Pay Equity Committee on April 11th, 2016

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Under the PSECA architecture, the equitable compensation assessments themselves happen before collective bargaining, and they are done on a recurring basis. What extra value is there to that, rather than just pinpointing current issues?

To me, anytime you have to revisit something at a certain time, it almost entrenches the process or is a cultural shift, so to speak.

We've heard from witnesses today about some of the challenges when you have just a legislative framework. Oftentimes there are societal overtures that may not provide for that. To me that seems to be the proactive centrepiece of this new model. Could you expand on that?

[Renée Caron]

First, I would clarify that PSECA was never brought into force, so those assessments have never been done under PSECA. Our experience with these kinds of evaluations for pay equity purposes is still under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The assessments themselves are still based on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions, whether you are looking at it under PSECA, if that were in force, under the CHRA, or indeed under the Bilson recommendations. They are all looking from that lens at determining job value.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

You raised earlier that it's a government decision to bring that part of the law into force. Is it because they are going through collective bargaining right now? Is that why the government probably doesn't want to add another issue on top of everything else?

[Manon Brassard]

I think it has to do with wanting to look at the policy underpinning of this.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Were there any stakeholder consultations on this new process, when it comes to these assessments being put in place?

[Renée Caron]

There were a few rounds of consultation regarding the development of regulatory policy directions under PSECA. There were consultations done in 2010 as well as in early 2013, I believe. These provided some opportunity to have discussions with stakeholders at the time. We met with union representatives and we met with employer representatives and talked about how the regulatory policy could be developed to fill some of the gaps left in the statute itself that need to be set through regulations.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

There's the framework that was created, but not all of it is in place. Right now, there are transitional rules. Can you, then, go through what some of the transitional rules do right now?

[Manon Brassard]

I'm not sure it needed regulations. The regulations are not adopted, so there are not transitional rules per se.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Is there nothing in place of this? I thought there were some transitional rules that would immediately transfer from the Canadian Human Rights Commission and then subject that to the Public Service Labour Relations Board. Is that right?

[Renée Caron]

Yes. There were consequential amendments made, I believe, to the Canadian Human Rights Act, but in effect, in 2009 complaints that were at a certain stage in the process and not too far advanced in the Canadian Human Rights Commission process were required to be transferred to the Public Service Labour Relations Board.

That only applies to the federal public sector, so it has no impact whatsoever on the private sector. Those consequential amendments are in effect. That's the only very narrow slice that is in force.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you. That's our time. We'll go to the next question.

Ms Romanado, you have five minutes.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation. Let me say that I'm new. I'm replacing a colleague, so please forgive my very simple question.

From looking at the data that you provided us and listening to the presentations, it's clear that the wage gap still exists both in the federal public service as well as in the federal private service. While we've been able to reduce it over the last 12 years, it in fact still exists, and you've given us concrete data to support this.

My question is simply this. If you're able to pinpoint with accuracy the wage gaps, how is it that we're not able to then address them? We know exactly who's making what, obviously, with this data. If we know for a fact that a female is making less, why aren't we just fixing it? This may sound like a very simple question, but I'm curious. in 12 years, how have we not been able to fix this?

[Anthony Giles]

It's because the gender wage gap is a measure of the difference not between men and women doing the same job, in which case you'd be perfectly right. In the case of equal pay for equal work, that could be addressed as soon as it's identified. The wider gender wage gap, however, springs from a number of different reasons. It has to do with career choices. It has to do with occupational segregation. It has to do with a range of factors that don't just apply to individual cases of unequal pay. That's why tools such as pay equity programs have been thought about as ways to address different parts of that gender wage gap.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay.

In your presentation, Mr. Giles, you talked a little bit about the employees, the unions, and those employers who believe that pay equity is not being achieved being able to complain to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. How many employers are actually filing complaints?

[Anthony Giles]

I'm not aware of a single one. I'm not aware—I don't have a complete list—but I'd be surprised.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

So the onus is on the employees in the union to get the information to file a complaint, whereas it's the employers who have the data on the wage gap.

[Anthony Giles]

Yes. In unionized sectors often that data can be collected by unions. It's rarer of course for individual employees to be able to make those calculations. That's the fundamental feature of the existing federal model, the original federal model; it's complaint-based. It depends on someone coming forward, making a sufficient case, to trigger a discussion between the employer and the employees, because sometimes they are settled without going to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. That's the fundamental difference between that model and PSECA, the Bilson recommendation, and the models in Ontario and Quebec, which were all proactive and required not just complaints but actual proactive addressing of the problem.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Further to my colleague's question, if we know that the federal public service has salary ranges and that there's really not much room for negotiation in terms of on-boarding and starting salary, where is this gap happening? If we know it's not happening in the recruitment and on-boarding salary, I don't know if in the federal public service you have more opportunity for negotiating your starting salary.

I'm just trying to pinpoint where the problem is starting because it seems as if we're reactive, as you mentioned, having to file a complaint when we realize that so-and-so is making less, versus a proactive approach where it's automatic that equal work has equal pay and so on. I'm just trying to figure out where it's happening so we can prevent it, instead of having to react to it. Could you elaborate?

[Manon Brassard]

Pay equity and wage gap are related but they are not the same thing. With pay equity in the government the idea is that if, after doing the SERWC, a job's value is 600 points and another one is 600 points, then it's the same pay. The wage gap is different because you take all the women doing all sorts of work—part time, full time, all of that—and find hourly rate x. It's the same for men, hourly rate y. They are higher, but you're not addressing the same issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

I'm sorry, your time is up.

We'll go to the next questioner, and it is Ms. Gladu for five minutes.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Continuing on the theme of where the problem is happening, I think we heard previous witnesses tell us that within the same job class we're pretty good, but in this area where it's equal pay for work of equal value, there's some discussion. It looks as if there's a good methodology here with the SERWC tool and the criteria, but it's not being implemented.

In the places where it has been used, how contentious is it? Is it something that when you apply these factors it seems clear to everybody on all sides that you are correct, or are the criteria themselves contentious?

[Manon Brassard]

I'd say just about everything is contentious.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Manon Brassard]

It's a complaint-based process. First you have to identify the group. What's the female-predominant group you are talking about? It can be a long discussion. Then where are the male comparators? Another long discussion about that. Then how do you value? So that's the SERWC. That's why sometimes we go to court and we have experts, two experts, three opinions. You get an expert saying that SERWC means this and another who says that SERWC means that. It's not mathematical. A judgment needs to be brought into this.

At some point you come to a conclusion on the value of work, but at every step there's room to interpret, to make representations, and then a judgment needs to come down. Either a third party or the parties themselves agree, and one is able to convince the other, and in the end you have a result that way.

[Anthony Giles]

Just to add to that, the problem of the contentious nature, or frequently contentious nature of the process isn't limited to pay equity comparisons. It happens in most kinds of job evaluations whether they're done for pay equity purposes or whether they're done to design a sensible compensation structure in an organization.

As my colleague says, there is inevitably some judgment involved in peoples' perceptions of what their work is worth versus someone else's. There are techniques to help people through that, but it's naturally contentious.