Pay equity is a right, not a bargaining chip

The government’s Economic and Fiscal Update this past November received a great deal of criticism from opposition parties and the public at large for a number of its proposals.

The update proposed to eliminate the $1.95-per-vote taxpayer subsidy for political parties and suspend the right of public servants to strike for three years. It also proposed to remove the right of women to file pay equity complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), and proposed to make pay equity a part of the collective bargaining process instead.

In the political uproar that followed the update, and as a result of strong pressure from opposition parties and the public, the Conservative government quickly retracted some of their most contentious proposals. They agreed to let the voter subsidy remain and retracted their ban on public servants’ right to strike.

However, despite similar outcries from the opposition and media about the proposed changes to pay equity, the government has yet to retract this part of the update.

I find this proposal very worrisome. It is disheartening to see that, entering a period of serious economic downturn, the government has chosen to target women’s right to equal pay instead of creating a plan to stimulate the economy.

Pay equity, or providing equal pay for work of equal value, is a right that has taken decades of political advocacy for women to acquire. The last half of the century saw increasing numbers of women leave their traditional positions as homemakers and enter the workforce. However, female-dominated jobs – such as administrative, secretarial, service industry and health care positions – have been chronically underpaid in comparison to positions dominated by men.

As in many other sectors, this inequality was systemic for decades in the federal public service. Pay equity legislation that sought to redress this inequality was introduced in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, the federal government has paid over $4 billion in retroactive payments to thousands of women employees in the public service.

When this legislation has still failed to provide adequate compensation, women have the option of filing a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). The CHRC therefore provides an appeal process for the public service that safeguards the right of women to equal pay.

In the Economic and Fiscal Update, the government announced its intention to end the CHRC complaints process and make pay equity a responsibility of the collective bargaining process between unions and employers. However, doing so reshapes pay equity into a bargaining tool instead of what it was established as: a fundamental right.

Which begs the question: why does the government believe that an appeal process for pay equity is no longer necessary? Is it because it believes that gender inequality is no longer an issue in Canada?

While great strides have been made over the past decades, the average woman in Canada still only makes approximately 70.5 cents for every dollar made by their male counterparts. Clearly, inequality is still alive and well today.

And gender inequality is not static. It results from broad systemic inequalities between men and women in society and is rooted in cultural and social practices that change over time. The realization of gender equality is therefore not something that can be “achieved” and then forgotten about; it is an on-going process. And like any other human right, it requires social and legal mechanisms at all levels of our society to ensure it is upheld when violations occur.

Public justice calls the government to create and ensure just relations between individuals and groups in society. The federal government has a crucial role to play in creating a society in which every person can live in dignity. While unions and employers do have an important role to play in ensuring that the work of women is equally valued, gender discrimination in the workforce is a systemic issue that cannot be addressed by employers alone. It is ultimately the responsibility of the government to ensure that women’s equality is upheld and discrimination is compensated for.

When describing the current pay equity appeal process, the update says that “new complaints continue to be filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, sometimes for the same groups that have already received past pay equity settlements, representing large potential future costs to taxpayers."

The language used in the Government’s update is misleading. It portrays the CHRC complaints process as allowing women to “double-dip” into pay equity compensation funds at the expense of taxpayers. In reality, the pay equity complaints that continue to be filed have stemmed from the federal government’s failure to reform its job classification system. Pay equity compensation is a right, not a cost that the government should simply be able to “cut” in order to lower federal spending.

It remains to be seen whether the government will follow through with the proposed changes to pay equity when Parliament opens again January 26th, 2009.

Heading into a period of economic downturn, sensible fiscal policy is crucial. But it should not come at the expense of our values and principles as a society and the hard-won right of women to equal pay.