The Pay Equity Act is 25 years old. Despite several major advances, the struggle of women to obtain equal pay for equivalent work needs to continue. Unfortunately, inequities persist. It is therefore time to review the Act to give it more bite in order to achieve equitable compensation for employees in predominantly female jobs. The government, as an employer, must also comply. In particular, it must speed up the processing of thousands pay discrimination complaints that were filed more than six years, and even 11 years in some cases, ago.
Pay equity, it’s time to walk the talk!
DID YOU KNOW THAT…
- Did you know that when it comes to pay equity, the Quebec government, as an employer, does not respect its own legislation or its own deadlines?
- Did you know that in Quebec, women still earn on average $2.77 per hour less than men?
- Did you know that the wage gap between women and men already exists when they enter the labour market and that it increases with age?
- Did you know that in 2021, while the average hourly wage for men grew by 2.7%, the average hourly wage for women grew by only 1.5%?
- Did you know that thousands of complaints of wage discrimination against women have still not been dealt with six years later? Some have even been unresolved for 11 years.
Did you know that the Pay Equity Act has no effective mechanism to force offending employers to respect it and pay the salary adjustments due to discriminated women?