Dalhousie Law School

Pay Equity Cupcake Sale

Women: $0.75
Male: $1.00

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PSAC campaign against Bill C-10

http://www.psac.com/home-e.shtml

On February 6, the government tabled legislation that will radically change the rules governing pay equity in the federal public sector. The Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act will remove the right of public sector workers to file pay equity complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission and transform it into an issue that can be traded away at the bargaining table. This Act must be removed from Bill C-10, the Budget Implementation Act.

Perhaps what concerns us most is that the bill transforms pay equity into an “equitable compensation issue” that must be dealt with at the bargaining table. If pay equity is not achieved through the bargaining process, individual workers would be permitted to file a complaint with the Public Service Labour Relations Board, but without their union's support: in fact, this bill would impose a $50,000 fine on any union that would encourage or assist their own members in filing a pay equity complaint!

The Canadian Human Rights Act, for instance, dictates that the value of work be assessed on skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions. To those criteria, the new legislation would add consideration of “qualifications and market forces.”

“The purpose of pay equity was to, in fact, intervene in order to redress what the forces of the market had done to women’s pay,” explains human rights lawyer Mary Cornish. Adds Margot Young, a law professor at the University of British Columbia: “There’s a wide consensus that pay equity is a human right. The new legislation effectively treats pay equity as if it’s not a human right.” [Macleans]

Expect a challenge/eventual defeat of this in court if it does indeed pass.