Let’s all hop on the pay equity bandwagon and support the Liberals in a push for a fairer & more inclusive policy of pay equity
little extra pin money to pay for luxuries. This sexist joke also causes despair because, although pay equity is an important issue for which two
generations of women have fought, it is still not a fundamental right that can be taken for granted in Canada.
It is a telling fact that no country in the world has achieved wage equality between men and women. Statistics reveal that the pay gap is as high as 50% in developing countries and as low as 12% in Nordic countries.[1] In Canada, the wage gap is 28% and, in Ontario, 29%.[2] This historic inequality has been recognized by all major Western democracies. The justifications for this gender wage gap include workforce segregation between the sexes, and endless hairsplitting on what constitutes the legal definition of equal pay for work of equal value. Feminists in Canada have rallied to the pay equity cause since 1970, but their efforts have been sidetracked or sideswiped by other political and legislative priorities. Since then, groundbreaking cases have demonstrated that the Canadian pay equity system is totally ineffective because the complaint mechanism is extremely costly and so lengthy that some women have even died waiting for justice. Now, in economic downturns like the present recession, the record shows that governments use the excuse that they are flat broke and just do not have the extra money to afford pay equity. Thus women, socialized to be sacrificial lambs and lacking strong representation inside and outside the legislatures, end up being scapegoats. So, feminist efforts are stonewalled, yet again, and pay equity remains an elusive dream.
The recognition that pay equity was a human injustice world-wide that needed to be redressed dates back to 1948 when the UN passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 23) which committed governments around the world to ensure the right of women to be free from pay discrimination.[3] Eight years later (in 1956), the Canadian government passed the Federal Employees Equal Pay Act which guaranteed same pay for women in the same, or essentially same, work. This law was sadly deficient because it did not apply to the private sector and not even to all federal employees. In 1963, the U.S. signed the Equal Pay Act but its enforcement was so ineffective that it was not until two months ago (January 2009) that the Paycheck Fairness Act was signed into law by President Barak Obama after being introduced by former Senator Hillary Clinton.[4] Canada paid lip service to pay equity with the passage of the Canadian Human Rights Act under Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1978 which states that, “it is a discriminatory practice for an employer to establish or maintain differences in wages between male and female employees, employed in the same establishment who are performing work of equal value.”[5] The interpretation of these words
has caused endless roadblocks to the enforcement of pay equity by Canadian tribunals and courts over the past thirty years.
Historically, women began to enter the workforce in increasing numbers, mostly out of necessity, with the advent of WWI; when men left for war, the women left the home to take their places in the factories and offices of the nation. In Canada in 1901, women represented 14.4 % of the workforce and by 1961, the female percentage had more than doubled to 29.3%.[6] By 2001, some 71% of women were employed which represented 46% of the total labor force.[7] But today, the paychecks that women take home in Canada equal only 72% of men’s paychecks and, in Ontario, about the equivalent at 71%.[8] However, the true picture of women’s inadequate and unequal salary levels becomes clear when one compares the ten highest paid occupations with the ten lowest paid. Women make up only 20% of people in the ten highest paid Canadian occupations, yet account for more than 70% of people in the ten lowest paid occupations.[9]
Part of the reason for this salary imbalance is that women are not protected under the law. Since they don’t work for a public service employer like the government or are not unionized employees as are health care workers, teachers, and transit workers, they are not covered by pay equity legislation. Furthermore, 71% of part time employees (who obviously are paid less) are women mostly because of their childcare and household responsibilities.[10] Finally, women tend to be trapped in the pink collar ghetto of women’s work such as nursing, daycare, sales, service, and clerical work. It is actually because of this pink ghetto that courts have difficulty in comparing equal pay for work of equal value because very few men work in these sectors. The major reason for the wage gap is this segregation of the labor force and not the fact that men and women are being paid different wages for the same job. This fact underlines how difficult it is to compare apples and oranges. For example, of 200 occupational categories, 90% of job categories (school principal, director of marketing, office manager) are
dominated by men.[11]
This unacceptable gender wage gap has traditionally been explained by claiming that women tend to choose less high paying jobs so that they can withdraw from the workforce temporarily for childcare and elder care. This withdrawal from the workforce means women have less experience and less seniority, therefore less chance of promotion and less chance of a salary increase. There is also an historical, unfounded prejudice that women’s wages are not essential to family survival.
