Sunday, November 30, 2008

Another reason to dump the Cons: Pay equity (or the end of it)

After going through the economic statement last week, that's caused the left to unite as it hasn't been in a very long time, I noticed something else very odious that's reason enough for me to hope Stephen Harper is forced to resign next week -- even if all the other concerns were somehow addressed (which of course they won't be). The Conservatives want to wipe out outstanding lawsuits regarding pay equity in federally regulated industries as well as the right to sue for any suits that might be forthcoming.

Pay equity goes beyond equal pay for equal work. It's the principle that there should be equal pay for work of equal value. It does this by measuring what the comparative worth of a job classifcation is and the value it provides to society at large (in the case of government) or to a corporation (in the case of industry). In plain language, it tries on an objective scale to compare apples to oranges.

For example, on a purely hypothetical example, say you're comparing federal public health officials (some working for the Health Department, others for Defence or for Indian Affairs) to a disparate class -- for this example,. detachments of constable Mounties (under the jurisdiction of Public Safety). Both groups are public employees on the federal payroll. The jobs are obviously vastly different and serve different purposes, but on an independent evaluation they are found to prove equal value to the community at large. Under pay equity, whoever is getting paid less should have their salaries raised to match the higher paid job. Further, identical jobs across different departments should also get paid the same.

While the vast majority of pay equity cases have involved underpaid women, some have involved underpaid men. Now the government wants to take that away citing "budgetary constraints."

No. Wrong. We cannot sacrifice equal rights at the altar of the bean counters. I should not be surprised that this would be happening. Mike Harris did away with pay equity in Ontario (wrongly) and the hatchetman he picked for the job was Jim Flaherty. He had a majority behind him in the Ontario Legislature (as well as a sailing economy at the time) so he mostly got away with it.

He, and Harper, cannot be allowed to get away with it at the federal level even if we are in recession.

This is a matter of equal rights. It's as simple as that. Anyone against something as simple as the equality of men and women in the workplace does not deserve to even sit as an MP let alone be a Minister of the Crown.

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2 comments:

penlan said...

Yes, that really angered me too. I've heard, this morning, that Harper may prorogue Parliament. If he does he will show everyone how having & holding power is all that matters to him.

You might want to check out a post I did a little while ago on Harper. Has a lot of insights into the psychological make-up of this man.

ken said...

A very interesting post. The mainstream press is almost silent on important issues such as this and concentrates entirely on the lack of a stimulus package and party funding. There are many other rightwing aspects pushed through in this update including the sale of crown assets into a buyers market, placing caps on public service salaries and removing their right to strike, plus cuts to equalisation payments a big issue in the Quebec election.