Evidence of meeting #21 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was model.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Candice, if you can explain it in two seconds, girl, go ahead.
Actually, you just have about ten seconds left.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Ten seconds. Okay.
Ms. Byers, you wanted to say something.
12:30 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress
I just wanted to say that of course we have the expertise, but we have the expertise that says this has to be done separately. It can't be part of regular collective bargaining.
As I said, you put the equitable compensation law and the wage freezes for the federal public sector in as part of the Budget Implementation Act and they got submerged with 57 other things. The same thing will happen on equitable compensation.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
We have another round to go, so somebody can decide, Candice, to let you jump in there again.
This is a three-minute round, please, so I would like both witnesses and questioners to be very aware that I'm going to be really rigid, because we would like to finish this round.
Madame Zarac.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
When you talk about pay equity, you are really talking about justice. And when you talk about justice, you are talking about rights. Rights should not be negotiable, especially since studies show that women are not good negotiators. So, if women have to defend their rights… Studies show that women's wages are 30 per cent lower than men's. That proves that they are not very good at negotiating their salary.
There will be victims, if things stay the way they are now. The victims will be the most vulnerable women. You talked about immigrant women. But, we could also talk about single mothers and go through a very long list of them. Now that the Court Challenges Program has been abolished, what kind of recourse will these women have? How will they be able to defend equity?
12:35 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress
Very briefly, they won't have a recourse; they won't have the resources. You're right that you can't negotiate away justice, dignity, and rights in the overall collective bargaining. But I would take exception with you about women not being good negotiators. Some of the toughest negotiators I've ever seen are women, and some of the toughest people on a picket line are women. The difference is that it takes us a while sometimes to get there. Sometimes we want to talk it through—we tend to want to take care of things—but when we get there, you have a hard time getting a group of women who decided to go out on the picket line to go back in until they get their rights.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
I agree with you. I just want to say that there are studies saying that in salary negotiation, often the women will not have as much; there are studies that prove that.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
You make some good suggestions. I would be interested in hearing your expert views on the proactive model. How can it improve the pay equity process?
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Perhaps the experts might want to divide that, amongst all the other questions, and throw it in, because you now only have 20 seconds.
Ms. Chicha.
12:35 p.m.
Professor, School of Industrial Relations, University of Montreal, As an Individual
Are you talking about the role that experts play in instituting pay equity, or about the proactive program?
12:35 p.m.
Professor, School of Industrial Relations, University of Montreal, As an Individual
The employer has an obligation to introduce it in the workplace. In other words, there will be no need to wait until an immigrant woman lodges a complaint for that to occur. On the other side—in other words, under the proposed legislation, there is no doubt that a non-unionized immigrant woman has absolutely no chance of being able to defend her rights.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
So, under the program you are advocating, right from the outset, there would not be a problem. The employer would already have to guarantee pay equity.
12:35 p.m.
Professor, School of Industrial Relations, University of Montreal, As an Individual
It would still be necessary to provide special support to non-unionized workers, immigrant women, and so on. At the Pay Equity Commission in Quebec, a committee is currently reviewing their specific situation. There are matters of language, time, and so on. Theirs is certainly a more serious and complex issue to resolve, but that does not mean we are not addressing it.
May 14th, 2009 / 12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Good morning, ladies. Thank you for being here.
After everything that I have been hearing today and for a while now, I must say that I am pleased that Ms. Demers has acknowledged that we all want to work together to gain a better understanding. I am having some trouble understanding the arguments, as someone who does not come from a union background, has never been a member of a union in her entire life and who always believed that a union was there “to defend the rights of the workers it represents”. What I understand from this legislation—the role of the employer was mentioned—is that the union has to be involved in order to ensure that pay equity for women is part and parcel of the collective agreement, so there is no more discrimination and that this right is laid out in black and white. As you stated, it is a fundamental right of women to receive the same salary as men. We all agree on that around this table. As I see it, the union is there to act as a “watchdog” with the employer, to ensure that women receive a level of compensation equal to that of men. When I hear these kinds of reactions, I am a little taken aback, because that is not how I had understood, and continue to understand, this legislation. I have no desire to do anything that would harm the cause of women—quite the opposite. I am a member of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women because I want to advance that cause.
We also have to think about the ones coming up behind us—our children. I have two daughters aged 20 and 21. When I talk to them about the status of women and everything that we do here, they look at me as if to say they don't see any problem, even though it is a well-known fact, as all of us here are aware, that they will still face this issue 20 years from now. I am having trouble understanding. Pay equity is not a negotiable right, any more than other rights are, but I can tell you we certainly did not intend—at least I did not, and I never saw it that way—for unions to be… We all know that the employer pays the salaries, but the union has to be there to ensure that this fundamental right of women is acknowledged. I think it is appropriate for them to sit down all together to ensure that women have equal status and are given the same rights. That is something I would like to do--
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
That was a statement. There was no question there. The three minutes have been used up.
Johanne Deschamps.
12:40 p.m.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
If it's all right, I would like to let you respond to Ms. Boucher, but I also want to add that I am happy to hear her saying that pay equity is a non-negotiable right. That is not what the current legislation reflects.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress
Let's be really clear here. If we had an equal power relationship in the workplace, you would have better ground to stand on. The reality is that we don't.
We don't control the workplace. We try to bargain for a better situation for all our members. We defend our workers and we try to improve their work situation, but workplaces would be dramatically different if this were an equal power relationship with the employers and we had equal say. We defend members every day who face discrimination, either through their wages or through other areas, and we would change things dramatically. Quite frankly--
12:40 p.m.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Ms. Byers, I would like to pursue this discussion. There is one thing that really bothers me. If the union is supposedly there to support the workers and defend them, why did the government provide, under Section 36, that a union representative is not allowed to help an employee who wants to file a complaint? Why did it have to go and include Section 41, which provides for a fine of up to $50,000 to be levied against a union that violates Section 36?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress
I think it's to catch the unions coming and going, if I can use that English expression. We're prevented from helping anybody. We'll be fined if we help you. But, by the way, you're equally responsible when you get to the bargaining table. You can't have it both ways.
So it works that way. If we really do want to do something for women, if we are all on the same page, this law isn't going to do it.
By the way, there's no timeline in here that's going to get women any faster settlement. Even if they wanted to take up the time, they're not going to get any faster settlement than the hundreds of women who have gone before them. It's not going to do anything. In fact, if it were going to do anything, you'd see us saying, “This is great. This moves things ahead. This is exactly what we wanted. This is exactly what we've asked for.”
We've praised legislation when we thought it was going to advance people's justice and dignity in the workplace--we have--but this isn't going to do it.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I think one of the problems here is that the government does not understand, and never did, the complexity of a pay equity settlement. It's comparing jobs, jobs that are very often disparate in terms of what is actually done, despite the fact that they require comparable skills, expertise, effort. I think that's at the basis of it.
Today we've heard from members of the government party that they want to work cooperatively to make sure that women achieve fair pay equity.
What do they need to do?
12:40 p.m.
Human Rights Director, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
They simply need to look at the task force report and implement the recommendations from that report. It's as simple as that. The work has been done. I've said it a few times, the work has been done. All you need now is to implement it, with goodwill from everyone to do that.