:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Honourable members, good evening.
Thank you for inviting the Canadian Human Rights Commission to take part in this discussion about pay equity in the federal jurisdiction.
Our chief commissioner Marie-Claude Landry sends her regrets for not being here today.
I would like to introduce my colleagues. Mr. Piero Narducci is acting director general of the promotion branch of the commission, and Ms. Fiona Keith is senior counsel with the commission. Both have considerable experience in pay equity matters.
Today I will focus my remarks on the work of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, our role in equal pay for work of equal value, and why we believe a proactive model is the best way to achieve pay equity in Canada.
Before I go into my comments on pay equity, let me take a moment to tell you about the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The commission is Canada's human rights watchdog and operates at arm's length from the government. We are here to bring attention to human rights issues and promote the values of equality, dignity, and respect that are so important in Canada. We do this through our work in research, policy development, outreach, and education.
[Translation]
We are also here to bring a voice to important human rights issues. When we believe that the human rights of an individual or a group are being threatened, we speak out. We believe we have an obligation to speak out on behalf of Canada's most vulnerable people.
Over the course of the last year, our chief commissioner has travelled around the country and met with over 100 stakeholder groups. She heard them. They told her that even more needs to be done to promote Canada's vision of an inclusive society. And above all, we need to ensure that everything we do is focused on helping people, by putting people first.
The commission serves a protection function by administering the Canadian Human Rights Act.
[English]
Each year we receive and review up to 2,000 discrimination complaints based on 11 grounds of discrimination such as race, age, sex, and disability. Some of these complaints are given priority if the alleged discrimination appears to be systemic in nature, since such complaints could involve practices or actions likely to affect many people. Some complaints that are time-sensitive or involve someone in a particularly vulnerable situation are also given priority.
Most of the complaints will be referred to mediation. Should mediation fail to resolve the complaint, the commission may launch an investigation. However, in some situations, when warranted, the commission may refer the complaint directly to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, a separate and independent organization. Should the commission refer a complaint to the tribunal, we may participate in the case to represent the public interest.
The recent ruling involving first nations child welfare services is one example. A second example is the commission's participation in discrimination cases involving caregiving, and in particular the obligation of employers to accommodate these needs.
We have other powers under the act, mostly under section 20, to help bring attention to human rights issues, including the authority to submit special reports to Parliament. This was the case in 2001 when the commission presented a special report to Parliament on pay equity, called “Time for Action”, where we advocated for legislative change to ensure that pay equity is applied systematically and not on a case-by-case basis. Then, as now, we were motivated by the need to help Parliament navigate these important and sometimes complex pay equity issues.
This brings me to the commission's role in bringing about equal pay for work of equal value.
[Translation]
The principle of non-discrimination in wages is a well-established part of international human rights law. The right to pay equity was embedded in the Canadian Human Rights Act when it was created in 1977. This means that pay equity is legally protected as a fundamental right.
The commission's responsibility for pay equity is founded in section 11 of the act, which indicates that:
It is a discriminatory practice for an employer to establish or maintain differences in wages between male and female employees employed in the same establishment who are performing work of equal value.
In 1986, following extensive consultations, the commission adopted the equal wage guidelines to assist in the interpretation of section 11. The guidelines address gender predominance, what work may be compared, how wage adjustments should be calculated, and what “reasonable factors” may justify wage differences that would otherwise be deemed discriminatory.
[English]
These guidelines have proven helpful to the parties and the tribunal in interpreting and applying the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. It is important for you to know that the process for receiving and addressing public sector pay equity complaints changed in 2009 when the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act was enacted but not proclaimed in force. As a result, a transitional arrangement was put in place. For the past seven years, as part of this transitional arrangement, public sector complaints have been rerouted to the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board. As a result, the board has temporary jurisdiction to interpret and apply the pay equity provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act. However, the board does not use the commission's guidelines.
Complaints from private sector employees under federal jurisdiction continue to be handled by the commission.
This brings me to my final point: our views on the best model to move forward. The commission has in the past described the challenges in dealing with pay equity complaints, including in the 2001 report to Parliament that I mentioned earlier. With the potential for significant financial remedies and the law providing very little guidance in relation to the obligations of the employer and employee associations, the process has often been very litigious. Uncertain outcomes lead to hardship for both employers and employees. Some complaints, for instance, have taken decades to be resolved.
As we indicated back in 2001, the commission continues to believe that a proactive model is the best way to bring about pay equity in Canadian society. Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba all have proactive models that outline steps and timetables for the achievement and maintenance of pay equity in the public and private sectors. The proactive model has the advantage of ensuring broad implementation, reducing the need for complaints, fostering management-union co-operation, reducing ambiguity, making nondiscriminatory wages a priority, and achieving pay equity at a clear point in time without the need for large retroactive pay awards.
In conclusion, equal pay for work of equal value is a human right, and human rights are about putting people first. The current regimes do not provide easy, consistent, or efficient access to pay equity for anyone, which is why we support a more proactive pay equity model.
My colleagues and I would be happy to answer your questions. Thank you.
Under PSECA, for example, there is a regulation-making power, and we don't know what those regulations would be in terms of how the process would unfold. Depending on how those regulations would be drafted, they could impact on the result.
To be clear, we're not saying.... We do believe that in dealing with any human right, it's obviously always a good thing to have all parties working collaboratively to resolve the issue. For example, under the proactive models in Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba, there is a provision for management and unions to ensure maintenance of pay equity, so after the actual pay equity exercise has been implemented there's an ongoing responsibility on the parties—union and management—to ensure there are no inequities going forward. We do believe it is important for the parties to work together. Our view is that it would be better, in implementing pay equity, that there be a separate exercise.
