The Employment Equity Program
Analysis of CPSA Report to Parliament on Employment Equity in the Federal Public Sector - 2005-06
Persons with Disabilities
We often hear that the government is meeting its targets in respect of the representation of persons with disabilities relative to their labour market availability. However, the number of persons with disabilities who are hired into the government is below their labour market availability rate.
In other words, the federal government is meeting its legal obligation not through proportional hirings, but through injury and illness of workers on the job. Notwithstanding or perhaps because of their disability, persons with disabilities are not being proportionally hired. Persons are evolving into person with disabilities through the course of their careers. This falls short of meeting the intent of the Employment Equity Act.
What is even more unacceptable: the number of hires of persons with disabilities in 2005-06 was 2.5%. The number of terminations was 7.0%, almost triple the rate at which persons with disabilities were hired. This was an increase from terminations in the previous year of 6.6%.
Racialized workers
The representation of racialized workers in the federal public service is 8.6%, an increase from the previous year when they held 8.1% of all jobs, but lower than the labour market availability (LMA) rate the government uses of 10.4%. Their hires for this year were also lower than the 10.4% at 9.9%.
As we said in our brief to the Senate on February 4, 2008, we think the 10.4% LMA rate is sugarcoating the problem: Firstly because it's based on 2001 census data. Secondly because non-citizens are excluded from this LMA rate, yet most non-citizens get their citizenship within 3 years. On that basis, the number is closer to 12.6%. And thirdly because by 2017 - nine years from now - 20% of Canadians will be racialized. How will the government square this number with its glacial pace of representation?
Aboriginal People
Seventy seven percent of all Aboriginal employees work in a department which has a legislative or policy mandate related to Aboriginal people – INAC, Correctional Service of Canada, Health Canada or HRDC/SDC. The remaining twenty-three percent of the Aboriginal federal public sector employees are scattered among the remaining departments and agencies of which there are approximately 70. In our view, this does not establish a sincere commitment to representivity of Aboriginal people across the entire public sector. Moreover, the number of Aboriginal people hired into the government at 3.8% was lower than their departures from the government – 4.2%.
Perhaps this is hardly surprising, in view of the 2005 Public Service Employees Survey. Aboriginal employees reported discrimination and harassment in huge numbers. 33% of Aboriginal employees reported harassment, an increase from the 30% who reported harassment in 2002. 29% of Aboriginal employees reported experiences of discrimination in 2005, an increase from 2002.
Women
Women comprise 53.5% of workers and so are often regarded as represented in the workplace. However, they are only 38.8% of employees in the EX category, only slightly up from the previous year. The Executive level is the level that sets policy and services for the public. Suffice it to say that if this level is not a representative body, then the government as a whole risks losing touch with its mandate. As the Senate said in its 2007 report on Employment Equity entitled “Not There Yet”: “The Committee is concerned that in a system historically run predominantly by white males, change is clearly not happening quickly enough.”
Employment equity is about more than representativeness, of course. It is also about employment polices and practices that serve as barriers to hiring and promotion. This raises the issue of women within government who are being discriminated against on the basis of family status.
As the female parent, women are required to strike a balance between family and work demands, typical in our culture. The failure to identify such policies as inflexible work schedules as barriers to the hiring and promotion of women is again, the failure of employers to meet their employment equity obligations.
Home Site Map Contact Us Bargaining Search Join Our Union Français
Date Modified : 2008/03/03
Public Service Alliance of Canada | 233, Gilmour Street, Ottawa, ONTARIO CANADA, K2P 0P1, Tel.: 1 888 604-7722 (PSAC)