The Universities Employees Union, CUPE 1975, has taken the initial step toward achieving pay equity or equal pay for work of equal value for its members in the 1997-2000 contract in the Memorandum of Agreement titled Pay Equity (Appendix 1). The memorandum sets out the effective date of pay equity payments and a commitment to approach the provincial government for additional funding for pay equity in a document titled "Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value and Pay Equity: Policy Framework and Terms of Reference."
This study outlines the definition of pay equity, includes a brief history of the pay equity movement; reviews the legislative foundations for pay equity in Canada; and provides highlights of four recent pay equity settlements with public sector and private sector employers. Regarding CUPE 1975 documents "Memorandum of Agreement" and "Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value and Pay Equity: Policy Framework and Terms of Reference," the approach to pay equity within our local is evaluated in relation to the national pay equity movement.
Pay Equity Background : InternationalThe United Nations in 1951 adopted the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for work of equal value in a document issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO). This document, named Convention 100, or the Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951, contains 14 articles describing the goals of pay equity and the obligations of member countries adopting the policy. Article 1 b) defines remuneration in these words:
"the term equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value refers to rates of remuneration established without discrimination based on sex."
Articles 2, 3, and 4 provide guidelines for the application of equal remuneration by member nations. These include: enacting legislation; wage determination through collective agreements or other recognized processes; the use of objective gender-neutral job evaluations to determine remuneration; and fostering cooperation between employers and workers.
Nations adopting Convention 100 must enforce it in its entirety or register amendments with the International Labour Office for ratification. Nations have the option to withdraw or "denounce" the Convention following 10 years after initial ratification. The provisions, while maintaining an international standard, acknowledge that implementation of equal remuneration between male and female workers is a long process. As of 1999, Convention 100 has been adopted by over 100 countries including Canada.
Initial efforts in achieving pay equity concentrated on abolishing differences in wages for males and females doing the same work. This policy was endorsed by Canadian legislative bodies between the years 1951 and 1959. "Work of equal value" as described by the Convention is a much broader concept than "same work." It speaks to how society has traditionally valued and compensated female work and male work, describing this valuation as discriminatory.
The process of eliminating discrimination in society and in the workplace can span generations; that has been the history with other issues such as religious or racial discrimination. Almost half a century has passed since the Equal Remuneration Convention was adopted by the ILO. Canada still has much work ahead to accomplish its commitment to Convention 100.
Pay Equity Background: CanadaTwenty-six years after Convention 100 the Canadian government introduced federal pay equity legislation in Canada. In 1977 the Canadian Human Rights Act , an Act to extend the laws that proscribe discrimination, was passed. Section 11 of the Act identifies wage differences for work of equal value based on gender as discriminatory. The provisions of Section 11 include 7 articles which contain: a definition of equal wages, descriptions of the categories to be used in assessing work, a provision prohibiting a company from creating separate "establishments" to circumvent the provisions of section 11, a provision prohibiting the reduction of wages to eliminate a discriminatory practice of compensation based on gender.
Guidelines for the application of Section 11 of the Act were passed in 1978 and revised in 1986. In the revised guidelines employers were encouraged to implement gender-neutral job evaluation systems.
The Canadian Human Rights Act is administered by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Disputes brought before the Commission which cannot be mutually agreed are referred to the Human Rights Tribunal. In addition to its role as mediator in disputes, the Commission also engages in public education. Human Resources Development Canada assists the Commission by providing training for companies and ongoing monitoring and inspection of compensation.
The provisions of Section 11 follow guidelines established in Articles 2-4 of Convention 100 but fall short in coverage. The legislation applies to the federal government, crown corporations and other federally regulated businesses such as interprovincial road, rail and air transportation, radio and telecommunications companies, banks and nuclear power facilities (Handman and Jensen 73). It has been left to each province to enact legislation covering employees within provincial/territorial jurisdictions.
Case StudiesFour examples have been selected from recent public and private sector settlements to illustrate successful strategies or to describe the gap which still exists between legislative policy and application of eliminating wage discrimination based on gender.
Public Service Alliance of CanadaThe Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) which represents federal public servants had to fight a long battle in order that the pay equity laws of Canada, created by their own employer, apply to its members.