We have a bit of concern about what can happen through the collective bargaining process. As you know, collective bargaining is, by its very nature, subject to trade-offs and negotiation, and we're just not sure that it's the best process to deal with the human right of pay equity. There should be a separate exercise with that.
I don't know if my colleagues have anything to add.
:
Unfortunately, I don't have an easy answer to your question. It's an important and good question. I'm just not sure.
In pay equity cases there are a lot of experts involved. One of the first tasks in a pay equity exercise, whether it be under the complaints model or a proactive model, is gathering job information. That can sometimes be difficult for a whole host of reasons. First of all, it's within the control of the employer to provide that information. Also, there isn't a positive obligation under the Canadian Human Rights Act to provide that information.
I can also tell you that in many cases job information is not up-to-date. There may not be any job information in some situations, so it can be a very difficult task just in preparing all of the job descriptions for all of the jobs that are at issue. That's the first step.
Then once you have the job information—assuming it's up-to-date, relevant, and useful—you have to evaluate the job. It may seem on the face of it simple to say, “evaluate the job”, but it can be difficult depending on the environment. Also, where there's a lot of money at stake—as I said in my opening comments—it can make it even more difficult, particularly where you're looking at the potential of a large retroactive pay adjustment. That can make it even more difficult and challenging for employers, for sure.
A lot can happen in one of these complaints. Over the course of time you can have a member of a tribunal no longer able to be part of that panel, and then what to do about that? You can have situations where there are conflicts around the admissibility of evidence that can take the tribunal off track for a long period of time. There can be information that comes out in the middle of a case that then has to be examined and dealt with.
But largely due to the amount of money involved and the complexity of the issues, as I mentioned earlier, these cases can take on a life of their own and just go on forever.
I'm not sure, Ms. Keith, if you have anything to add.
:
Thank you very much on behalf of the 3.3 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress for this opportunity to present our views on pay equity to this committee.
As you know, the CLC brings together Canada's national and international unions, along with provincial and territorial federations of labour and district labour councils. Our members work in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy, in all occupations, in all parts of Canada.
We've appeared multiple times before parliamentary committees on the issue of pay equity since 2004, when the task force released its report and recommendations. It's starting to feel a little bit like the film Groundhog Day. That being said, we're glad to see Parliament strike this committee and we urge you to take this opportunity to finally and quickly set us on a path toward concrete action to end the gender wage gap.
Our message hasn't changed much in 12 years, but then, gender wage discrimination has not changed much in 12 years. The labour movement is calling for the timely implementation of pay equity, the pay equity task force recommendations. The committee's work must result in legislation, and we don't need another study. We're also calling for the repeal of the previous government's Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, PSECA. As the only legislation in the 12 years since the task force, PSECA represented the very opposite of what the task force recommended.
It's time to clean the slate and start over, this time implementing proactive legislation, using the task force recommendations and the experience of existing proactive provincial laws in Ontario, and especially Quebec, which has been recognized by the International Labour Organization, the ILO, as a model.
The recommendations of the task force on pay equity were the result of years of careful and comprehensive study and consultation, and were widely supported by labour and women's organizations. The work of the task force is the most significant and in-depth study on pay equity anywhere, and is recognized as such by the ILO.
In our brief intervention I'll be highlighting some of the key recommendations that the CLC singled out for support when the report was released in 2004.
Women's work has always been undervalued and underpaid. This discrimination is a violation of human dignity and is a major factor in women's poverty, financial dependency, and vulnerability. It results in smaller pensions and disability benefits, a loss of autonomy, and an erosion of one's ability to participate fully in society.
The task force recommended that:
...Parliament enact new stand-alone, proactive pay equity legislation in order that Canada can more effectively meet its international obligations and domestic commitments, and that such legislation be characterized as human rights legislation.
This recognition that pay equity is a fundamental human right acknowledges that we require systemic solutions to eliminate systemic discrimination. We know that women experience the wage gap differently, so the response must address other forms of persistent systemic discrimination in employment. Women living with disabilities, racialized women, indigenous women, experience greater wage discrimination and other barriers in the workplace and are overrepresented in part-time and other precarious work.
The task force recognized that Canadian workers who belong to other designated equity-seeking groups also experience wage discrimination and the CLC supports a proactive pay equity law expanded to cover racialized workers, indigenous workers, and workers living with disabilities.
The task force recommended that legislation place the onus on employers to correct discriminatory wage disparities. It would obligate employers to work with unions and employee groups by creating pay equity committees to prepare and monitor pay equity plans in all workplaces, including those covered by the federal contractors program. These committees should include a significant portion of women workers from predominantly female job classes, and the plans would cover all workers regardless of full-time, part-time, contract, or casual status. This includes contractors whose economic dependence on an employer makes it appropriate to treat them as an employee.
Pay equity is complex work and it must include a process that enables workers to feel empowered, to feel that the value of their jobs is being set through a fair process. Employers should be required to provide committee members with the information and data required to establish a plan and maintain pay equity results through vigorous, well-resourced, and proactive enforcement.
Contrast this with the complaints-driven system, in which you might solve a problem for a particular group, but it involves a costly and lengthy process that is hard on everyone and frankly does not bring about solutions for others in similar circumstances.
Although the previous government labelled PSECA as “proactive”, we're not convinced of that. PSECA does not place the responsibility for eliminating discriminatory wages on employers alone. It introduces market forces as a factor for consideration when valuing women's work in the public sector. It only targets certain employers, redefines a female-predominant group, and restricts the comparator groups, thus making it more difficult to establish where wage discrimination exists. This is not proactive pay equity legislation.
The task force proposed the establishment of a separate pay equity commission to assist employees, employers, and unions to provide education on pay equity issues to resolve disagreements. This commission should have the power to look at economic dependence and have the power to develop criteria for making this determination. The CLC believes the commission could play an important role in holding employers accountable and ensuring transparency in enforcement.
