Status of Women Committee on June 16th, 2009

[Hélène Laurendeau]

I can certainly check to see if there was draft legislation and if it is available. Honestly, I am not sure that there was. I do not know that, but I will certainly commit to checking.

I will ask my colleague to deal with the question of the people we will meet with. We do not have a specific list of witnesses yet, of course, but we certainly have a good idea of the people we would like to consult.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

That's it, Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Madame Boucher.

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

Good morning, and thank you. It is very interesting to hear you and to hear a different point of view.

We have heard from a number of witnesses, a lot of them university women who were opposed to this bill. Personally, I find it proactive. Previously, employees filed a complaint and it was years and years before it was settled. We have seen that. This new bill makes sure that employers and unions work together from the start so that women receive the compensation we deserve.

How can incorporating the idea of pay equity into the bargaining process speed up the settlement of pay equity disputes? A lot of people have told us that they do not see it like that. Could you explain the intent?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

Thank you very much for asking that question. In fact, that is one of the aspects of this bill that seems hardest to explain. The complaints process taught us one thing: we have a collective bargaining process that is established under a labour relations act that imposes very clear obligations on the parties. The labour relations process is based on a deep faith in the democratic nature of the union movement and a belief in the need to negotiate labour issues, including salaries, in good faith. The process is very well established, with clear obligations. It comes with a complaints process if negotiations are conducted in bad faith or if employees are not well represented by their union.

So there's a body of legislation that exists to govern that.

Along with that, we had a pay equity complaints process that allowed salaries that had already been negotiated to be reconsidered and that allowed the bargaining agent to file complaints without necessarily having to be consistent with the positions that he had put forward at the bargaining table. We want to make sure that the process is thorough and quick. With this bill, Parliament expects the parties to put all compensation issues onto one specific bargaining table, whether they deal with competitiveness or pay equity.

Collective bargaining cycles come around every two or three years, not every 15 or 20 years, as was the case with the pay equity complaint process. The process requires parties to discuss all the issues on a regular basis. The parties also have to produce an equitable compensation assessment report in order to inform employees about the way in which the issues have been examined. Employees who ratify a collective agreement will also ratify the pay equity issues report in a full, quick and transparent way, benefiting from all the safeguards for the bargaining process in the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

The intention behind this legislation is to make sure that matters dealing with pay equity for women are not handled completely outside the collective bargaining process, but as one of the key issues in that process. That is the fundamental change, in our view. Even the proactive processes in Quebec and Manitoba still leave these issues outside.

The underpinnings of the legislation were to ensure that those key fundamental issues were at the heart of the democratic process of how unions come forward with their requests at the bargaining table.

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

A number of times, people have come to us to say that this legislation is taking a step backwards. Proactive legislation would not do that. We want to move forward.

In your opinion, does the fact that all the parties in the collective bargaining process are focusing on women mean a step backwards?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

The intention is certainly not to take any steps backwards. On the contrary, we want to replace an antiquated process, the complaints-based one, with the most forward-thinking of proactive programs.

We must recognize that the forward thinking that they have experimented with in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba has produced results. Their legislation has produced positive results, but it still has...

growing pains when it comes to maintenance of pay equity.

This is exactly what the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act seeks to solve. We want to build on the strength of the programs that have been tried in the provinces so that we can examine pay equity and maintain the gains that have been made in a thorough and proactive way. In that way, we would avoid the situation in Quebec, where a requirement to maintain the program is identified, but not described, so the parties are a little at a loss to say how they are going to maintain the gains they have made under their new legislation.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Irene.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for being here today.

This is a very important review, and this committee is quite concerned. I think there's a real recognition and commitment to complete our work here, so we can let Parliament know what we've heard. I'm very encouraged by that commitment and glad you could make it today so we can wrap up our work today and Thursday. I do have some questions, though.

We heard from the Federally Regulated Employers—Transportation and Communications, a Mr. John Farrell, who came here. I asked him about the issue of market forces and about including them in the new act. In terms of the new act, he said he expected there would be a lot more pressure to press wages down, because of market forces and the reality we're in. He expects wages may very well go down.

I wonder if you had some thoughts on that. Do you expect wages for women in the public sector to indeed go down as a result of this act?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

I have two things to say on that. There will be pressure to slow the growth of wages. I think we have already experienced that in the past few months; that's a phenomenon that is pretty much generalized.

As to whether or not wages are actually going to go down, as I said, their growth may be slowed. That's my analysis, anyway.

With respect to the impact that's going to have on the wages of women in the public service, that is precisely why this piece of legislation is so timely at this particular juncture. If indeed there is less money available than what we've known in other years, it is even more important that we address our minds when setting wages to ensure collectively that we do not give rise to unintended results, which may result in direct discrimination. It is even more important to actually put this at the forefront of our preoccupations when money is actually being dispersed between the various groups to ensure that it is done in a fair and equitable way, respecting equitable compensation principles.

