There is something so disheartening about having to argue in favour of pay equity in the 21st century. How can this still be a controversial issue? Yet it remains so here in B.C. Business interests are outraged that the government intends to introduce pay equity legislation. Their main worry? It will cost them money.
Is this a reason NOT to have modern pay legislation? No. Of course it will cost businesses money. And, they should pay it — after all, they have profited by underpaying women since the province began.
The idea of “equal pay for work of equal value” is nothing new. It was a feature of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and was later included in the Treaty of Rome that established the European Union. The International Labour Organization has a 1951 convention on pay equity, one that Canada signed. And in 1977, Canada enshrined the principle in our Human Rights Code. It is also the law in Quebec (1977), Ontario (1987), Manitoba (1985), New Brunswick (1989), PEI (1988), Nova Scotia (1989), and Yukon (1987). Since it is the law in most jurisdictions in the country, it should be the law in British Columbia too.
The feminist revival of the 1970s made “equal pay for work of equal value” (or pay equity in current parlance) an important issue for a good reason. Most provinces in Canada had laws on the books from the 1950s that said employers had to pay women the same as men when they did the same job. But these laws did not stop discriminatory pay practices, mainly because employers tended to segregate their workforces into men’s work and women’s work. They also decided that women’s work was worth less. So, laws requiring equal pay for the same work had little effect.
In contrast, pay equity laws focus on the value of the work performed and insist that if the value of the work a woman does is the same as the value of the work a man performs, they should be paid the same. The value of jobs is compared on the basis of knowledge, skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions. Comparing these aspects of work permit very different kinds of work to be examined for wage inequalities.
To give an example: At York University in Toronto, secretaries went on strike in the 1980s because they received substantially less pay than male groundskeepers. They argued that their work required higher skills, more training, and greater responsibilities. They won because their argument was just and ultimately their actions helped pave the way toward pay equity legislation in Ontario.
Unless everyone is paid the same–something that seems particularly abhorrent to our cultural norms–it is important that some fair criteria be established to determine the basis for different wages. Leaving it entirely to employers, who can profit by separating one group and paying it less, is not fair.
One of the reasons for setting enforceable legislative standards is to ensure that all employers experience a level playing field. Pay equity legislation means no business can gain an advantage over others by creating working conditions that are inferior or harmful to the well-being of workers and the economy at large.
Pay equity is an issue that has been embraced by most political parties. The Liberals initiated it at the federal level and in Ontario, N.B. and PEI. The PQ enacted it in Quebec, the NDP in Manitoba and Yukon, and Conservatives in N.S. Clearly, the policy cannot be claimed by one specific party. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if all parties in B.C. simply acted responsibly, set aside partisan politics, and just did it?
Unfortunately, in B.C. there is a depressing predictability to the response of business groups and their spokespersons. Their influence is likely to thwart any party unity on this issue, particularly with an election looming.
Just one day I’d like to wake up and see headlines, “BC Business Council Demands Pay Equity.” Perhaps they can be persuaded, by looking elsewhere, that paying women what they are worth does not destroy businesses. The economies of jurisdictions with pay equity laws have NOT collapsed, despite “the sky is falling” hysteria incited by corporate lobby groups when the laws were first introduced.