After 12 years, working women deserve nothing less than proactive pay equity legislation. This committee's work must result in the tabling of a bill in short order. So much time, effort, and resources went into the task force consultation and report. We can't let it languish in the archives any longer.
Let us also be mindful that women have been waiting for longer than 12 years. We've been waiting for decades and decades, and while we wait, the debt owed to those who are caught in the wage gap continues to mount. These are women with children to raise, women who deserve a dignified retirement, and many are women who face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination both in the workplace and in the community.
Of course we realize that a new federal proactive pay equity law will not be a panacea for Canada's gender wage gap. It won't address the overrepresentation of women in part-time and precarious work, a situation exacerbated by their assuming the burden of providing care for children or ailing and aging relatives. It's only one step towards changing broader societal attitudes that are at the root of undervaluing women's work. While the committee isn't tasked with establishing a national child care system—which, by the way, we consider to be shovel-ready infrastructure—improving access to home care, or addressing the barriers to recruiting and retaining women in sectors that are traditionally dominated by men, the labour movement will continue to push solutions for these issues as well.
In conclusion, I want to offer a brief reflection on the impact of action and the lack of action. When I speak about pay equity, I often use the phrase “justice delayed is justice denied”, so I want to remember the groups of workers who had to wait decades for complaints to work their way through the courts, such as the Bell Canada workers whose case took 15 years, and by the time the settlement was reached, almost 16% of those workers had died and many more were frail and nearing end of life. Imagine for a moment their quality of life if they hadn't had to wait. Imagine the boost to the economy if that money had been in their bank accounts the whole time.
I don't want to use that phrase in yet another call for the implementation of the task force recommendations. I look forward to my next appearance before a House committee, next time testifying in support of a new proactive pay equity law.
Thank you very much.
:
That is correct. Thank you.
Madam Chair and honourable members of the committee, and Madam Clerk and committee staff, thank you for the opportunity to come before you today on behalf of the Association of Canadian Financial Officers.
My name is Dany Richard. I'm the executive vice-president of ACFO. I'm joined by Stéphanie Rochon-Perras, one of our ACFO labour relations advisers.
ACFO represents the accountants and financial professionals who make up most of the FI group in the federal public service. Our membership is proud to provide the strong financial stewardship and sound business advice that a modern and professional public service requires.
Our membership is also female predominant. We are currently in the midst of our second pay equity complaint under the transitional provisions outlined in the budget implementation act 2009. It is in this context that we are here today to share our thoughts on the pay equity legislative regime. Our view is that the current complaint-based process is unsatisfactory in tackling pay inequity. It takes too long, it costs too much, it's too adversarial, and it only compounds the issue of gender-based wage and systemic discrimination.
We are also of the opinion that the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act should be repealed for reasons that are widely known and are briefly outlined in our written submission.
Overall, ACFO supports the implementation of a proactive pay equity regime as recommended by the 2004 task force. We endorse the framework established under the Quebec Pay Equity Act as a model for a proactive federal pay equity regime.
We propose nine recommendations in our written submission, but in our time here today we'd like to focus specifically on one recommendation.
We'd like to focus on one specific recommendation, which is access to a variety of dispute resolution mechanisms.
At ACFO, we have a 25-year track record of success with alternative dispute resolution models. We were early pioneers of interest-based bargaining. We believe at our core that collaboration and being proactive are the keys to reaching settlements that benefit everyone. At the end of the day, achieving and maintaining equal pay for work of equal value is fundamental to employers, employees, and bargaining agents. We can all agree that employees should not endure or be subject to gender wage gaps and systemic discrimination. We firmly believe that what is needed is a holistic, collaborative, and non-adversarial approach.
If I can use ACFO as an example, I see it this way. We believe strongly in the merits of our particular pay equity case. Our third-party expert, an expert Treasury Board has relied on in the past, also believes in the merit of our case. We wouldn't have brought it forward otherwise. If we're right, every day, week, month, and year that goes by compounds the issue of gender-based wage and systemic discrimination. Getting to a fair and just resolution sooner is the right thing to do for our members and for the government we are proud to serve.
As himself said during the campaign, the “lost income potential because of the wage gap hurts Canadian families and hurts our economy.”
We need to strive for a legal framework that helps employers and employees jointly and effectively resolve pay inequity in the workplace. But eliminating a wage gap due to gender discrimination is only part of the solution. Unless the underpinnings of the pay system are addressed, systemic discrimination continues creating new wage gaps that widen over time. That's why a proactive model similar to the Quebec Pay Equity Act should be considered.
There's a misconception that pay equity is an historical problem. Our group is living proof that the problem persists today and will continue in the future. Overall, our view is that the principles of proactivity and collaboration must be the bedrock of any new model proposed for achieving pay equity.
With our time remaining, if it pleases the committee, I'd like to invite Stéphanie to speak to some of the specifics of our recommendation.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
We support a pay equity model with a proactive framework and a pre-emptive resolution mechanism, such as a requirement to create a pay equity committee in the workplace comprising bargaining agents, employees, employers, and experts and advisers. Joint accountability on pay equity through a pay equity committee is needed to oblige both parties to conduct their assessments in a collaborative and transparent manner. A requirement for ongoing information sharing needs to occur.
When disagreement occurs, a framework that provides and facilitates alternative dispute resolution mechanisms is also required. This would also create an avenue for parties to resolve their disagreements voluntarily through alternative means, such as mediation, conciliation, facilitated discussions, negotiations, and combined mediation-adjudication, for example.
It should be noted that the idea of informal conflict resolution in pay equity is not new. Conciliation and mediation services are available at the Canadian Human Rights Commission and in provincial jurisdictions. These have proven to be successful in preventing long, drawn-out, and costly litigation battles. The ACFO welcomes the use of an ADR model, both in the investigation and throughout the adjudication process.
