This text is part of the special Syndicalism booklet
There is no doubt in Robert Comeau’s mind that the Pay Equity Act was and still is an essential instrument in the fight to correct the wage gap between women and men exercising a profession or a trade. whose tasks and responsibilities are equivalent.
President of the Alliance of Professional and Technical Personnel in Health and Social Services (APTS), Robert Comeau is well placed to see the benefits of this law, since 86% of APTS members are women. Coming into force in 1997, so just 25 years ago, it was not until 2006 that APTS members were able to appreciate, in cold hard cash, the effect of this law. “The correction was major, he points out, since 85% of our members experienced an upward salary readjustment. »
Where the shoe pinches
There is therefore no question of questioning the validity of this law. “It is an essential law, continues Robert Comeau, but it is necessary today to modernize it, especially with regard to its application. Because the latter can be finicky, the government seeking to interpret certain aspects of the law in its favor, as was the case with the notion of retroactivity.
“The law requires us to carry out a pay equity audit every five years,” explains Robert Comeau. This exercise allows us to identify the jobs that have evolved and that now require a salary adjustment. The government claimed that this salary adjustment would come into effect only during the next pay equity maintenance exercise, so if the adjustment had been established in 2010, for example, it would only come into effect in 2015, thus depriving workers of income , in our view, to which they were entitled. »
This interpretation of the law was challenged in court by the unions and it was the Supreme Court of Canada that finally ruled in favor of the unions and the principle of salary retroactivity.
Another irritating point in the application of the law, according to Robert Comeau, is the unreasonable delay between the conclusion that a job has changed and that it deserves a salary adjustment and the entry into force of the latter. He gives as an example the case of speech therapists for whom the APTS has just concluded, at the end of 2021, an agreement with the government.
“However, he points out, this file was filed during the 2010 maintenance exercise. It therefore took 11 years before speech therapists could obtain the necessary salary adjustment. It is a simply unreasonable delay that leads to unnecessary and costly legal hassles and that, in the long run, also undermines the morale of the troops. »
Robert Comeau would like to point out that the 2015 pay equity maintenance exercise, like that of 2020, is still to this day in the same limbo that speech therapists have been for 11 years. “We must modernize the application of the law, he argues, in order to put an end to these delays. There is certainly a way to make exercise more effective and above all faster and, at the same time, fairer for everyone. »
Towards an extension of the law?
Currently, with regard to Quebec government employees, it is possible to compare and evaluate jobs in the public service, in the education network as well as in the health and social services network. “On the other hand, explains Robert Comeau, state corporations, such as Hydro-Québec and the SAQ, are exempt from this rule. It is therefore impossible for me to compare the job of a computer technician working in a hospital to one having a similar position, but working for Hydro-Québec. One of our demands is to broaden the scope of the law, so that we can compare all the positions held by state employees. »
The Pay Equity Act applies to all Quebec businesses with 10 or more employees. Would it not be appropriate to establish comparisons between public and private jobs? “We are currently thinking about this subject, which seems desirable to us, but we have not yet arrived at a definitive position”, concludes Robert Comeau.