What is pay equity?
Pay equity is a law in Ontario to provide fair wage rates for traditional female jobs. The law applies to all Ontario workplaces with 10 or more employees.
The goal of the program is to make sure that female jobs in a workplace are not paid less than male jobs of similar value in the same workplace.
Since jobs done mainly by men tend to be really different than traditional women’s jobs, the pay equity law requires women's and men's jobs be evaluated in a non-discriminatory way. Jobs are evaluated by identifying and valuing the skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions. Jobs don’t have to be similar in content to be similar in their overall value.
If a female job is paid less than a male job of similar value, pay equity requires that the female wage rates be raised to the match the male job.
This is the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. It is a fundamental human right for women workers to be paid wages that are free of gender-based discrimination.
In Ontario, unions share with employers the responsibility of negotiating the pay equity comparisons with employers.
In summary, pay equity means: paying jobs usually done by women at least the same as jobs usually done by men, even though they are different jobs, as long as the jobs are of equal or comparable value, based upon a fair system to evaluate jobs, and its principles are applied jointly by unions and employers.