Once a complaint is referred to a pay equity tribunal or body, we propose the additional availability of a dual-track system, with complex-track and fast-track mechanisms, depending on the nature of the case or issue in dispute and subject to strict procedural time limits in order to reduce the delays. A fast-track mechanism could also be a voluntary venue for final determination when other forms of ADR have led to an impasse.
Voluntarily choosing an expedited hearing in which a neutral third party could make a final and binding decision could also be an option. The nominee would be selected jointly through a roster of qualified and accredited pay equity experts or could even be assigned by the tribunal. Alternatively, only the portions of the dispute creating the impasse could be referred to the neutral third party.
There are many options here. The key is not closing the door on any of them prematurely. A fast-track mechanism that binds the parties and settles the complaint partially or fully would be optimal to counter the long, drawn-out litigation often seen in past and current complaints.
Our written submission contains more recommendations. We hope you’ll give them careful consideration as well, but we really wanted to stress the importance of the approach to dispute resolution.
Thank you for your time. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
To start out, thank you, everyone, for your comments here.
Having listened to testimony from the Human Rights Commission just prior to this, I want to pick up on some of the things they spoke about that were also reflected in the comments here.
In regard to one of the 2004 recommendations about the onus being placed on the employer to establish or achieve pay equity, I'm wondering if both of you could comment on what role bargaining agents and employees might play in that process as well, and also on the adjudication of what is an equal wage for work of equal value so that it is similar or parallel across sectors and different work types.
There was a comment made earlier about the role of bargaining in maintaining pay equity in the workplace. I wonder if you might comment on that and, once pay equity has been established, if you see any relevance to bargaining as maintaining pay equity in the workplace. Maybe that speaks to the dispute resolution mechanism you've talked about.
I do recognize the statement you said earlier, Ms. Rochon-Perras, that obviously pay equity is a human right and shouldn't be subject to collective bargaining.
I totally respect where that's coming from. If PSECA were in force I would be interested to see. First of all, I think it actually adds transparency and accountability to both the employer and the bargaining agent or the union, simply because a proper assessment of the workplace is done, outlining pay equity issues, and that actually, from my understanding, would be shared with all employees.
Then you enter into a process and, by the way, pay equity is a compensation issue. I understand compensation is discussed at collective bargaining. This is one way where every three, four, or five years you actually force the issue so that people discuss it.
I do recognize your concerns when you say that pay equity is a human right and thus shouldn't be a part of bargaining, but at some point we have to deal with the culture issue, where if an issue isn't in front of us we don't deal with it. Oftentimes it gets shunted to the back.
I'd like your views on the changes with that assessment and the accountability mechanism with employees where they would know that both parties are dealing with that issue.
Barb and Vicky, I just want to thank you for your presentation.
I think I am supportive of the fact that we don't reinvent the wheel from 2004. We've heard from lots of witnesses about how extensive that was and the number of people involved. Also, we have three other models taking place that we can actually, if they found improvements, build on.
I want to give you an opportunity, and Dany and Stéphanie, as well. Sometimes, I think, we get bogged down. I think it's very clear that this is not going to end all the gap in wages. I totally understand that, but I don't want that to be a barrier for us to move forward in a fairly significant way, to at least start to attack it.
I'm just giving you an opportunity to talk about why it's important to move forward on this piece. The 2004 report did talk about cross-discriminations in other groups. Why is it important to make this step, now, in this area, even though it's not going to solve the world's problems? I guess that is what I'm saying.
I'm going to go quickly because I'd like to leave any remaining time for Ms. Sidhu
I have two sets of questions. The first set is for the Canadian Labour Congress, First, thanks to both of you for your wonderful presentations.
First, you've already mentioned, Ms. Smallman, that the Quebec model could be held up as something for us to look at. Please be specific if you can. We do have three provinces with pay equity legislation. Could you point out things you might specifically like or not like or are worried about in any of this legislation?
Also, if we at the federal level were to put in proactive federal pay equity legislation, is there anything you think we have to be cognizant of in making sure that we're complementary with what already exists in the provinces?
The second part is a completely different set of questions for the Association of Canadian Financial Officers. What is the pay equity deficit within the ACFO? Have you done any studies of what the cost would be if we brought in the pay equity legislation to equal levels. You talked quite a bit about the approach that you wanted us to consider, but I wonder whether you looked at the methodology you chose to get to the pay equity level. Those are my sets of questions.
:
If you look at the recommendations that came out of the task force in 2004, and what the role was between employers and employee groupings, unionized or not, and also the whole question of a pay equity commission, this is a larger issue.
We are all affected by our biases of how we see our own work and other peoples' work. For example, when I was first dealing with pay equity, I could not get my head around the issue of effort in a job.
Then I read a document, and I think it came from the Canadian Union of Public Employees. It explained that we can figure out effort if it's a predominantly male position, for example, on a construction site where the worker is picking up big bags of cement or logs. There's grunting and sweat and all that sort of stuff that goes with it. However, when there is a woman who works at a keyboard all day long, it's not seen as effort. With a woman who works as a cashier in a grocery store who's constantly picking up bags of groceries, that's not seen as effort.
What we're saying is that no matter what the workplace is, large or small, there has to be those discussions. There has to be the fair evaluation, and there has to be resources available for people to do this.
The question was raised about the costs in terms of closing the gap in particular workplaces. When we're talking about this as somehow somewhere else, I want to say to all of you, what's the cost for every one of those women who has not been paid fairly for years? There's a cost to them way more than there is to employers, quite frankly.
:
Thank you very much. I want to thank all the presenters for the great presentations and answering of questions so far.
One of the presenters, Barbara, had mentioned that the issue and discussion around pay equity was a bit like watching Groundhog Day, and we're reminded of how that movie finally ends when the main character starts caring about other people. Really, that's the purpose of this committee, and I see us going there.
