May 5, 2008
News release
Women have nothing to celebrate on 4th anniversary
OTTAWA – While the Harper government is in denial about women's inequality, income gaps between men and women persist and are growing, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).
“It's unacceptable that four years after a federal Pay Equity Task Force released its report recommending a new proactive federal pay equity law, women still face wage discrimination,” says PSAC Regional Executive Vice-President Robyn Benson.
In the mid ‘90s women working full-time earned on average 72 cents for every dollar earned by a man. By 2005, that proportion had dropped to 70.5 cents. And the pay gap for immigrant women, many of whom are racialized, is much worse.
“Women know where the Prime Minister and his government stand”, says Benson. “As head of the National Citizens Coalition in 1998 he declared that pay equity was a rip-off and that ‘the federal government should scrap its ridiculous pay equity law'.”
According to Benson, “what's ridiculous is that women are denied their right to pay equity because their complaints take decades to resolve under the current law. What's ridiculous is that there is nothing in the current law to force employers to review their pay practices and correct discriminatory wages.”
The Harper government has flatly rejected the Task Force Report recommendations. Instead, promises were made in 2006 to increase inspections of workplaces, educate employers and employees and mediate disagreements. Benson wrote to federal Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn in April asking for a progress report on these promises but isn't optimistic.
“All of these practices have been in place for over 25 years,” says Benson. “We know from bitter experience that they don't work. The government's promises are just a smoke screen to disguise their complete lack of interest in women's economic equality.”
“What we need is a government that will make a commitment to implement the Task Force recommendations by bringing a new, proactive pay law into being.”
The federal Pay Equity Task Force spent four years consulting with employers' associations, unions, women's groups, human rights organizations, academics and experts in order to identify problems with the current pay equity provisions in the Canadian Human Rights Act. Their Report, issued on May 4, 2004 contained detailed recommendations for a new pay equity law.
For information:
Louise Laporte, PSAC Communications 613-558-4975
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Date Modified : 2008/07/30
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