Thank you, Chair.
On behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada, I would like to say thank you to the committee for the opportunity to share our perspective today.
Before I put forward some of our thoughts, perhaps it might be good to say a few words about who we are. UFCW Canada is the voice of Canada's food workers. We are one of Canada's largest unions. We are proud and privileged to represent more than a quarter-million hard-working people across Canada, and 1.3 million workers in North America, as we are an international union. About 80% of our membership works in food-related sectors. As we like to say, you can find UFCW members everywhere in the food chain, from the field to the fork.
Also, within our membership, we are very proud to include more than 10,000 members covered within the federal jurisdiction. They are G4S employees at airports. They work at banks. They're workers in the transportation industry, in grain milling, and at many of the Canadian Forces bases across the country.
Today I'm going to focus on the issues of pay equity and changes to the Canada Labour Code. We were very pleased with the announcement of the pay equity act. This legislation will go a long way in helping our members and their families directly. I mentioned that we have 255,000 members across the country, but what I may not have mentioned is that 52% of them are women. For many years, UFCW Canada has advocated for closing the gender wage gap. Specifically, we have recommended pay equity at the federal level as one way to begin addressing closing the gender wage gap.
We do however echo the concerns raised yesterday by the CLC, and we support their call for changes to the amendments to the bill. Very quickly, once again, they are within the purpose clause, which is clause 2. There's a qualifying phrase that says, “while taking into account the diverse needs of employers”. UFCW Canada thinks it should be deleted or amended. We recommend or prefer using some of the language in Ontario's pay equity act as an example.
Two, as for the requirement of unanimity of employee groups on pay equity committees, we would like this to be amended to bring it more in line with the language in Quebec's pay equity act.
Three, regarding retroactivity in pay equity maintenance, we simply echo the comments made yesterday by the president of the Canadian Labour Congress, Hassan Yussuff, asking for amendments that take into account the recent judgment on a similar provision in Quebec's legislation that was struck down.
With regard to the changes to the federal labour code, UFCW Canada was very pleased with the announcements, as were our members who are covered by those changes. In particular, the domestic violence leave provision is an issue that UFCW Canada has long advocated for on behalf of our members. Our members will also benefit from the equal pay for work of equal value and vacation entitlements, just to name two.
Many of these changes will benefit women and newcomers to Canada, many of whom become members of the United Food and Commercial Workers.
However, we also can't leave without mentioning our concern with the announcement on contract flipping, an issue very important and familiar to our members in the security sector and the building services sector. While we are happy with the protections for non-union workers, we do respectfully ask the government to go further by ensuring protections for all workers in the federal jurisdiction, including union members in collective agreements. This would go a long way in achieving fairness for everyone, and would provide stability and employment security for many of our members' families.
That will conclude my remarks for today. I'd like to thank you again for your work and the opportunity to be here.