I'm going to ask you a similar question to one I asked the previous folks, but more specific. We talked about the length of time that unions have been dealing with various things, whether it's with Canada Post, the issue that I mentioned, which was was about three decades, or Bell Canada, as you mentioned, which was about a decade and a half. They're going before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board, in particular in the case of Canada Post, which did take quite a bit of time.
Could you explain to me how the process and the outcomes differ in cases before the PSLREB compared to the CHRT? I shortened it up with the acronyms.
:
No, I don't have a clear answer for you on that.
What we're saying is the recommendations of the task force were that you would actually have a process that would move quicker. It would move faster. It would be proactive. It's not based on, again, complaints of particular groups, and presumably there would be more resolve to settle this.
If you think of the millions of dollars—and I mean millions of dollars—spent by Bell Canada and by the federal government when it was fighting its own employees on pay equity, that money could have been better used to do the work that needed to be done in proactive pay equity legislation and in the education that's needed in removing the biases from workplace evaluations of positions and getting the money into people's hands who deserved it because that's the reality. Whatever process you choose to come to, and we hope you come to choosing what the task force has recommended in terms of proactive legislation, it has to be on the basis that we can actually find solutions for people who are paid unfairly. This is discrimination in people's paycheques. I don't know if somebody has an easier answer on the comparison you ask, but that is the reality of what we're facing. It's the cost to women.
You can say, let's wait four years because the employer and the union.... Again, as has already been pointed out, it's a question of what the power relationships with the workers are in the workplaces. You can say, well, let's come back at this every four years. If it's your mother, your sister, your daughter, the women friends that you know who are being paid unfairly, do they get to wait another four years and then maybe another four because that wasn't agreed? It's already been pointed out that you can't bargain away human rights.
I'll be making my short presentation in French, but I'll be ready to take your questions in English and answer as best I can in my second language. I'll try to be as precise as possible.
[Translation]
Thank you for the invitation and for agreeing to hear from CUPE.
My name is Annick Desjardins. I am the Executive Assistant of CUPE's National President's Office. I spent 13 years as a coordinator at the human rights department in our Quebec regional office. So is truly in my capacity as an expert in charge of wage equity litigation files that I have come here to try to provide some details and clarifications on our experience at CUPE, especially with the Quebec legislation.
On a national level, CUPE represents 635,000 members in Canada who are working in public services, but also at private companies. More than 18,000 of our members are in federally regulated industries, including about 10,000 in the airline industry. Aside from the airline industry at CUPE, the majority of our members working in federally regulated businesses are located in Quebec. That province has a statute on wage equity, but the legislation does not apply to those individuals because their businesses come under federal jurisdiction. Therefore, only this House has the jurisdiction to address their rights to wage equity.
As an organization, CUPE has extensive experience in pay equity, as well as in employment evaluation, which is a key element of any fair pay equity exercise. CUPE is familiar with both complaint-based systems and proactive systems, especially those of Ontario and Quebec, which apply to employers beyond the public sector. Of course, we have to mention our wage discrimination complaint under the Canadian Human Rights Act. The complaint pertained to Air Canada's flight attendants. Despite many years before the courts on preliminary issues, the complaint fizzled out when the commission refused to take the matter before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Therefore, like the commission we heard from earlier, the CLC and all the stakeholders you have heard from this evening, we absolutely feel that it is high time to adopt the recommendations of the federal pay equity task force. The task force carried out some absolutely amazing consultations across the country, met with experts and issued sound recommendations based on experience. Our experience at CUPE is very much in line with those recommendations.
As a prosecutor from Quebec, I can give you more details about our experiences with the Quebec legislation. I could answer any questions you may have on the issue. I handled complaint cases under the system that was in place before a proactive piece of legislation was adopted. So I am very familiar with both systems. I have also pursued cases under the Canadian Human Rights Act in federally regulated businesses.
Since the Quebec legislation came into force, CUPE has established about 300 pay equity programs in Quebec. We have a similar experience in Ontario, with about 600 pay equity programs. That work was done with employers on joint committees. I can tell you that, in Quebec, all those exercises have at least been useful because they have led to certain adjustments to female jobs.
I would like to say a quick word about a slightly more practical perspective on the proactive model versus the complaint-based model, which we could call an adversarial system. To make sure you understand why a proactive system is preferable—since you asked questions about this and you received some good answers—I will provide you with a concrete perspective. To achieve pay equity and bridge discriminatory wage gaps, a company's female and male jobs have to be compared on an objective basis. So jobs have to be evaluated using a neutral tool, which we generally refer to as “an evaluation plan”.
The evaluation plan is used to assign a score or a rating. It is basically a point value associated with jobs and not the individuals doing the jobs. The rating is tied to the actual job and not to its specific tasks.
Those jobs are evaluated based on objective factors and sub-factors. Among the major categories of factors considered are qualifications, responsibilities, efforts and work conditions. The evaluation itself still remains subjective, and the idea is to determine where the job should fall at each level of each factor.
In a proactive model, this is determined by consensus by a committee of employer and employee representatives. We share the information on tasks identified by the employer and well-known to employees because they are the ones doing the work. In fact, we come to an agreement on the value of jobs.
In a litigation model or a complaint-based model, the evaluation must be proven according to the rules of evidence in civil actions through testimony and through the cross-examination of ordinary witnesses familiar with the work, as well as expert witnesses who provide an evaluation based on their scientific knowledge of the issue. The content of tasks and the level to be assigned to each factor and sub-factor are the subject of endless testimony and cross-examination. That is why a decision may take 15 or even 30 years.
