The government of New Brunswick's pay equity program for non-legislated sectors: a just and equitable process?

• Author: Blaney, Elizabeth

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the results of the Government of New Brunswick's pay equity program for the non-legislated private sector. The analysis was conducted on behalf of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity in order to determine if the Province's pay equity process for women working in female-dominated employment sectors was just and equitable. Through a review of the relevant documents and literature, the paper highlights major issues with New Brunswick's pay equity exercise. Using case study, the paper draws attention to and raises questions about significant methodological problems that negatively impacted the results of the pay equity exercise for the participating sectors. While research has been conducted on pay equity legislation in other Canadian jurisdictions, there is a paucity of literature that examines the effectiveness of pay equity exercises in New Brunswick. The paper concludes with recommendations for an equitable pay equity exercise for employees working in traditionally female-dominated jobs.

INTRODUCTION

The International Labour Organization (ILO), a tripartite agency of the United Nations, adopted the Equal Remuneration Convention (No. 100) in 1951. (1) This declaration promotes equal pay for work of equal value, or pay equity, as a fundamental right. Despite the fact that it has since been ratified by Canada, as well as a large majority of states worldwide, pay discrimination continues to affect women from all levels of education, age groups, and occupations. (2) Researchers have identified a number of causes of continuing pay discrimination, including occupational segregation, (3) undervaluation of women's work (4), and the limited effectiveness of, and lack of compliance with, pay equity legislation. (5)

Canada adopted the principle of equal remuneration under section 11 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which forbids wage discrimination between women and men doing work of equal value in the same establishment. (6) This Act applies to federal government employees and federally regulated companies. It is complaints-based, meaning that employees are responsible for filing a wage-discrimination complaint against an employer. Ontario (7) and Quebec (8) introduced pro-active pay equity legislation covering all employers in the public sector, and those in the private sector with more than ten employees, in 1988 and 2006 respectively. A pro-active law requires that employers assume responsibility for ensuring fair pay rather than employees. Instead of responding only to individuals who are able to bring a complaint to a court or tribunal, the employer must take the initiative to determine and rectify instances of unlawful discrimination. (9) Moreover, rather than redressing unlawful discrimination for the benefit of a particular individual, such an approach seeks to find collective solutions that cover all affected individuals. The federal Pay Equity Task Force advocates for stand-alone, pro-active models with comprehensive coverage, adequate institutional support and training, obligations for maintenance, and pay equity oversight agencies equipped to support legislative compliance. (10)

The New Brunswick Pay Equity Act, 2009 applies to the civil service, health sector employees, the school system, including teachers, bus drivers, and school district employees, and Crown corporations. Although it does not cover the private sector, the provincial government announced, in June 2009, that five groups from the private sector would receive pay equity adjustments: child care, home support, nursing homes, transition houses, and community residences. Reporting on the experience of these five groups has become a focus of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity ("the Coalition"). (11) The Coalition comprises a group of individuals and organizations who educate and advocate for the adoption and implementation of adequate legislation in order to achieve pay equity for all workers in both the public and private sectors. Members of the Coalition have analyzed the results of the Government of New Brunswick's pay equity program for the five groups representing the non-legislated sectors to determine if the pay equity process was just and equitable. (12)

Using case study, this paper examines the effectiveness of New Brunswick's pay equity exercise for women working in female-dominated, non-legislated employment sectors. It first summarizes the Government of New Brunswick's pay equity program for each of the five sectors, focusing specifically on the results. Second, it highlights procedural issues and raises questions regarding methodological choices made by the Government of New Brunswick in conducting the pay equity exercise for the child care, home support, and transition house sectors. The paper concludes with recommendations to the Government of New Brunswick.

Job Evaluation Tools and Comparison Methods for Recognizing the Work Performed in Female-dominated Jobs

Pay equity, or equal pay for work of equal value, demands an evaluation of the work performed in female-dominated jobs. It is meant to address the issue of pay discrimination, i.e., discrimination based on the characteristics of female-dominated jobs that have been ignored or devalued, and thus underpaid, in contrast to male-dominated jobs. Pay equity therefore recognizes the value of work performed by women by focusing on the qualifications required for the job, the amount of responsibility the job entails, the effort required to carry out the job, and the conditions under which the work is performed. (13)

The goal of a pay equity process is to compare the pay of female-dominated jobs to that of male-dominated jobs. When jobs that are predominantly performed by women are compared to those predominantly performed by men, it is frequently found that female-dominated jobs are underpaid. The following examples illustrate the discrepancy between the value that is often ascribed to work predominantly done by women and work predominantly done by men. The effort required to lift heavy objects that is commonly associated with men's work may be recognized, but not the lifting of residents or patients that women often encounter in caring work, or the shifting of substantial amounts of weight in work stations such as store checkouts. Male responsibility for equipment and finances may be valued, but not women's responsibility to take care of children, the elderly, and vulnerable people. Exposure to weather, dirt, and noise in male-dominated outside work may be recognized, but not exposure to human waste, odours, blood, and other bodily fluids in inside caring jobs, or exposure to the cold, humidity, or heat in food preparation jobs, both of which are predominantly performed by women. In fact, many of the female-dominated occupations, including child care, home support, clerical, food services, and certain factory jobs, remain underpaid because this work is perceived as an extension of women's "natural" unpaid roles in the home rather than work requiring specific education, experience, and training. Such stereotypes and prejudices associated with female-dominated jobs have often reinforced and maintained gender pay disparities. (14)

To address pay discrepancies between jobs predominantly performed by women and those predominantly performed by men, pay equity advocates have turned to non-discriminatory job evaluation methods as a tool to recognize the requirements of work that is performed in female-dominated jobs. (15) Job evaluation systems that are recognized as gender neutral, gender sensitive, non-discriminatory, or non-sexist take into account all job characteristics and assign fair points to those often associated with female-dominated jobs. While job evaluations are widely used to establish fairer pay scales, both for internal equity and pay equity purposes, they have different functions depending on their goals and objectives.

In the case of internal equity, job evaluations are used to compare all jobs performed for the same employer, regardless of gender, to ensure that employees performing work of comparable value are compensated equitably across, for example, departmental lines or job classifications. Conversely, pay equity exercises require employers to evaluate and compare the value of jobs predominantly performed by women with the value of jobs predominantly performed by men to ensure that there is no wage discrimination against women.

Once a job description has been developed, the job is assigned a value for each sub factor based on its requisite qualifications, responsibilities, working conditions, and effort. The female-dominated jobs must then be compared with the male-dominated jobs. Various methodologies have been developed to conduct these comparisons. One such methodology, job-to-job comparison, directly compares female-dominated jobs with male-dominated jobs that are found to have the same value. If the value is the same, the pay should be the same. If not, the pay of the female-dominated job must be raised to align with that of the male-dominated job. This is the preferred method in the Province of Ontario. (16) This approach works well in large establishments where there are enough job categories that equivalent male-dominated jobs can be found for each female-dominated job, but is less effective when comparators are unevenly distributed or missing. A second methodology, proportional value comparison (also known as job-to-line), entails plotting the job value and job rates of all male-dominated job classes on a graph and drawing a line following a regression analysis. Female-dominated jobs are compared to the line. If they fall below the line, they are raised to reach the level on the regression line. (17) A third is the proxy method. In many female-dominated sectors, there are no jobs predominantly performed by men. To address this issue, the Province of Ontario has adopted a proxy method...