N.L. Federation of Labour calls on government to overhaul new pay equity legislation

It's only been in effect since October, yet Jessica McCormick believes Newfoundland and Labrador's pay equity legislation needs to be revamped.

The leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador Labour Federation says the bill the government passed was better than nothingbut fell way short of a comprehensive set of laws to improve the lives of women in the workforce.

The NLFL partnered with the Equal Pay Coalition in Ontario to produce an overview and critique of the legislation, which it published earlier this week, as the government is in the middle of consultations on the regulations that go with the act.

"This processisn't where we need to be," McCormick saidThursday."We need to take a step backand look at the laws and make those changes that need to be made, and then go ahead and think about regulations. But until the actis adequate, we can't move forward."

The legislation that passed in October only covers women working permanent jobs in the public sector. McCormick said it needs to cover women working part-time or temporary contracts in the public sector, as well as allprivate sector workplaces with10 or more employees.

Recommendations on intersectionality, oversight

The first of theamendments proposed in the document published by the NLFLis to "explicitly enshrine pay equity and pay transparency as fundamental human rights in the law."

They also call for the legislation to include trade unions at the pay equity negotiations table and develop an independent oversight agency to investigate contraventions of the law and enforce punishment.

It also calls for the government to recognize the intersectionality of pay equity issues.

"We know that the wage gap is more significant for Black orIndigenous women, racialized women, migrant women, women with disabilities," McCormick said."And so acknowledging that and ensuring we're tracking that employers are tracking wage differences for those workers is really critical. And that's missing from the legislation."

McCormick said the NLFL has not had meetings with the provincial government yet to discuss the regulations for the actbut they hope to have a sitdown before the end of the month.

"Itwas very frustrating not to be consulted on the legislation itselfbut, you know, we want to leave the door open to opportunities to provide input in the future," she said. "This is such a critically important issue for women in the province. So we need to have input."

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