Once the jobs have been evaluated, wages and value have to be compared using reliable statistical methods. In a proactive model, the methods are laid out in the legislation, and they're simply applied by the committee. In a complaint-based model, the matter must come before the courts—with experts, second opinions, testimony and cross-examinations. Experts contradict each other based on their clients' interests. That is why the process is endless.
The complaint-based system is inefficient. We all want a proactive model to be adopted to put an end to this litigation parade that is costly for everyone and leads nowhere.
The key elements of a proactive system are part of the task force's recommendations, but I want to emphasize a few of them in particular. The coverage must be as broad as possible. In addition, the process must have rigorous oversight because, the more that is left to the discretion of the parties, the more disagreements there will be within the committee, and that may also lead to litigation.
I am being told that my time is up.
Thank you. I am ready to answer your questions.
Thank you very much to the committee for the opportunity to present today on an issue that is extremely important to my members.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada represents 57,000 professionals across Canada's public sector, over 40% of whom are women, and the vast majority of whom work in the federal public service.
The right of women to equal pay for work of equal value with men has been reinforced by Canada's ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other international human rights instruments as well as by the Canadian Human Rights Act currently.
For nearly a decade, however, there's been a void in pay equity in the federal public service amongst its relatively higher percentage of unionized and increasingly female workforce. In fact, my very presence here today as president of a union of professionals in the federal public sector evidences this drastic increase in women in these professional categories. This translates for us into an urgent need for pay equity legislation that will provide true, proactive, and timely means to implement pay equity and operate in a manner consistent with, amongst other things, existing human rights obligations, lessons learned from past experience, and pay equity jurisprudence.
I refer back again to the task force report of 2004 and facilitation of effective union participation. The institute maintains that the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, PSECA, violates the fundamental equality right of women in the federal public sector to be free from wage discrimination in the payment of their work and it perpetuates ongoing sex-based wage discrimination in the federal public sector.
This act fundamentally erodes the substantive right of public sector women to be free from sex-based wage discrimination, denies such women the ability to effectively implement and enforce even these eroded substantive rights, and imposes remedial restrictions that deny such women the right to have sex-based wage discrimination fully eradicated and prevented. In fact, PSECA is so fundamentally flawed, it cannot constitutionally be saved by any enacted regulations. Put simply, pay equity is a right, not an interest.
Individual complaints are not the best way to achieve pay equity within federal jurisdictions. Since the problem is found in the pay system, it makes sense that the parties to the collective agreement review the practices used to establish and implement pay. These parties must be vested with the responsibility to establish pay equity through a separate process. The institute cautions against measures that would tie the settlements of pay equity to collective bargaining timelines and compensation envelopes as included in PSECA. This would contribute to either delays in the setting of terms and conditions of employment through collective bargaining, inadequate attention being paid to the equitable compensation process, or more likely both. Putting pay equity in a separate process from collective bargaining allows both processes to move forward on a timely basis and to not compromise each other.
Any proactive legislation has to include and recognize clear roles, rights, and the responsibility of unions. Unions must be a party to agreements that establish pay equity. In the event that the parties are unable to reach pay equity settlements, either party should have the right to refer the dispute to an independent tribunal with pay equity expertise as well as a mechanism to help the parties resolve their disputes informally.
In conjunction with the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Financial Administration Act, the PSECA restricts unions and employees from challenging key provisions that directly set the wage rate of employees, primarily the classification system. The federal job classification system will be the biggest challenge to achieving pay equity, keeping in mind that, for my substantive group, the informatics workers in government, that classification standard was established before there were personal computers. So you can understand where the barriers in that system may be.
The multiple plans for multiple occupation groups that still exist are believed to encompass systematic discrimination and do not allow for easy comparison of the value of female work to male work. Past experience from the joint union management initiative, the universal job evaluation plan, and the universal classification standard as well as—I have mentioned—the 2004 federal pay equity review task force report have provided valuable lessons about the implementation of pay equity. These lessons should be considered in any future undertaking.
In closing, I would like to state that it is the institute's view that a proactive federal pay equity regime is a critical, albeit overdue, step in Canada's progress towards a fair and functional labour sector. The PSECA violates the charter and constitutes an unwarranted assault on public service unions. It should be repealed and replaced with new legislation.
The institute is ready to work jointly with the employer in ensuring that the work done by women and men is valued fairly with a view to ending pay discrimination and bringing Canada in line with existing national and international human rights commitments.
Thank you.
Good evening, and thank you for inviting the Public Service Alliance of Canada to appear before the committee.
PSAC represents about 140,000 members who may be affected by the recommendations made by this committee. These are members in the federal public service, federal agencies, crown corporations, ports, airports, and national museums.
We filed our first pay equity complaint in 1979, not long after the Canadian Human Rights Act became law. Over the years we've gained a lot of experience in this process. As the “Milestones” on page 3 in our presentation show, our members have had to wait many years to achieve pay equity. It took 15 years to resolve our 1984 complaint against the Treasury Board. Our 1983 complaint against Canada Post wasn't settled until 2013, literally 30 years later, and only after the Supreme Court was involved. We had former members in their eighties calling our offices, desperate to receive the money they were owed before it was too late. Sadly, I have to say that it was too late for some. That money went to their estates.
This is not what pay equity was intended to do. The federal complaint base model has been in place now for almost 40 years. That has given us more than enough time to assess its effectiveness. What we've found is that this model is highly adversarial. It requires legal expertise. It takes an excessive amount of time and resources to resolve the complaints. Budget and staff cuts can only add to the delays in dealing with complaints. Under this system it is virtually impossible for anyone to pursue a complaint who doesn't have the support of a large union or unlimited funds. As the federal pay equity task force concluded, it's an inadequate foundation for progress on pay equity.
