Coaltiion for Pay Equity Executive Director Johanne Perron (Photo: Zoom)
The Coalition for Pay Equity has completed its second round of job evaluations in the province, in a new report called, “The Value of Care: Pay equity in special care homes, ESSP agencies and family support agencies”.
Coalition Chair Frances Leblanc says it looked at wages for four female dominated jobs, “Our pay equity study reveals that we are still really far from pay equity and partially because the sector as a whole wasn’t adjusted for many years. Pay equity in the sector and in other jobs is a long standing problem and issue.”
Evaluations were done in 2020-2021, detailing pay equity for Special care home workers, Crisis interveners in ESSP community agencies, Family support workers for adults, and Family support workers for children.
According to the evaluations, fair wages would range from $22.44 to $25.91 an hour to reach the wages of male-dominated jobs of comparable value. Current wages are much lower-between $14.50 and $16.80-revealing gaps as wide as $9.00 per hour. This demonstrates the urgency of developing a plan and investing in the wages of sector workers to achieve pay equity.
The Coalition is recommending the government develop a five-year plan to achieve equal pay and extend pay equity legislation to all employers in the province.
Coalition Executive Director Johanne Perron says, “It’s been neglected for so many years before, that there is a lot of catching up to do. As we’ve seen, even with the investments the government has made in the past few years, we are still very far from pay equity level.”
The Coalition is recommending:
1. That the provincial government develop and implement a five-year plan to reach pay equity in the whole community care sector, including:
a. Increased public investments in wages until pay equity is achieved;
b. The development of wage scales taking pay equity into account;
c. The annual indexation of wage scales based on the consumer price index; and
d. Pay equity exercises for all community care jobs that have not been evaluated, including those of management.
2. That the government ensures the maintenance of pay equity in the community care sector every five years.
3. That the government extends the pay equity act to the entire private sector.
(Photo: submitted)
