Thank you.
On behalf of the members of UFCW Canada, we welcome the opportunity to make recommendations to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women on how to improve women's economic security and ensure the equal participation of women in the Canadian economy.
UFCW Canada is this country's leading private sector union, representing more than 250,000 workers throughout Canada. We are the leading force for workers in the retail, food processing, and hospitality sectors. Over 50% of UFCW Canada's members are women, and 40% of our members are under the age of 30. Close to 10,000 UFCW Canada members work in federally regulated sectors. They work in the security sector—for example, for G4S; in transportation; at Canadian Forces bases; in credit unions; in the fisheries sector; in the milling sector, including flour, grain, and malt; in the mining sector; and in other federally regulated workplaces.
We applaud the federal government's commitment to take action to close the gender pay gap, including actions to reduce occupational segregation, reduce women's poverty, and eliminate sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.
UFCW Canada recommends the following actions that the government can implement now to close the gender wage gap.
Make closing the gender wage gap a human rights priority.
We call for a proactive federal pay equity law modelled on the recommendations of the 2004 pay equity task force. UFCW joins other trade unions and pay equity advocates in calling for legislation this year.
We call on the federal government to legislate a living wage. Women dominate low-wage, precarious work. One in three women earn less than $15 per hour compared to one in five men.
We call on the government to address the barriers in accessing leave such as maternity and parental leave. Research shows that Quebec's maternity and parental leave does a much better job at reaching low-income families than does the program available in the rest of Canada. There are several elements behind this, including a lower entrance requirement, additional “use it or lose it” weeks of leave for the non-birthing parent, and higher replacement rates for portions of the benefit period.
UFCW Canada members have many diverse social and economic concerns. The following additional recommendations are based on issues that are particularly relevant to them.
UFCW Canada recommends that legislation be amended to compel employers to provide reliable scheduling practices and better notice periods. The majority of retail workers are women working part-time hours. Employers do not always give guarantees as to how many hours a part-time employee will receive. This results in insufficient notice of shifts, last-minute changes to schedules, cancelled shifts right before they begin, and abbreviated shifts once the employee has arrived. This gives employers a large pool of individuals willing to work at a moment's notice, as this is the only way they can get their hours. Unreliable scheduling practices operate to the detriment of many workers, particularly part-time employees. These practices disproportionately affect women and worsen the wage gap.
UFCW Canada local 1006A and locals 175 and 633 recently negotiated scheduling languages with a large food retailer aimed at addressing the notice issue. The two-week rolling schedule provides each employee at least 10 days' notice of what their schedule will be for the week. With the exception of emergencies, without the consent of the affected employees the employer cannot be allowed to change the schedule once posted. Providing adequate notice is important for allowing employees to plan their lives in such a way as to maximize their work hours to their desired level.
We also call on the federal government to champion, support, and help fund a high-quality, universal child care system. UFCW Canada recently surveyed its young members, of which more than 60% are women, on what they would like to see from the federal government when it comes to addressing young worker issues. Access to high-quality, universal child care ranked as one of their top three responses in the survey.
Women are unable to access better-paying jobs or full-time jobs because of the lack of affordable and accessible child care in this country. Working mothers in Quebec have been able to benefit tremendously from the implementation of high-quality, universal child care, and this is widely accepted as a key component of reducing the gender wage gap.
We understand that negotiations towards a new framework for early learning and child care are under way. We recommend that the federal government, in co-operation with the provinces and territories, make adequate funding available to ensure that all Canadian families can access quality, affordable child care, and that this universal system be considered a priority to be achieved without undue delay.
On behalf of the membership of UFCW Canada, we urge the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women to consider all of the above to ensure that the economic security of women is improved in Canada. We look forward to working with all of you.
Thank you.