Another model before us is the 2009 Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act. We believe there are a lot of problems with PSECA; perhaps that's why it hasn't actually been brought into force yet. The most serious concern is that it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We believe that setting up a scheme that only applies to women workers in the federal public service, and which also weakens their ability to achieve pay equity, is contrary to section 15 of the charter. We also believe PSECA violates paragraph 2(d) of the charter that guarantees freedom of association. PSECA prevents unions from representing their members in filing complaints and even includes hefty fines if they do provide any help.
These models are not going to help achieve pay equity. We believe there is a better way. I won't go into all of the task force findings, but it is important to note that through their extensive consultation process there were important areas of consensus. There was consensus that pay equity is a human right and is protected by constitutional equality rights; that the employers have a positive obligation to take steps to eliminate discriminatory wage differences based on sex; and that the pay equity regime must be accessible to both union and non-union workers.
Our union strongly urges this committee to support the comprehensive work done by the pay equity task force, which recommended adopting a new, proactive federal pay equity law.
There are key recommendations that must be part of any new law. All employees in the federal jurisdiction should be covered by the law, including employees who are not unionized; part-time employees; and casual, seasonal, and temporary workers. As well, pay equity coverage should be expanded beyond gender to include aboriginal workers, workers with disabilities, and workers of colour. The new law must include workers and their unions in developing pay equity studies and in maintaining pay equity over time. The task force also recommended that pay equity not be at the bargaining table. You can't bargain away human rights.
Finally, there needs to be a commission set up to assist employers, employees, and unions; and an expert tribunal established to quickly decide disputes between the parties. We would add that both the commission and the tribunal must be independent of the federal government and given the necessary funding to effectively carry out their roles.
Since the task force report was tabled, the labour movement, women's groups, and human rights organizations have called for its recommendations to be implemented. The Standing Committee on the Status of Women has tabled several reports over the years, all calling for implementation of the recommendations. Before now, the Liberals and the NDP each have introduced a private member's bill that would commit the government to putting the recommendation into law.
There has been much discussion over the years. Now is the time for action. Now is the time for this committee to recommend—to urge—that the government act without delay and make proactive pay equity legislation a reality.
Thank you for the opportunity to present our union's views.
Helen Berry, our pay equity expert, and I will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
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Thanks for the opportunity for UFCW to submit its testimony.
We represent more than 250,000 members across the country. UFCW Canada is a leading trade union in the retail, food processing, and hospitality sectors. Over 50% of UFCW Canada members are women. Close to 10,000 UFCW Canada members work in federally regulated sectors. They work in the transportation sector, at Canadian Forces bases, in credit unions, in the fishing sector, in mining, and in the milling sector, including flour, grain, and malt.
We applaud the federal government's commitment to take action to close the unacceptable wage gap between men and women, which contributes to income inequality and discriminates against women. UFCW Canada supports the forward-looking mandate of the Special Committee on Pay Equity to recognize pay equity as a right. We support the implementation of the recommendations in the 2004 pay equity task force final report, and the commitment to restore the right to pay equity in the public service, which was eliminated by the previous Conservative government in 2009. Proactive federal pay equity legislation is the starting point.
Canada's overall gender wage gap stands at roughly 30%, based upon average annual earnings using data from the most recent Canadian income survey, published by Statistics Canada in 2013. There are 8.5 million more women in the Canadian workforce than there were 20 years ago. With women's labour force participation and educational levels rising, there are still men's jobs and women's jobs, and there is still a substantial link between women's jobs and low pay. Gender-based pay inequalities are fixed in classification and pay.
As highlighted in the 2004 pay equity task force final report, racialized women, immigrant women, aboriginal women, and women with disabilities suffer from higher gender wage gaps. As fully recognized by the 2004 task force report, the gender wage gap is further intensified by the fact that women make up the majority of workers in precarious employment and in lower-paying occupations and industries. This form of employment is on the rise.
The discriminatory gender wage gap arises from occupational segregation and the prejudice and stereotypes reinforced by the labour market, which have undervalued and underpaid women and their work relative to men and their work. Today the Canadian labour market remains divided by sex across occupations in the private and public sectors. Valuing women's work; engaging in non-discriminatory labour market, workplace, and pay practices; and adopting, supporting, and funding social policies that enable and facilitate equal access to work, all build a stronger, more equitable economy.
It's important to recognize that pay equity has been fully recognized as a fundamental workplace right in Canada since 1972. In 1972, the International Labour Organization's convention 100 regarding the equal remuneration for work of equal value was ratified in Canada. Pay equity was incorporated in the Canadian Human Rights Act, but in a complaint-based system that denied effective access to pay equity for many women in the federal sector. The focus on pay equity as a priority human-rights mandate needs a gender and equity based planning, action, and monitoring lens. This is essential if there is a serious commitment to closing the gender wage gap.
The current system, as the other witnesses have already outlined, has many problems. I will skip that part in my witness report because I know it's getting a little late.
Moving forward, the federal government, working with employers and trade unions, needs to develop a systemic plan that targets closing the gender wage gap over a realistic time frame, and strategies for meeting those targets. UFCW Canada supports the Equal Pay Coalition's call to the government to close the gender pay gap no later than 2025. I believe they will be speaking soon to the committee.
We call for a proactive federal pay equity law modelled on the recommendations of the 2004 pay equity task force and the Quebec legislation with which those best align. UFCW Canada joins other trade unions and pay equity advocates in calling for the repeal of the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act. PSECA is fundamentally flawed and cannot be improved by any amendment.
Pay equity legislation, and not collective bargaining, is the proper way to achieve pay equity. Equal pay for work of equal value is an internationally recognized human right. It must not be left to trade-offs at the bargaining table. Governments and employers are responsible for securing this. Unions have a critical role, which must be built into pay equity legislation.
