Status of Women Committee on May 14th, 2009

[Gisèle Pageau]

You made a comment that you're looking at it from a different equity lens.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Not a different equity lens, sorry, but a different lens in terms of how we can accomplish the goal.

[Gisèle Pageau]

Okay. Well, with all due respect, I think the lens is perhaps a little out of focus.

Pay equity does not belong at the bargaining table. It's a human right. It would be like bargaining a right for workers of colour. You have certain rights: you have to go in and bargain rights for workers of colour, or you have to go in and bargain rights for workers with disability. It just does not belong there.

Don't forget, the responsibility for remuneration, or your pay, belongs to the employer, not the union. We cannot control the employer when there are large budgets, in how they decide to spend their profits or whatever. The responsibility for paying employees belongs to the employer. Pay equity is simply a human right.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Yes, but so does health and safety belong to the employer.

Anyway, thank you very much.

[Barbara Byers]

The employer is responsible for providing a safe and healthy workplace.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You can come back to that in a minute, Barbara.

Nicole Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ladies, I would like to thank you for being here today.

I have been listening to comments made on both sides of the table. I know Ms. Davidson; she is an honest person. I think she is sincere when she says that her government is doing this to ensure that women achieve pay equity. At the same time, I wonder how the current could have been transformed to the point where that would seem to be true. If the government had really been sincere about pay equity, it would have given women the opportunity to defend themselves, it would not have abolished the Court Challenges Program and it would not be imposing a $50,000 fine on the unions when a women has to defend herself when she is unsuccessful in achieving what she is entitled to through negotiations.

Were you consulted when the government decided to include this bill in the budget legislation? Have you heard of any individuals or organizations that were? What prompted the government to respond in this way to what is such an obvious problem? Working at a school of industrial relations does not mean you are left-wing or right-wing. It is simply a matter of logic.

I think my colleagues are sincere. They believe that their government is also acting in good faith.

[Gisèle Pageau]

The unions were not consulted before this bill was drafted. It's quite simple: if the government is sincere about wanting to ensure there is pay equity, all it has to do is read the study and the report that were issued, and look at the results of the consultations that took place. They will provide all the answers that it needs. Then it can do exactly what the recommendations suggest. There are about 115 of them, and they answer all the questions raised by your Conservative colleagues.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Why do you think the government wanted to segregate people working for the public service from people working for federally-regulated private companies? Does that mean the government does not want these individuals to achieve pay equity? In your opinion, pay equity should apply in the public service. Does that mean there is no desire to ensure that others have pay equity?

[Barbara Byers]

I guess now we'll have two systems that don't work for women.

Gisèle will still deal in the federal private sector with...because nothing has been done to improve that system. Nothing's been done to make sure it meets the requirements of the task force.

Quite frankly, we'll have a way to keep public sector wages down, and there are a lot of women employed in the federal public sector, we know that. There are certainly some business groups who have lobbied to try to keep public sector wages down, because obviously it's competition with them. If you're a woman working in a private sector, non-union environment and you don't get very much in wages, don't get any benefits, if you have an opportunity for a better job in the federal sector, obviously you're going to go there.

Quite frankly, I think this law is mean-spirited toward women who work for the government. I don't mean the government in terms of political parties, I mean the government, the people who try to provide services on a day-to-day basis. It's just mean. It's penalizing women through their paycheques.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Byers, there's a half minute left.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I am very upset. I don't know how to get through to my colleagues in terms of convincing them that we have a valid viewpoint. I only want what women are entitled to, which is pay equity. I introduced it in 1998, with my colleagues at the Coopérative de soutien à domicile, when the legislation came into effect in Quebec. We did a comparison of the work done by women providing housekeeping services to that of men doing heavy work, to ensure that, in relation to the work done, the wages given were equitable and equal. That was some 11 years ago.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

That was a statement, Ms. Demers.

Ms. Mathyssen.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I've been listening very intently, and Ms. Byers, you talked about the resistance to pay equity as being mean-spirited. It's also very expensive. In your brief, you talked about the federal pay equity settlement being delayed—in the case of Canada Post, by 25 years.

Do you have any idea of what the monetary cost of fighting that battle was for the union? Do you have any sense of what it probably cost the federal government, the taxpayers, to fight that prolonged battle?

[Barbara Byers]

I don't have those specific figures, but surely we could find them.

There would be a huge expense, obviously, to the taxpayers and to the unions. Gisèle would certainly know from the Bell Canada case.

In our office, one of the executive assistants to our president was an EA at the time. She had come out of the old Communication Workers of Canada and was on the stand for 18 months. That's no small amount of money for lawyers.

