Pay Equity Committee on April 18th, 2016

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

Okay, very good.

I'm potentially sharing my time with Dan, if I run out of questions.

Do we see situations where unions are bargaining and they agree on wages for the different classes, and then they pay the women less? Is that still happening?

[Barbara Byers]

Unions don't pay. The employer pays. The employer pays the women less.

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

Okay.

Mr. Richard, did I understand correctly that in the situation where you have these two pay equity complaints, they're complaints that pertain to work of equal value, not work in the same job class? Is that right?

[Stéphanie Rochon-Perras]

It's work of equal value.

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

Okay.

In terms of implementing the recommendations of the committee for small businesses, there was quite a number of recommendations that look to me like you'd have to scale them somehow for a small business or the bureaucracy would be huge. Other than the committee idea, which I think is key to any business, are there other critical elements that you think small businesses would have to have?

That's for anyone.

[Barbara Byers]

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.

[Vicky Smallman]

If I might add, you also have to think that when women have money in their pockets, they spend it at the small businesses in their communities. When you address the gender wage gap, it is a boost to the local economy, so independent businesses do benefit from this.

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

Thank you.

Dan.

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

Thank you.

I did already ask the other unions, so maybe I'll ask Ms. Byers and Ms. Smallman to comment on this.

You asked us earlier to put ourselves in a different role. I will put myself as a worker in your union, and there is an issue of pay equity. Under the PSECA, if it were in place today, it does say that there would be a workplace assessment on this very issue, and it would be transparently given to every employee. If there were an issue, then I would know that you would take it to collective bargaining to say we need to fix this. I would then be able to hold both the employer and my union representative to account if that issue were not properly resolved.

To me, the reoccurring framework that every four years this has to happen.... Perhaps if there were some of the other alternative resolution processes, I would feel better knowing that those are in place. However, don't you think members would appreciate knowing that ultimately they would get that kind of transparency and accountability? You said transparency and enforcement, but to me that would be the helpful part of the PSECA framework.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Unfortunately, there isn't time for an answer. You can come back around to that if you want in the future.

The next five minutes is for Mr. Sheehan.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

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.

[Barbara Byers]

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.

[Dany Richard]

I would just like to point out as well that this is for our members too. We've mentioned how it happens to female workers and it's something we're trying to work at, but when you are in a female-dominated group, it affects males as well. It's both people in the category. It's not just one. It's everybody who is in that same group.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

For the 2004 pay equity task force, the plans included part-time casual and temporary workers who work for the federal government. The casual and temporary workers—you've talked about them a bit in your presentation—are often dispersed to different departments, to different jobs, to different experiences. By definition they are not in their jobs for long periods of time. Often such workers are not represented by unions. How would a pay equity plan work for part-time casual and temporary employees who are often not part of a group?

[Barbara Byers]

You're evaluating the job, not the individual. If I am a casual or a part-time worker in one department, it's the job that's being evaluated. If I move to a different kind of job in another position part time—it would be better if I didn't have to have three part-time jobs—but pay equity is not about the individual, it's about the job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you. That's the end for that question.

Is it the will of the committee to continue and finish off this round with one more question each?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Then I'm going to Mr. Albas, for five minutes.

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

Thank you. I think we'll rewind a little. I'm a bit long-winded at the best of times, so the witnesses can excuse the delay.

I asked a question earlier about the transparency and the accountability framework. I recognize that if all we were talking about was just that every four years it would be looked at, I totally sympathize. I actually think we should be going with what Ms. Rochon-Perras and Mr. Richard have said. There should be alternative dispute resolution processes, and they should be more flexible, so there should be a committee.

But going back to that, if every employee understands what the pay equity situation is, and then something comes up and it is not dealt with, I know who to hold accountable.

What's wrong with a member being able to hold the government, in this case—because they are the employer—and the union accountable for not being able to address an issue?

[Vicky Smallman]

Pay equity is not about individuals. It's about job classifications. What proactive pay equity legislation does is not leave it to complaints, but make sure that employers are sitting down with their employees, unionized or non-unionized, evaluating the jobs together, and then determining what needs to be fixed. It doesn't leave it to collective bargaining or any kind of dispute resolution, although there might be disagreements that would go to a tribunal later. It does all of that on the front end. That's the preferable system.

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

What I'm suggesting is that you can have many of those elements outside of what you're talking about.

Furthermore, I've heard the term proactive a thousand times. I'm supportive of saying, “how can we fix the problem?”, but we want to make sure we understand clearly what we're suggesting.

When you say proactive, who do you intend should be carrying out the legislation? What body? Does it exist? Would you be taking the current Labour Canada representatives, who already have experience working directly with the private sector federally regulated industries? Would you harmonize where they would end up taking part of their job component and training? Or are you talking about a wholly different regime being carried out by a wholly different group of bureaucrats and employees?

[Vicky Smallman]

The task force is pretty detailed about recommending that there be a pay equity commission, in which there would be experts who would be able to advise employers and employee groups and provide the necessary information and research.

Pay equity is a really complex issue. I'm not a job classification expert myself—you might hear from a couple later—but you need to have that in order to be responsible.

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

I agree that there's a lot to the report, because I've gone through it, but I think sometimes we simplify to the point....

We've seen wages go up over the last 10 years. Also, the wage gap is slowly being eaten away, but we don't even know yet the methodology as to why that has happened. I haven't been able to get it.

I'm just asking the question because I want something that's going to work and be able to help solve the issue, but again simplifying. I don't think it allows us to really say with confidence that this is what's going to do it.

[Barbara Byers]

What we can say with confidence right now is that what is out there in the workplace isn't working for people who are facing wage discrimination. That's the reality.

Now, if you want to spend the next 200 years doing exactly what we've done in the previous 200 years whereby women are discriminated against in their paycheques, that's fine.

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

Madam, I don't think anyone's asking that here.