Freedom from discrimination is a fundamental human right, and freedom from wage discrimination is an essential component of this right. Proactive pay equity legislation is necessary to tackle the systemic discrimination in wages as part of a larger package of policy measures. In addition to biased job classification, a pay gap factor such as occupational segregation, precarious employment, and uneven distribution of unpaid labour must be addressed. Employment equity, universal child care, strong public services, decent work, living wages, and free collective bargaining are other measures required to achieve full wage equity.
As an immediate step, this committee has the opportunity to advance a proactive pay equity law as envisioned by the 2004 task force. The federal government should seize the moment to redress gender pay discrimination for workers under federal legislation and show leadership within Canada and internationally as well.
UFCW Canada is calling on the federal and provincial governments to implement additional recommendations—and I'm just going to list them because they are in front of you.
Make closing the gender wage gap a human rights priority. Enforce and expand pay equity. Promote access to collective bargaining. Require reliable scheduling practices and better notice periods. Legislate a living wage. Legislate equity compliance for workplace and business. Legislate paternity leave and provide high-quality and universal child care.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to be a witness here.
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I can speak a bit to the problems with the classification system with the federal public service.
There are 72 different classification plans in the public service, and not all of them measure the same thing. Most of them don't measure the same thing. Some of them were created, like the AS classification for administrative services, in 1965. The computing is not the same group as the CS group, but I think the data processing was created in 1978, and it's still used today to classify these jobs.
Part of the difficulty we have, and this was a problem with the PSECA legislation, is that you can't compare female-dominated jobs—and PSAC covers a lot of female-dominated jobs, most of our workers are female—and male jobs. You can't compare the wages for work of equal value because they use different measures.
In some cases they don't have all the four criteria under the Human Rights Act Equal Wages Guidelines, which are skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions.
The CR group, for instance, which is the clerical and regulatory group, has been around since the 1970s. That classification standard doesn't measure working conditions, which is a huge issue. It is the issue we raised back in our Treasury Board pay equity case. We have done a lot of work around the joint union-management initiative, and your concerns about bringing together job descriptions and things like that have happened over time. We did it in the eighties, and we did it in the nineties, but there hasn't been the impetus to push it forward. We still have the same system we were dealing with in 1965, which is inherently discriminatory.
:
First I just want to say thank you for your great presentations and thank you for hanging in there. I know my brain is kind of like....
I'm going to ask three questions, and feel free to answer any of them. They're addressed to all of you.
I was curious. As we started going down the line of questioning around the classification, it came to mind that if tomorrow we put into place the proactive federal pay equity legislation, what would the other difficult steps be to actually adhere to it from each of your perspectives? There are going to be some difficulties, and it's beyond just the classifications. What are some of the other elements that are not going to be easy for us to work through at the federal level when we're putting in the proactive model? That's the first question.
The second question I have is around cost. I know I've been asking this question, and I ask it not because I think if this is expensive I don't think we should do it. I'm very much a huge proponent of us moving as quickly as possible. I'm curious about the cost. I want to know whether there's been any costing done in any of your individual groups or unions on if we did pursue a proactive pay equity legislation at the federal level.
The last question I have is.... I come from a family that watches a lot of sports. In my very young days, I used to love Wayne Gretzky. They always say he always goes to where the puck is. For me the world of work is changing. I know that the best model people seem to talk about is the Quebec model now. If I was saying to you the world of work is changing and you wanted us to look at progressive proactive federal pay equity legislation, what are some of the other elements you think we need to be concerned with in drafting such a legislation?
I know they're big questions for late in the evening, but, please, if you could answer them, I'd be grateful.
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Maybe I'll start, since I haven't spoken to any of the questions.
I would like to advise the committee that I'm a recipient of pay equity. I've been with the federal government for 36 years, and many of those years were as a CR, which is the clerical regulatory category. When we filed our complaint in 1984, I was a CR and then subsequently got a pay equity cheque in 1999.
It's really difficult for the PSAC, when we've had so many pay equity complaints and it has taken so many years. Here I find myself now as the president of PSAC, elected first in 2012. Then, of course, we resolved the Canada Post pay equity, and I'm the individual who talks to the folks who want the cheque paid out to the estate. I'm the one they call to say, “My mother died”, or “My grandmother died. Who do I contact?” As a matter of fact, I think it should be known that Canada Post is still making cheques today as I sit here, because they haven't completed the payments.
Proactive federal legislation obviously would mean that we wouldn't be waiting 30 years to have pay equity. I would ask you to look at page 5 of our presentation. Clearly, the task force worked for two years, from 2002 to 2004; they commissioned research reports, heard from witnesses, had round tables and high-level discussions; and then they came through with a number of consensuses and principles. I would thus suggest to you that there wouldn't be difficult steps. I think we would need to have the commission established, we would need to have the tribunal, and certainly we would move forward from there.
Are there additional costs? Well, there are costs to going to court. When we have to file our complaints and we have to go through the human rights apparatus and we have to go to the highest court in the land, if I may be so cheeky, it costs money. From my perspective I think it's the way forward. It's what we should be doing, and I think it can be accomplished by this committee.
:
I'll jump in on the tail of Robyn Benson, because we come from a very similar predicament, if you will.
On the issue of costing—I'll start there, because the other two are related for me—we've just come through a government of 10 years during which almost the only considerations were economic in nature, so we've almost become allergic to costing at this point.
No, then; we haven't done the costing, but you can bet that in the context of a solution that costing would have to be done. In fact, we might be able to do it, if we had access to all of the information that we don't have today. That's one of our difficulties, getting access to the data that we need to do effective costing, or any kind of analysis, for that matter.
I agree that moving forward is not that difficult a path, really, if we choose the right plan at the get-go. We need a long-term plan, we need to be able to maintain pay equity over a long period of time, and we need to be committed to implementing and resourcing pay equity.
In my view, once you start with proactive legislation, the steps after that are much less difficult than one would imagine.