Another justification for the gender wage gap is that gender role orientation creates a self-fulfilling prophecy leading to a greater acceptance of lower earnings by traditional women and an expectation of higher earnings for traditional men. In other words, working women are socialized to think they deserve less, so they are reluctant to demand more, and therefore employers get away with paying them less. Traditional men, for whom work is more important, negotiate their salaries more aggressively and therefore get paid more.[12] This recognition of the wage gap was brought to public attention in 1967 when Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson set up The Royal Commission on the Status of Women to study and make recommendations on how to improve women’s rights, welfare, social assistance,
poverty, and pay and workplace discrimination.[13] The commission, headed by Florence Bird, made an important contribution when it re-wrote the definition of pay
equity for “equal work on jobs, the performance of which requires equal skill, effort and responsibility and which are performed under similar working
conditions.”[14] This new definition opened up a more liberal interpretation as to what constituted equal pay for work of equal value. No longer did the jobs have to be identical or the same. By 1980, however, when the National Action Committee, a coalition of women’s groups from across Canada, was set up, the focus of concern shifted away from pay equity and affirmative action to North American free
trade, deregulation, and trade policy. Thus, the urgency about pay equity took a backseat to the greater economic issues facing Canada which dominated the
headlines and the debates of the predominantly male legislatures.
However, a few years later, the issue of pay equity hit the headlines again with a vengeance when disgruntled female workers took their cases to court against Canada Post, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Air Canada, CBC,
and Bell Canada (all federal corporations). These cases would prove, beyond a doubt, that the legislation is vague and that the legal proceedings to rectify wage discrimination are extremely costly and lengthy. This leaves women in the
private sector, poor women, non-unionized women, minority and aboriginal women, completely unprotected because they do not have the means to even institute such a litigious process.
The most shocking aspect of all these cases was the astronomical amount of money said to be owing to female workers due to the lack of pay equity. The landmark case was when the Government (under Prime Minister Chrétien) refused to respect the Canadian Human Rights Commission decision that the Government of Canada had violated its own equal pay law and therefore was obligated to pay 200,000 public servants (members of the PSAC) thirteen years of back pay at an estimated cost of $3.3 billion. For the women involved, this amounted to a double
injustice. Not only were they not paid equally to men, but the government used women taxpayers’ money to fight a women’s cause which is logically unacceptable! In an appeal, the Federal Court of Canada upheld the original
decision in favour of the female public servants and the government had to start writing paychecks dating back to 1985. The financial compensation was a milestone victory for women workers, but it took an agonizingly long time – 16
years from its inception in 1983.[15]
In another lengthy landmark case, it took 15 years for the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to decide whether Air Canada flight attendants worked within the same “establishment.” The first decision was beyond the realms of logic when it
claimed that flight attendants and pilots do not work in the same place! The
female flight attendants appealed and they won this time in the Supreme Court of Canada which ruled that it was nonsense to say the two parties did not work in the same “establishment.” The original case about the wage gap, which started in 1991, has still not been resolved today and the fact that Air Canada went bankrupt will not help their fight. In the meantime, a survey by the
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), found that many of the female flight
attendants involved now live in low-rent housing and wage adjustments for pay
equity would be a welcome improvement to their standard of living.[16]
Meanwhile, in 2006, Bell Canada’s 4,766 operators in Quebec and Ontario won a pay equity settlement of over $104 million. The case took more than 14 years mainly due to legal challenges from Bell Canada which used the money owed to the operators to pay fees for its lawyers and went on to spend between five and eight million dollars to avoid settling the complaint of the female operators. In the end, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected all of Bell Canada’s arguments and ordered compensation paid to the operators which amounted to approximately $35,000 per person. This money made a real difference in the quality of life of the women involved, but sadly many of the operators entitled to compensation could not be located because they were either laid off, retired or had already passed away. The undistributed amount of compensation totals nearly $300,000 which Bell refuses to give to the union to this day, even though the union has pledged to use it to promote human rights.[17]
Perhaps the most outrageous and time-consuming Canadian pay equity case is that of the clerical workers at Canada Post who want to receive the same wages as the letter carriers. This case has gone on for over 25 years since 1983, ten years of which was just to decide if indeed there was a wage gap and, if so, how much. After this, the tribunal took two years and three months to hand down its decision in favor of the female complainants. Today, Canada Post is still appealing this decision and the case is yet to be resolved. Just as in the case of Bell Canada, many former employees have now died and any compensation will have to be paid to their estate (if this case is ever settled).[18] It is also shocking to learn that
Canada Post has spent over two million dollars per year for the past 25 years to fight the clerical workers -- it would have been much cheaper to simply pay
the wage compensation in the first place!
