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.