So it's a huge cost. It's a huge cost for the union. It's a huge cost for the taxpayer who's paying for the employer to stop this. Or, quite frankly, if you have your service with Bell Canada, you're paying for them to fight it.

But think about what the cost is for each of those women. It's sinful. It's absolutely sinful that those women weren't going to get paid. And as Gisèle said, many of them died. How long do we have to wait?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Yes, that's right. My next question was going to be what was the emotional cost, because that protracted battle must have really played upon individuals.

[Gisèle Pageau]

The emotional cost was unbelievable.

I can tell you first-hand how many calls I would get from operators who were ill, or who were living below the poverty level because they were still waiting for the pay equity adjustments to their pensions. I had spouses call and say, “My wife died, but please keep me informed.”

As for the actual financial costs, I can tell you, and I make no bones about this, the cost of achieving pay equity at Bell for the union was well over $5 million.

Let me put it into perspective. I'm at the hearings, and I don't make lawyers' wages. I had one lawyer, sometimes two. Bell Canada, every day, had five to seven lawyers, who were much more expensive than my lawyer. It was estimated that Bell Canada spent anywhere between $3 million to $5 million a year on legal costs.

Bell Canada purposely dragged this on, as Ms. Byers just mentioned. Our key witness was under cross-examination for 18 months. That's 18 months on the witness stand while not being able to speak to anybody about the case. Think of what that did to her and how it looked.

So the system is completely broken. The women of Bell Canada, the ones who were left living, yes, they received some moneys and their pensions were adjusted. However, out of the 4,700, about 18% were gone. We did manage to negotiate that Bell Canada would not retain that money. It did go into the women's estates. However, it was the operators' money, not the estates' money.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

So to avoid that pain, we need the pay equity task force report of 2004. That's all we need.

[Gisèle Pageau]

That's all we need. It's all done. It's ready. Just do it. It's so simple. It boggles our minds why it's not being done, because it's simple. The work has been done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Hoeppner.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much.

I have to say, listening to the discussions today, being part of this committee, many times our opposition colleagues do their jobs and they very passionately oppose most of what the government does, and that's their job. With you ladies here as witnesses, I believe you want to bring an objective contribution to this discussion.

So I appreciate Madame Demers' recognizing that we all want to see pay equity for women. We are not interested in being mean-spirited or appalling and regressive. And when I hear you talk about what has happened--women having to sit for 18 months and be cross-examined--that is regressive, that is mean-spirited, that is appalling.

Our goal is to not have that happen. We want to see pay equity achieved and this government truly wants to see it proactive. We believe there is a role, and it's a positive role, that the unions can play in it.

I really want to understand where you're coming from. Do you believe the union doesn't have the expertise in order to recognize when there are inequitable compensation situations?

The reason I ask that is because my colleague Cathy McLeod made a very good comparison to safety. We all have a basic human right to personal safety. That is not negotiable. You talked about some expert groups that look at work scenarios. Is safety ensured? We have to talk about this; we have to work it out.

I would say that this falls into the same thing. We have a basic right to be treated equally as women. Nobody can discriminate against me as a woman. And yet as a union, you have such a powerful role to play in helping women. If you recognize that something is not being achieved and that women aren't being treated fairly, you have such a positive role to play.

Do you feel that you don't have the expertise, that you can't do it?

[Marie-Thérèse Chicha]

I find it unfortunate that we are now just comparing the former model, which is costly, to the current Act. The proactive model, as advocated by the federal Task Force, has proven its worth: many women received salary adjustments, and wage discrimination was eliminated. The unions were involved, but not as part of the collective bargaining process. They were involved as partners, working with employers, moving through the different steps. It is quite true that unions have considerable expertise in this area. They were the first ones to develop it. They have made an invaluable contribution.

However, the reason this legislation is not deemed unacceptable is not just that the valuable contribution made by the unions is disregarded. Rather, it is because that contribution, if it is part of the collective bargaining process, does not result in the union playing the same kind of constructive role it plays in the Pay Equity Commission. It is important to keep that in mind. This model has proven its worth and been successful in a number of places, and is currently being imitated elsewhere. In Australia, for instance, a labour commission made proposals that draw their inspiration from this model. In Denmark and many other places in the world, this model is considered to be effective and countries are trying to copy it. So, why set it aside and develop something which dismisses a fundamental right and will again create conflict?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

But I think it's because we don't want women to have to wait until afterwards. We want it to be addressed immediately.

I think this model is even better. It is. We can address these issues before any agreements are signed.

You're looking puzzled at me, I know, but we truly believe this, that women will be able to address it before. Why wait until after--

[Gisèle Pageau]

How? How? With all due respect, take me through how it's positive and how it's going to....

Just take me through your law. I don't think we're reading the same pages here. Explain it to me.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Okay, I will, and you can--