Status of Women Committee on May 28th, 2009

[Claudette Carbonneau]

It's incomplete. I don't know whether it's irreconcilable, but if I had to summarize in one word I'd say it's incomplete. I don't doubt that in negotiations people can try to improve things for women. There are countless examples in our standard practice where we do so. But there are limits to being able to do so. We can't submit a fundamental right to an exercise that has limits and refuse an employee who has a complaint or doubts their right to the support and expertise of their union. It's nonsensical, you're quite right.

[Danielle Casara]

Yes, you're perfectly right. Even with the help of their union, a person doesn't have the financial means to see this sort of action through. How can we imagine a someone being able to deal with this on their own? The problem is [Technical difficulty--Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Madame Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking the trouble to appear before this committee.

I'd like to go back to what Ms. Zarac said earlier, which I found a bit jarring, about men versus women. If a man had made that sort of remark, he would have been called a sexist. Men are just as able to defend women.

This bill talks a lot about proactive law and says that, instead of waiting for employees to file a complaint, the law ensures that employers and unions cooperate right from the beginning to ensure that women receive the compensation they deserve.

In your experience, Mr. Farrell, how has integrating pay equity in the bargaining process made it possible to speed up the settlement of pay equity disputes?

[John Farrell]

The employer is compelled to bargain with its unions to resolve all compensation matters and all terms and conditions of employment. This act is proactive, because it requires both the union and the employer to talk about the pay equity issues in advance of bargaining so that the issues are understood well in advance of bargaining. The gaps are defined so that we know where the gaps exist. Then, when the parties go to the bargaining table, they can do their very best to eliminate those gaps that exist between men and women in jobs who do work of equal value.

It may take some time, but it is a proactive approach, because they can jointly develop a game plan. They can agree on the principles they wish to carry forward. They can put that plan in place and eventually, over time, reduce the gap that exists between men and women. That's the form in which wages and benefits are determined in a unionized environment. So let's give both parties responsibility for managing that process.

Currently the employer has a bilateral responsibility, and it exercises that to negotiate in good faith with the unions, and we do that. But when that process ends and the compensation is distributed, the union has a stake in that, and they influence the way in which wages are distributed.

Collective bargaining is a very complex process, and sometimes the terms and conditions of a settlement are affected by the leverage or the threat of a strike that is advanced by a union over an employer. Then the union ends up distributing those gains to its members. In distributing those gains, we're saying that the unions have a responsibility to ensure that the gains derived from collective bargaining are supposed to be used to address pay inequities, among other things.

We hope that this particular act will give joint responsibility to both unions and employers to define the problem, work out a plan, and solve the problem. That's essentially why employers are supportive of this legislation, because it sets out a real proactive mechanism wherein the two parties that set wages and conditions have responsibility for results, not just the employer.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Hoeppner, please.

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

Thank you very much.

Are working conditions part of the bargaining process?

[John Farrell]

Absolutely. Well, working conditions exist in an environment, but ways to cope with working conditions are--

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

Well, right now we all have a basic right to personal safety. Tell me if I'm wrong. I don't think we would insinuate that because working conditions are sometimes part of the bargaining process, it isn't a safe environment or there isn't enough equipment to keep our employees safe. We would not say that human right is being bargained away at the union table and we should make it long process where people have a right to human and public safety and go to a human rights commission.

Is that a correct train of thought?

[John Farrell]

Well, it--

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 10 seconds to answer that.

[John Farrell]

Actually, the health and safety provisions in the federal jurisdiction are dealt with in parts of the Canada Labour Code, part II, which deals with health and safety. There's a mechanism to address those issues in the current legislation. But health and safety is a fundamental right, and employers take that 100% seriously.

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

And unions.

[John Farrell]

And unions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Madame Guay.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. My comments are for Ms. Carbonneau.

Hello, Ms. Carbonneau. I think you'll recognize me. We've worked together on anti-strikebreaking legislation for a long time, and we continue to support you. We have such a law in Quebec, but it's time we also had one at the federal level. Clearly we evolve more quickly in Quebec than elsewhere.

The minister is always telling us that his law is based on the Quebec law. He says that it's similar and that the government based itself on the Quebec law to produce its own. I'm going to give you the time allotted to me so that you can do a real comparison for us between what happens in Quebec, the Quebec statute, and what has been prepared for us here, in Ottawa.

So, take your time, you have the floor.

[Claudette Carbonneau]

In both cases, it's a participatory process. However, as far as the Quebec law is concerned, the unions do actually have a proactive approach to take with employers. At the same time, it's fundamental, from the time there is a difference of opinion, a doubt about the fact it's a fundamental right of women, we can always call on a third party and ask for a decision that goes beyond the simple laws of the market. Let's put it like that. In my opinion, this is the most fundamental aspect.

Next, the Quebec law defines a certain number of guidelines that conform with international documentation. For example, to determine which jobs are female jobs, the Quebec law stipulates that, as soon as a profession has over 40% women in it, there is a strong possibility of discrimination based on sex. The federal law talks about 70%, thus excluding a very large number of women to start with.

In addition, the federal law is such that the unions will have to pay part of the wages, and this does not exist at all in the Quebec law. In the Quebec law, there are duties and responsibilities that belong to the pay equity committee, consisting of representatives of employers, women, workers and unions. Legal action can be taken against these people if they don't perform their responsibilities properly, but at no time will they be asked to pay missing wages. I'd say that this is a pretty fundamental difference.

[Danielle Casara]

Finally, the guidelines imposed by the Quebec statute come much closer to the recommendations of the task force. In fact, the task force recommendations described a sort of improved Quebec law, something much closer to the Quebec statute that was improved yesterday.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have a minute and a half.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Were you consulted before this bill was tabled in the House? I sincerely think that pay equity is a fundamental right and that it should not be a negotiable right. It's unacceptable!

Were you consulted? Were other unions or groups in Quebec consulted?

[Claudette Carbonneau]

Absolutely not. Insult was added to injury. The first announcement caused an unprecedented angry outcry. Then, during the political debate surrounding the creation or not of a coalition, we saw the federal government back down, but never consult. This bill was tabled completely arbitrarily, without the slightest consultation.

[Danielle Casara]

The way in which this came about has been denounced as vigorously as the bill itself. We really get the impression that doctrine is riding roughshod over women here...

[Claudette Charbonneau]

I would add that, because pay equity is a fundamental right, there is no reason to deal with women in a sector of activity—in this case, the federal public service—differently from other Canadian women. Even though we are very critical of the complaint process, there is no evidence that, with this bill, women in the federal public service will be treated better than other Canadian women, whatever shortcomings may be noted in the legislative framework that prevails for other Canadian women under federal jurisdiction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Good. Thank you.

Irene.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to come back to this notion of market forces. The PSECA talks about using market forces in order to evaluate compensation.

Mr. Farrell, Mr. Olsen, in your brief you suggest that market forces are integral to the determination of equitable compensation. Yet we've heard from the trade unions and other experts that market forces are not conducive to ensuring pay equity because the market forces in place have historically undervalued women's work. And I'm thinking about nurses, ESL teachers, telephone operators, secretaries, bank tellers, child care workers, and retail workers who traditionally have lower levels of pay.

With that in mind, how on earth could you consider market forces being a positive? Are they not harmful in determining women's compensation?