The first complaint, in 1979, involved comparisons between the predominately female group of librarians with the predominately male group of historical researchers. A $2.3 million settlement was reached in December, 1980 in favour of the librarians, retroactive to March 1, 1978 when the Canadian Human Rights Act came into force.
In 1984 PSAC went to court on behalf of members in other job groups to demand pay equity. Employees waited 14 years until 1998 when the Human Rights Tribunal decided the case in favour of the employees. During this time a job evaluation process titled "Joint Union-Management Initiative on Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value" could not reach agreement on gender-neutral descriptions for job families. The Tribunal reached a decision in1998 ruling in favor of the employees. This decision sets out an example of calculating gaps in compensation for work determined to be of equal value.
The Liberal government appealed the decision to the Federal Court of Canada which decided in its ruling of October, 1999 to uphold the previous court's decision. After a brief delay, the government agreed to abide by the Federal Court's decision. While initial estimates of wage adjustments backdated to 1984 and interest were reported to be $5 billion, the final cost was $3.6 billion. The settlement is reported to cover 230,000 current and former employees.
The most important feature of these two cases is the fact that one arm of the federal government, the Treasury Board, was allowed to operate contrary to the laws and guidelines of another, the Canadian Human Rights Commission. While it is true that the Treasury Board was prepared to raise the salary scales of the targeted job groups and had even set aside money to cover this cost, their view of what constituted pay equity fell far short of the interpretation reached by the Human Rights Tribunal. The delays and appeal of the government do not demonstrate to either Canadian employers or to the Canadian public a model for the application of its own pay equity laws.
The PSAC experience provides several points for other public and service sector workers to take into consideration during their own cases:
As a final note on the PSAC cases, it should be noted that the union did not take 14 years to award the pay equity benefits to their own employees. In fact, the $7.5 million cost of pay equity to PSAC employees put the union heavily in debt. Members approved at their May, 2000 convention a dues increase to fund the deficit. The Treasury Board, on the other hand, reneged on a 1990 agreement and will not apply the October, 1999 decision to approximately 1,000 workers employed in separate federal agencies such the Office of the Auditor General of Canada and the National Film Board nor will it allow the agencies to grant pay equity settlements individually.
Toronto Civic Workers CUPE 79 and 416Two cases involving municipal employees in Toronto illustrate how another large public sector employer has handled the pay equity issue where provincial legislation is in place.
On March 31, 2000, members of CUPE 79 went on strike to support contract demands for wage settlements associated with harmonizing salaries in the Toronto megacity restructuring. Employees returned to work April 11 claiming victory with the establishment of a $5 million pay-equity reserve fund plus agreement on wage harmonization for the members of the amalgamated union. The restructured CUPE 79, representing 20,000 inside workers, includes workers covered by 24 collective agreements in six former municipalities plus 4 contracts in Metro Toronto (statistics used from CUPE website).
A May 19, 2000 press release on the CUPE website announced another pay equity settlement with a sister union, CUPE 416.
"600 library workers with the 'old' Toronto Public Library (CUPE), received a $31 million pay equity settlement effective 1990. Individual employees working since 1990 would receive an average of $36,000." This settlement, slightly over one month later than CUPE 79's return to work, was agreed without a strike.
It is difficult to imagine these settlements being achieved so quickly outside an environment of strong pay equity legislation. The Ontario Pay Equity Act was passed in 1987. Although some sections were repealed in 1996 and 1997 it is still regarded as a model for proactive legislation. The Pay Equity Commission administers the Act. The mandate of the Commission has a strong focus on education and on co-operative resolution of pay inequities. Unlike the federal Act which is complaint driven, the Ontario Act charges the Commission with monitoring wages in order to identify gender based wage gaps for work of equal value.
The experiences of CUPE 79 and 416 and their employer can hardly be described as harmonious. Local 79 members had to strike for bargaining priorities and Local 416 members had to wait 10 years for a pay equity settlement. Nevertheless the final agreements in both cases were achieved without appeal to the court process which federal employees had to endure.