So yes, the market will have an influence. The market always has an influence on how we set wages. What we need to ensure is that we actually make choices around those market pressures in a way that does not bring back possible disparities between men and women. That is precisely what this piece of legislation is meant to do.

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

So everyone's wages will go down. You expect there will be a depression all across the entire system.

[Hélène Laurendeau]

That would be a little bit of a broad brush for me to say, but I suspect that because the market is contracting somewhat now, there will be an impact on wages. Whether all wages are going to go down, I don't think so, but their growth may be slowed momentarily somewhat.

I wouldn't want to leave you with the impression that wages of public servants will go down. That's not the case. They are, as you know, being increased this year and next year, and also in 2010-2011. But is it, and will it be, the same type of growth we've known in recent years? No. I also think people in the private sector are facing challenges from the availability of money, and growth will probably be slowed down there as well, I would expect.

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

Okay, thank you.

I wanted to come back to some things Madam Neville touched on.

You say the new act will not allow parties to bargain away the pay equity human right, yet that is absolutely contrary to most of the testimony we heard. I think the only exception was the employers group.

Then, in paragraph 12, you went on to say that the Canadian Labour Congress had indicated that pay equity should be achieved through collective bargaining. Unfortunately, this is not what we heard from the CLC. This is not the entire story.

If there is pay equity considered at the table, it is a separate table. And it's a separate table set there specifically to ensure there is fair bargaining around pay equity, so that it's not included with all of the other bits and pieces. So their purpose is to be very careful that women are not victimized by the wholesale process of stacking up wages and benefits against their specific needs.

Could you clarify that for me, since it seems to be a contradiction?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

I will ask my colleague to answer the piece about the Canadian Labour Congress, because he has done extensive research on that.

I would just say one thing, though, which is that for any other terms and conditions of employment, the notion of joint accountability between employer and bargaining agents exists. Section 10 of the Canadian Human Rights Act makes it very clear that for any other working conditions the employer and the bargaining agents are not allowed to discriminate. What the equitable compensation act is doing is extending the same protection to the portion that is wages.

I would just say that with respect to other working conditions, it is working quite effectively. When you're sitting at the bargaining table, you can look at your partner across the table straight in the eyes, sometimes on demands that you either don't know or don't realize may be discriminatory. If you can sit across the table from them and say, listen, we're going to have to talk this through because this analysis demonstrates to me that X, Y, and Z may have a negative impact on women or people with disabilities, then you have a joint obligation to talk it through and find a solution. All I'm saying is that to extend the same thing to wages would be healthy in having a debate that is fulsome.

With respect to the reference to the Canadian Labour Congress, my dear colleague has the reference here.

[Dan Danagher]

Right. I know that--

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Sorry, but could you wrap that up quickly? We've gone over time, but go ahead.

[Dan Danagher]

When Mr. Farrell appeared before the committee, he did quote from the Canadian Labour Congress women's symposium in 1999. I understand that he left that quotation with you from a part of that.

We have a lot of other international academic research that we'd be happy to share with the clerk of this committee, even from the European Federation of Public Service Unions, which demonstrates that mainstreaming gender issues and collective bargaining is a positive way to go to stop marginalizing these issues at the table. We're prepared to share that with the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We can go to a second round, but I'm going to keep people strictly to time, please. I will start with Madam Zarac. We're going to go to four minutes instead of five to fit in everyone else as a full round.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

I may sound a bit like a broken record, but I feel that it is important to emphasize that all the witnesses that we have heard until now are opposed to this legislation, with the exception of employers' associations, of course.

They always start by mentioning how cumbersome it has been and how long it has taken to settle pay equity complaints in the past. But I think that it is unfair to make an employee responsible for making a complaint. I have a hard time understanding what is proactive about removing the ability to file complaints on the grounds that you do not want to deal with them. Now, if an employee wants to complain, she has no support, and, even if she did, it would mean a penalty for her and for the organization or union that supports her. That is not exactly what I call proactive.

I also have difficulty understanding why you are so keen on this being a collective bargaining issue. Why would it not be a separate, fair process of evaluating positions? Can you explain why you cannot see that two processes are needed in order to achieve equity?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

Present programs are constructed as you describe and they have indeed produced results. But when the time comes to sit down again to determine salaries, one of the things that was identified in our analysis as a problem that needed to be solved is the fact that two processes are cumbersome. It was determined that it would be best to marry the two processes, not to water one down to benefit the other nor to eliminate one in favour of another, but to bring the two analysis processes together.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

How do you ensure that the employer is going to accept equity if it has not already been negotiated?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

The idea is to have a conversation together, as is done during proactive pay equity processes. Pay equity committees have both employer and union representatives, if we use Quebec as an example. The idea is to make sure that the conversation takes places wholly in one place and the joint analysis takes place at the same place, that is, at the bargaining table.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

In that case, would pay equity not become one item in the agreement like any other? When an employee has to decide whether he is going to support the agreement or not, he will consider what is important for him. He may set pay equity aside in favour of other things. But equity must be fundamental. Under this new legislation, how do you ensure that the employer fulfills the conditions?