Women’s pay for women’s work

>> Quebec won’t discuss salaries with its daycare workers

by NOEMI LOPINTO

The Bouchard administration was fairly proud of itself when it thought up the Pay Equity Commission. Set up in 1999, the PEC’s mandate was to oversee a province-wide look at the levels of gender pay disparity in small and large businesses. In a similarly optimistic vein, in 1997 the Bouchard administration hatched $5-a-day universal daycare. The two feel-good departments, however, are now at cross-purposes. To the dismay of the Minister for Family and Children, Linda Goupil, daycare workers from $5-a-day centres found they fit the systemic gender-pay discrimination profile perfectly. Daycare workers are 99 per cent female and are underpaid compared to their male counterparts in equivalent sectors.
The Salary Equity Law, passed in 1999, is principally designed to improve wages in occupations traditionally held by women. It applies to any business that employs 10 or more people, whether in the private, public or parapublic sectors. Daycare workers have been complaining about their low wages and their lack of a pension fund—problems other provincial employees don’t have—since 1999, the same year the PEC was established.
In a 1999 study by the Federation des intervenantes en petite enfance du Québec, several points of contention regarding the lot of their members were raised. Home daycare workers, for instance, were being paid an average $4.63 an hour, compared with other daycare workers who made $10.10. Other problems include non-existent pensions for workers nearing retirement and inequities in wages between daycare workers and staff in other parapublic sectors, such as hospitals and universities.

Later in 1999, however, wages for the 20,000 workers in Quebec’s $5-a-day centres were increased, costing the government about $150-million over four years, to $12.59 an hour. But the daycare workers don’t think that’s enough.

While Goupil had agreed to look at pay equity and a retirement plan in 1999, workers say the minister has stalled, putting off negotiations until June 2002. So this past winter, a vast majority of daycare worker unions across the province voted in favour of non-consecutive one-day strikes this April.

Emergency catch-up

Sylvie Tonnelier, president of the Federation des intervenantes en petite enfance du Québec, says the 1999 salary increase was an emergency “catch-up,” because wages were so low. But wages remain far below those of other government employees. “In 1999 we had an understanding with the minister that there were two topics on the table, salary equity and pension funds,” says Tonnelier. “A vote to strike is to recharge the discussion, because every day that goes by is less money going into retirement funds.

“We think that people who are working have the right to good working conditions,” Tonnelier continues. “It’s the government that decided to do the $5-a-day program and set up a salary equity commission. It’s effectively very paradoxical to write laws and then refuse to apply them for their own employees. In October 2000 the minister pulled out of the discussions on salary equity, saying they had done their bit, and the rest was up to the employers. But even though daycare centres are 95 per cent financed by the government, they said it was no longer open for discussion.”

One non-unionized senior daycare worker, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job, says she hopes that the unions and the minister can work together. “It’s a promise that has been two years in the making,” she says. “We all agree that a promise was made and not kept. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask for pensions for long-time workers. I will strike with the employees, and I think parents are behind us, because they share our concerns. We will see how the government reacts to the strike. I don’t think there will be a good government offer because there are already so many other hands reaching out for the government’s money. But there appears to be some movement.”

Sylvie Lemieux, press attaché at the Ministry of Family and Children, says, “The problem is, there is no masculine comparison to be made. Daycares are 99 per cent women, so until the Commission has found a masculine comparison, the government is not going to negotiate on salary equity. That is the Commission’s responsibility, and we are waiting for their recommendation. We will only discuss pension funds.”

Tonnelier and other union representatives will meet with Goupil in Quebec City this Friday, April 12. Tonnelier says she is feeling wary of whatever it is that the government has to propose. “The government has set up exploitative conditions, and they have to set it right,” she says. :