Corporate Pay Equity Settlement SafewaySafeway is a very successful publicly owned international company. Fortune 500 1999 rankings based on 1998 financial information give Safeway an overall second place ranking and a first place ranking by profits in the category of food and drug stores. Safeway's website provides financial highlights for 1999 with net income increased to $970.9 million from $806.7 million for 1998. Pay equity was not on the debit column of this company's financial records until it settled a human rights case with its Saskatchewan employees.
A complaint was filed in September, 1992 with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission by a cashier, Barbara Nuttall, and her union, the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Nuttall argued that the difference between cashier salary scales and food clerk scales was discriminatory. Cashiers are mostly female and food clerks mostly male. The case was judged to fall within Saskatchewan's equal pay for equal work legislation. It became a class complaint following a ruling in May 1994 by Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench and was eventually resolved in April, 1999 by agreement between Safeway and its employees.
This case is important for two reasons:
The settlement established that unions are responsible alongside employers for ensuring fair compensation between male and female work groups. Although the RWDSU initiated the complaint with Nuttall, two of the three Saskatchewan judges hearing the complaint ruled in August, 1997 that Safeway, and both unions representing cashiers in the province, RWDSU, and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) were responsible for discrimination in compensation between cashiers and food clerks. In December 1997, the Human Rights Commission initiated a class complaint against all three parties.
The settlement provides a precedent for Saskatchewan workers in establishing "equal work." Individual employees and their unions could use this case to flood the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission with complaints based on Saskatchewan's less comprehensive pay equity legislation.
CUPE 1975, the Universities and Pay Equity : the Promise and the ProcessCUPE 1975, its members, and the Universities are taking the necessary first steps toward pay equity with its gender-neutral job evaluation project begun in 1999. Initial funding has been promised from the Universities annual payrolls to partly fund pay equity with an adjustment of 1 percent effective December 31, 2000. It is further agreed that money available from the provincial government for pay equity adjustments shall be retroactive to May 1, 2000.
The document Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value and Pay Equity : Policy Framework and Terms of Reference is the foundation for the process of achieving equal pay for work of equal value at the Universities. It includes a definition of pay equity, a timetable for implementation of salary adjustments, outlines the roles and responsibilities of the internal committees responsible for job evaluation, and establishes procedures for administration, appeals, etc. The definition reads:
"Pay Equity: a process for achieving and maintaining wage equity in the workplace. It is based on the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, but is focused on ending gender based wage discrimination, resulting from under-evaluation of female dominated jobs. Pay equity is the outcome of strategies designed to facilitate development of equitable compensation practices and to operationalize the principle of equal pay for work of equal value.
Pay equity is achieved by suing [sic: using] the male wage line as the rate of pay for female dominated jobs that are found to be of equal or comparable value."
The definition includes important principles found in Convention 100 and Section 11 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.: Gender based wage differences for work of equal value is discriminatory. The male wage rate is not reduced in order to achieve pay equity.
ConclusionWhile the document Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value and Pay Equity says all the right things, how long will it be before its objectives are realized? Will the CUPE 1975 experience with pay equity settlements parallel the examples in this study taking 10-15 years to conclude? CUPE representative to Local 1975, Jim Holmes, says the schedule for adjustments cannot be defined until the job evaluation process is completed at which point a calculation can be made for salary adjustments. A further complication is the process by which the government funds the Universities. The government does not specify how the Universities spend its operating grant.
The provincial government does not view pay equity as a priority. It is unlikely that the government will allocate significant financial resources for public sector groups without first enacting legislation to establish standard procedures and regulations for determining any pay equity adjustments. A cabinet steering committee in 1992 put the cost of implementing pay equity for the public and Crown sectors between $8 million and $22 million, a difference of almost 300%.
Individual complaints to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission will likely resolve some gender based compensation gaps. Nevertheless, unions should have a more comprehensive outlook on this issue. They should continue their advocacy role of improving the conditions of all workers whether or not they are represented by unions. They should continue to support the Pay Equity Coalition of Saskatchewan to lobby the government to enact proactive legislation covering a wide group of public and private sector workers. Finally, unions should continue to support each other by sharing information on strategies and settlements. Equal pay for work of equal value is an international right of workers. Eventually it will be a right of Saskatchewan workers.
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