Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2001, published 90th ILC session (2002)

Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) - Canada (Ratification: 1972)

The Committee notes the Government’s report and the abundant documentation enclosed.

1. The Committee notes that the thorough reform of the job classification and evaluation system, which the Government has been working on since 1996, is now almost complete and that the new job evaluation tool, the Universal Classification Standard (UCS) 2.0 on which testing began in 1998, should gradually be extended throughout the Canadian public service as from the end of 2000. This new standard has been developed to assist public servants in more efficiently managing the wide variety of jobs performed in the interests of the public, and also to streamline a job evaluation system which dates back more than 30 years.

2. The Committee notes with interest that UCS 2.0 has three fundamental goals: universality (the Standard is capable of evaluating the full range of work characteristics within the public service of Canada); gender neutrality (the Standard can identify and positively value the characteristics of work done by women and men, including work that has been historically "invisible" or undervalued); and simplicity (the design and administration of the Standard can support a straightforward and efficient method of valuing and describing work). To meet these goals the Standard must be capable, for example, of comparing the work of care giving with the work of policy analysis, administration or ship repair. The Standard also conforms to the Canadian Human Rights Act, which stipulates that "[I]n assessing the value of work performed by employees employed in the same establishment, the criterion to be applied is the composite of the skill, effort and responsibility required in the performance of the work and the conditions under which the work is performed." The Standard comprises four factors for measuring the various requirements of a job: responsibility (measures responsibility in the work for people, ideas and things); skill (measures what employees need to know about, or to be able to do in order to perform the work assigned); effort (measures the mental and physical exertion required by the work); and working conditions (measures the physical and psychological conditions under which the work is performed and their potential effects on the health of employees). Each of the four factors is subdivided into elements to allow an evaluation of the whole range of jobs carried out in the public service. The Committee is of the view that this is a quantitative method of analysis enabling the relative value of jobs to be determined, and serves as a good example for other States.

3. It therefore asks the Government to provide information on progress made in this respect and would be grateful to receive information on the number of men and women employed in the various posts classified according to UCS 2.0, with an indication of their remuneration - when conversion to the new standard is complete - in order to assess the impact of the new Standard on the reduction of the gender wage gap.

4. The Committee notes with interest that the action brought by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) against the Treasury Board in 1991 (further to a complaint originally filed in 1984 with a lower court) ended with an agreement between the two parties on how to calculate the compensation due to the members of the PSAC. The Committee recalls that on 28 July 1998, the Human Rights Tribunal found that the complainants, government employees in predominantly female occupational groups (secretaries, clerks, hospital workers, librarians, etc.) were not receiving equal pay for work of equal value, and gave the Treasury Board and the PSAC one year in which to work out arrangements for the payment of wage adjustments. The Committee notes that the Treasury Board and the PSAC managed to reach an agreement on 29 October 1999, which the Tribunal endorsed on 16 November 1999, and that, according to the agreement, between 3.3 and 3.6 billion Canadian dollars are to be paid retroactively to approximately 230,000 employees. Payments under this agreement include not only pay equity adjustments but lump sum payments, interest, maternity benefit, severance pay, invalidity benefit, promotions and overtime, and old age pension.

The Committee is raising other matters in a request addressed directly to the Government.