After considering these disgraceful resolutions which are so costly and lengthy, the question arises: why is pay equity last in line when it comes to political and legislative priorities in a democracy like Canada? Many believe it is because women are socialized to be sacrificial lambs and therefore will be the first to accept hardship for the greater good of their family and country. Others think the social perception persists that men require a family wage while women work only for a supplementary wage and therefore are deemed to be worth less. Finally, in a patriarchal society, women as a sex are considered to be secondary, no matter how equivalent their skills, experience and education. In the end, it comes down to a subjective value judgment and society has still not resolved the question of whether caring for people (a nurse or a childcare worker) is worth the same or more or less than picking up garbage or delivering mail?
Furthermore, in tough economic downturns like the present recession, the record shows that governments are the first to claim they are broke and just do not have the extra money to afford pay equity. B.C. recently used this argument when it repealed pay equity legislation. In 2004, Newfoundland used the excuse of fiscal restraint and the need for a balanced budget not to fulfill its promises of pay equity. Even the Supreme Court upheld Newfoundland’s dismissal of pay equity wage adjustments claiming Newfoundland women’s rights to equal pay were not as important as the financial health of the province.[19]
Just a few months ago, in the controversial Conservative budget in December, the fight for pay equity took another huge step backward when the federal government took public sector pay equity away from the Canadian Human Rights Commission and handed it over to the collective bargaining process.[20] Now even those in the public sector have no legal recourse over wage discrimination (unless they belong to a union.) One must also remember that the majority of workers are in the private sector and, even though some provincial legislation may cover them, most have no
union, no collective bargaining and therefore no way to fight for pay equity. All these setbacks amount to an unacceptable rollback of human rights. As Supreme
Court Justice Rosalie Abella has warned, human rights are not a luxury to be enjoyed just in good economic times:
The cost of the wage gap to women is staggering. And the sacrifice is not in aid of any demonstrably justifiable social goal. To argue, as some have, that we cannot afford the cost of equal pay to women is to imply that women somehow have a duty to be paid less until other financial priorities are accommodated. The reasoning is specious and it is based on an unacceptable premise that the acceptance or arbitrary distinctions based on gender is a legitimate basis for imposing negative consequences, particularly when the economy is faltering.[21]
Justice Abella, who also was chair of the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, makes a well-argued point: human rights are not negotiable either in good times or bad. Saying the economy is too bankrupt to pay woman an equal wage is tantamount to saying women are not equal to men. At the risk of being impertinent, wouldn’t it be more logical and equitable to deduct money from male paychecks and top up women’s paychecks, if they are in identical jobs or jobs of comparable value?
