Closing the Gender Wage Gap: A frontline public sector perspective

A submission to the Gender Wage Gap Strategy Steering Committee,
Ontario Ministry of Labour, from the Ontario Public Service Employees Union

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January 15, 2016

Foreword: OPSEU and the Gender Wage Gap

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) represents approximately 130,000 working Ontarians employed across the province in the Ontario Public Service, the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, in some 20 sectors across the Broader Public Service, and at private sector employers contracted to perform work for government and its agencies. Fully two-thirds of OPSEU members are women.

Since its founding 40 years ago, OPSEU has represented members’ interests not only at the bargaining table, but also in the realm of public policy around public service delivery and social justice issues. OPSEU members speak from experience as frontline public service providers, but also as people who live in communities and want a better province for all.

OPSEU welcomes the opportunity to make this submission as part of our contribution to the work of the Gender Wage Gap Strategy Steering Committee.

Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 100 Lesmill Road, Toronto, Ontario M3B 3P8
www.opseu.org

Introduction: The Gender Wage Gap is real

The existence of a wage gap between women and men is not an unproven theory; it is a simple fact. Women on average in Ontario earn 31.5 per cent less per year than men and are more likely to be in precarious employment than their male counterparts.combine to create pervasive and often invisible discrimination…. The size and persistence of the wage gap clearly indicates that the problem does not stem simply from individual women and their capacities or from the practices of a few employers. Although there are certainly differences in the way individual women are treated by individual employers, women as a group face a common set of practices that disadvantage them in the labour force.

These practices include: gender-biased compensation and employment practices; absence of employment equity laws; insufficient employment and training supports; lack of affordable child care; and lack of accommodation for other care responsibilities.

While centuries of systemic oppression must be acknowledged, we also must ask why the past several decades of economic growth have not translated into the elimination, or at least the reduction, of the gender wage gap in 2016. Which policy initiatives have worked to reduce the gap? Which ones haven’t? What can we do differently?

If our objective as Ontarians is to end the gender wage gap – and it must be – and also to create a better, fairer, and more equitable Ontario for all, then we must begin by answering these questions. The gender wage gap arises from workplace practices implemented by employers in a legal framework devised by governments in a social context that has yet to free itself from gender bias. Sound policy rooted in Ontarians’ strong sense of fair play can address all three.