Union leader says pay equity law should also address income disparity between minorities, people with disabilities and people with disabilities

The leader of Canada's national labor group said he hoped that federal legislation that addresses the gender pay gap could benefit other groups, such as Aboriginal women, who are facing greater discrimination. disparity of income.

The Pay Equity Act, introduced this week in the Liberal government's 850-page omnibus bill, is a good start, said Canada Labor Congress President Hbadan Yussuff. Legislation is "close" to addressing pay equity issues, he said, but does not address the pay gap between visible minorities, Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities.

"You are discriminated against because you are a woman, you are discriminated against because you have a disability. In some cases, you are discriminated against because of the color of your skin or your skin. [badual] orientation, "said Mr. Yussuff, who supports the bill. "We now need to understand how to use the pay equity commissioner to try to solve this problem."

The bill would require public sector businesses and federally-regulated enterprises to monitor their valuation of the work of different job clbades, how these jobs are paid for, and whether job clbades consist mainly of men or women. The law would also create a pay equity commissioner to enforce the new rules.

In legal terms, pay equity goes beyond "equal pay for equal work". Canadian human rights laws require equal pay, which means that men and women doing the same work must earn the same salary.

Pay equity policies look for cases in which employers underestimate women in predominantly female occupations. There are situations in which different jobs that are similar in value to a business and generally gender-dominated – for example, a female secretary and a man committed to the expeditions – are remunerated differently.

Data from Statistics Canada show that, overall, women earned 74.2 cents for every dollar earned by a man in 2017. However, this income disparity is increasing for visible minority women. or having a disability.

Parisa Mahboubi, Senior Policy Analyst at the C.D. According to the Howe Institute, her research shows that visible minorities – the term used by Statistics Canada – earn on average 20% less than non-visible minorities. This gap widens further for women of color, who earn on average 70% of what a non-visible minority male earns.

She said her research took into account factors such as training, experience and hours worked. "After controlling for all the features that could create income gaps, we still find gaps that allow us to say that it is discrimination," said Dr. Mahboubi.

Sheila Malcolmson, NDP Critic for Women's Equality, said that wage discrimination against visible minorities and others was a cause for concern. The legislation does not seem to solve this problem, she said, but her party was still delving into the details. If she is absent, she said, there is a good chance that this will happen during the committee study.

The proposed legislation is separate from the Employment Equity Act, which seeks to address workplace discrimination among four groups: women, visible minorities, Aboriginal peoples, and persons with disabilities. disabilities.

Véronique Simard, press secretary to the Minister of Labor, did not explain how the government's bill only targeted the wage gap of one of these groups, but she hoped that it would benefit a wider group of people.

"At the end of the day, pay equity is about fighting discrimination on the basis of bad and will benefit all workers, regardless of bad, in occupations where the workforce is predominantly female."