Instead of leaving thisquestion up in the air, a partial answer can be found in Quebec which is one province that seems to really care about women’s equality in the workplace. In 1997, a new Pay Equity Act came into effect in Quebec which applies to public and private enterprises with ten employees or more. The big and crucial difference is that it puts the burden on the employer to classify jobs, establish wage gaps between the sexes, and make the required wage adjustments. Ten years after the application of the Quebec Pay Equity Act, employers and employees have reported a very positive experience. To the great surprise of all involved, the pay equity law was shown to have many beneficial effects, over and above the obvious pay increases, including improved labour relations and work environment, greater fairness in the workplace, regular update of wage policies, and increased productivity. Most importantly, there have been few expensive and time-consuming court cases that waste millions of dollars that
could have gone towards pay equity in the first place.[22]
Canada has a disgraceful record in promoting pay equity because it has never been seen as a priority by the legislatures and courts which are dominated by males. Whenever a successful argument for pay equity is won, male-dominated governments plead poverty and say they cannot afford it at this time. When it comes to pay equity today, the standard reply something like: “Don’t complain. In this recession, you are lucky to even have a job!” The elite and the powerful therefore are discriminating against the most economically downtrodden females, single parents, visible minorities and aboriginal women, who need pay equity the most. Sadly, there has been no political will or outcry by powerful women’s groups in order to make pay equity a priority. Perhaps the fire in their bellies has deemed to a flicker because the response of male-dominated governments has been lukewarm or totally negligent.
It’s about time for Canadian women’s groups, faced with the uncontested fact that a woman in a full-time job in Canada earns 72 cents for every dollar a man earns, to climb on the political bandwagon again. The shocking stories told in dusty court transcripts about how women have waited a quarter of a century, or even died, hoping for a fair and equal wage should be enough to spur people to action. Women can no longer accept to be sacrificial lambs on the altar of economic hardship. The rocky road to pay equity in Canada has lasted more than half a century and time is of the essence. So far, the struggle of Canadian women for pay equity is a “long walk to freedom” (apologies to Nelson Mandela) with many unnecessary detours and untold casualties along the way. These stories of human injustice have been worsened by the Harper government’s recent move to render pay equity legislation toothless, spineless, and pointless. Hopefully, by stoking this outrage and anger, women can tear a page from the book of Quebec’s successful Pay Equity Act and work to actively promote that vision of a brighter tomorrow for Canadian women.
[1] No Author, “Pay
Equity: Campaigns Representing Public Sector Unions Globally”
(2006): Public World-PSI 27
March, 2009 < http://www.world-psi.org/TemplateEn.cfm?Section=Pay_Equity_Campaign&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=86&ContentID=7645
> 1.
[2] Mary Cornish, “Premier McGuinty Must End
Ontario's Violation of UN Pay Equity Standards or Face UN Complaint,” Equal Pay Coalition (2008): 1.
[3] Cornish 1.
[4] No Author, “What People
Are Saying About Fair Pay” (2009): National
Committee on Pay Equity 19 Feb. 2009 < http://www.pay-equity.org/info-saying.html
> 1.
[5] Andrée Côté and Julie Lassonde, “Status
Report on Pay Equity in Canada,”
Final Report of the Workshop on Pay
Equity (Ottawa:
National Association of Women and the Law, 2007) 2.
[6] Jacquette Newman and Linda
White, Women, Politics and Public Policy: The Political Struggles of
Canadian Women (Toronto:
Oxford University Press, 2006) 203.
[7] Newman and White
203.
[8] Cornish 1.
[9] Newman and White
218.
[10] Newman and
White 217.
[11] No Author, “Pay
Equity: Work of Equal Value” (1999): CBC
News in Review 25 Feb. 2009 < http://www.cbc.ca/newsinreview/Dec%2099/Pay%Equity/wage%20gap.html
> 2.
[12] Timothy A. Judge
and Beth A. Livingston, “Is the Gap More Than Gender? A Longitudinal Analysis of Gender, Gender Role
Orientation, and Earnings,” Journal of
Applied Psychology 93.5 (2008): 998.
[13] Cerise Morris,
“Royal Comission on the Status of Women in Canada” (2009): The Canadian Encyclopedia 27 March, 2009 < http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0007674 > 1.
[14] Newman and White 227.
[15] “Pay Equity: Work of Equal Value” (1999): 1.
[16] Côté
and Lassonde 5.
[17] Côté and Lassonde 6.
[18] Côté and Lassonde 4.
[19] Newman and White 229.
[20] Tom Flanaga, “Another bad
idea : equal pay for work of equal value,” The Globe and Mail 24 Feb. 2009: A12.
[21] Cornish 2.
[22] Côté and Lassonde 7-9.
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