on this, that you reach people by telephone. That means that they do not have to go to a specific place. That may be a solution to the problem that you raised. Mr. Dufresne said that that was they do.
I am throwing a lot of ideas your way at the same time. But I feel that the solutions are in your hands and both parties have to want to achieve results. Obviously, the employer has the resources, not the union, so when you want to set things up—
:
We're in early discussions with the longshore union, obviously. We have our Pacific region staff working with the union. As well, once we have hired a new director for our women and human rights department, that person will obviously be engaged.
But I want to say that there is a tremendous amount of information available to any union, whether it's the longshore union or others, in terms of what has been developed, both by the CLC and by other unions. Earlier, reference was made to the changes in the Auto Workers. I remember early on when Carol Phillips was in a video about racism and sexism in the auto industry; that was used to educate their own members. It was a very powerful video and it's probably just as powerful today.
I was part of the group on the women's committee at the CLC that--too many years ago--brought a policy to the congress that said every CLC convention, conference, or educational session would begin with an anti-harassment statement. That spread through unions, through labour councils, and through federations of labour. It's just as much part of the agenda as anything else. A host of information and educational programs are available, developed both by the CLC and by our affiliates and federations, and they would be fully available for the longshore union.
As Susan O'Donnell has said, I think it's a matter of sitting down and asking, “What's our plan?” Because there will be the plan with the employer, but then there will also be the plan that the union wants to do with its own members--both women and men.
So there is a full range. As well, by the way, this committee may be interested to know that the CLC, along with the Canadian manufacturers' employers association, is ready to launch a women in non-traditional work website. I don't think it's quite up on the web yet. It includes sites for employers on the advantages of this and why they would want to do it, and for unions, and how both can work together to make sure it happens. It will be going up shortly; last week was our last conference call on whether the site was where we wanted it to be.
So there is that whole range, and I don't know if that fully answers your question, but there is a long list of tools and processes available. It's a matter of sitting down with the women in longshore and asking them where and how we want to start and what it is that they want most now. Is it about running for office? Is it about how to deal with complaints of harassment?
:
Tom and I are going to arm-wrestle over this, but I won the first pass.
The Chair: Why am I not surprised?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms. Barbara Byers: I think what you're pointing out is that we need to be able to create the atmosphere where, for example, we're encouraging young women to go into non-traditional work. I sit on the board of the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum. A few years ago, we did a study for equality-seeking groups about barriers to non-traditional work, to the apprenticeship trades. That information is available. The website that I just talked about is available.
A couple of years ago, the Ontario Federation of Labour had a very vibrant conference on women and non-traditional work, and this is about changing attitudes. I remember that one of the women who got up was an electrician. She talked about not just the discrimination she got from men, but also how when she went into a work site to work on something... In the particular case she raised, it was a bank, and the woman bank manager-- and we would celebrate the fact that there are women bank managers now--didn't believe that she could do the job and sent up a male teller, who didn't know anything about electrical work, to supervise her.
So we have a long way to go, sisters, on our work, and on our work with the men as well.
Tom, you get the last little bit.
:
I think we need to do some work as a committee, so we will not have a third round. There just isn't any time for it. We have about five minutes to go before we move on.
I want to thank everyone for coming today. Normally the chair may ask a question when everyone else has had their opportunity, and we do have a little bit of time. I'm going to ask a question because I've listened, and I think what we've done here is a he-said-she-said thing.
At the end of the day, what I wish to know is simply this. What if, as Ms. Byers and Ms. O'Donnell said, you go out there and encourage women come into non-traditional work, you give them all the information, and tell them what the pay structures are, etc., as Ms. Marynuik said, and you say to them, come on, let's get in here, you should be proud to go into this kind of job...? However, I have heard there is already an extraordinarily long list and that list is primarily male, and there are two lists. One is the union list and one is the casual list. How do you get women to go in when there is absolutely no way to get them in?
There is no room for them. As we used to say in the old days, there is this very thick layer of men to get through before they can get there. What is the practical solution to this? Because we would like to see women move into non-traditional work and I would like to hear a quick practical solution. I'll let one person from that side answer quickly, and then one person from this side. Let's go.
Tom.
:
What we're saying is to address it on a local-by-local basis. We're prepared to sit down with the employer on a local-by-local basis and address it.
As I said, on the Fraser River, there are 286 people on the list. Eighty-three of those people are women. They deserve their chance to come into this workforce. Some of them on that list have been waiting for three years now to get a job. They've been sitting there hoping they'll get one of those jobs. Exhaust that list and then do hiring on a fifty-fifty basis.
We also participate in a thing called TranspoCity.ca, which is part of WESTAC, a group we belong to. There's a website that holds all non-traditional jobs. It's something you might want to view.
Another thing we do is to go into high schools and what have you and talk to people, as Sister O'Donnell was saying, to try to encourage not only women, but minorities and people in general. If you remember, during the dot-com craze, everybody wanted to be inventing video games; nobody wanted to repair cars, telephones, and what have you. So we had to get people interested once again in the trades, which is where the expansion of our economy is going to go, in servicing those things. We're prepared to do it. We'll sit down.
I just wouldn't want to see this committee used to get something for somebody that they're not entitled to and used as a smokescreen; I think you should feel insulted if that happens. Thank you.
:
Thank you, Madam Demers. That's very kind of you.
Now that we have passed that motion, I'd like to move quickly to the next one. We have another motion, which I had been given notice of on March 29. It's from Madam Demers and it says:
[Translation]
That the committee send the report entitled “Women and Pension Security” to the federal Minister of Finance, who is involved in Canada-wide consultations on the pension system, before the federal-provincial finance ministers' meeting scheduled for this coming May.
[English]
I will read it in English: “That the Committee send the report entitled Women and Pension Security to the federal Minister of Finance, who is involved in Canada-wide consultations on the pension system, before the federal-provincial finance ministers' meeting scheduled for this coming May.
Shall I call the question? Is there discussion? Seeing none, those in favour?
(Motion agreed to)
The Chair: This is the second motion unanimously carried. That's very good.
Now I'm going to ask that we suspend for a quick second so that we can go in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]