A COMMITMENT TO EQUALITY

Report of the Commission
Equality in Employment,
Judge Rosalie Abella
Commissioner, 1984

Contents of this article:

• Why do we need employment equity?
• UAW Members Strike Over Equal Pay for Equal Work
• How does your workplace measure up?
• What is the difference between pay equity, employment equity, and affirmative action?
• Why can't we rely on volutary measures?
• How will employment equity legislation affect collective bargaining?
• Is employment equity a form of 'reverse discrimination'?
• Does employment equity mean that unqualified people will be hired?
• Will employment equity threaten union seniority rights?
• Is a recession the time to bargain employment equity?
• How will employment equity affect me as a member of a designated group?
• "Get the Blacks who are at the Bottom of the Totem Pole"
• The CAW Record: A commitment to equality in employment
• The CAW: Leading progressive social change
• Women on the Line in General Motors

Why do we need employment equity?

Employment equity is a strategy to achieve the fair representation and equal treatment of all groups of workers, regardless of race, sex, and disability status. Because of prejudice and discriminatory practices that are built into employment systems, some groups have not been able to reach their potential and secure an equal place with others in the work world. The costs of discrimination are many: job ghettoization, low wages, limited opportunities for promotion and transfer, under-employment, job insecurity, and harassment at work. Some workers, such as women of colour, experience discrimination on many grounds.

• Seventy-three per cent of employed women have jobs in the traditional areas of clerical, sales/service, health care, and education. In comparison, fewer than nine per cent of women have jobs in the traditionally-male occupations such as processing, machining, construction, crafts, and production fabrication.

• Seven out of ten women experience sexual harassment at some point in their working lives.

• A 1991 survey of 15 employment agencies by a group posing as a prospective employer found 12 agreed to a "whites only" restriction.

• In the mid-1980s, over one-half the visible minority workers in Ontario were concentrated in lower-paying office support jobs, compared to 26 per cent of white workers.

• The average income for aboriginal peoples is 20 per cent lower than the national average.

• The unemployment rate for aboriginal peoples is three times higher than the national rate.

• More than 13 per cent of Canadians are physically disabled, but only about 49 per cent of the disabled participate in the labour force.

Workers may challenge individual cases of overt, intentional discrimination through existing Human Rights legislation, but this route often takes years to produce results and it has a limited effect.

It's time for mandatory employment equity to confront discrimination that is built into the system, whether or not it results from people's deliberate actions.

At times, employers uphold job requirements that are not really necessary to successfully perform a task. Such requirements automatically exclude particular groups of people from hiring and promotion. This is systemic discrimination.

Here are some examples:

• Requiring five years Canadian employment experience or a grade 12 equivalent.

• Only hiring people over 5'8" and 185 Ibs. because the job may involve heavy lifting.

• Saying women don't apply for the jobs. The excuse is they don't feel comfortable working amongst men.

Employment equity will challenge management's traditional hiring practices and ensure that our workplaces represent their surrounding communities. It's also about eliminating sexual and racial harassment, negotiating child care and parental leave provisions, and providing literacy and skills training to put all workers on an equal footing for promotions or entry into non-traditional jobs. In addition, a commitment to equality means that we within our own union. We should ensure the fair representation and participation of the designated groups in our staff, appointments, and our elected structures.

Robert White
President, CAW Canada

UAW MEMBERS STRIKE OVER EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK

For many years, the Ford Motor Company in Windsor employed men only in production work. However, in 1942, as men left to join the Armed Forces during the Second World War, management hired 37 women to work in the manufacturing plant. While men earned 85-cents-per-hour, the company proposed to pay the women only 50 cents.

In protest, 9,000 men in the three plants walked out, establishing picket lines at all of the gates and forcing an end to production. UAW Local 200 officials did not object to the hiring of women. But they feared that the company's actions "meant the possibility of hundreds of our union brothers being...replaced by low salaried female help."

After heated debate, management was forced to uphold the equal pay principle. However, as soon as Ford officials realized that they could not use women as cheap labour, the cancelled a lucrative government contract and farmed-out work to smaller and lower paying feeder plants.

Ford in Windsor did not hire another woman in production work until the 1970s, when the union successfully challenged the practice.

How does your workplace measure up?

Examine your workplace. Expose inequalities. Does your workplace reflect the community? Does the contract contain a non-discrimination clause? Do any policies effectively discriminate against a particular group? Is your workplace accessible to people with disabilities? Surveys of the workforce and a careful review of employment procedures will help determine the extent of discrimination, the availability of workers from the designated groups, and the practical changes necessary to achieve equality.

Day-to-day, you can also challenge stereotypical views and confront prejudices directly. Object to the harassment of members. Take a stand. The CAW National Office will help local leadership set up educational sessions about employment equity measures.

What is the difference between pay equity, employment equity, and affirmative action?

Pay equity attempts to equalize wage rates between workers performing work of equal value by evaluating their jobs. Employment equity tries to eliminate all barriers to the designated groups in employment. It includes hiring and selection, promotion, and transfer rights. Affirmative action is a concept that hails from the United States, but the term is sometimes used interchangeably with employment equity. In the CAW, we use the term affirmative action to refer to equity strategies internal to the union.

Why can't we rely on voluntary measures?

Voluntary employment equity programmes have been in place in Canada for more than fifteen years, with little improvement for the designated groups. The federal legislation has a fatal flaw - it relies on voluntary measures. Companies do not face sanctions if they fail to adopt or implement a plan. Employers covered under the federal legislation must report on their workforce composition, but only failure to file the report can be enforces. Simply put, the law has no teeth.

Not surprisingly, this legislation has not produced significant results. Without clear goals and timetables - enforceable by law - employers rarely agree to change the composition of their workforces. And as we know from our union's bargaining experience in the federal airline sector, employers left to their own initiative will not give up their exclusive control over hiring.

How will employment equity legislation affect collective bargaining?

In 1990, Bob Rae of the NDP, at that time official opposition leader in Ontario, introduced a private member's bill on employment equity. Once elected, the NDP government promised to introduce employment equity legislation that included mandatory goals and timetables.

Under employment equity legislation, employers and union officials would negotiate an employment equity plan that provides minimum standards.

Is employment equity a form of ‘reverse discrimination'?

No, although management frequently promotes this myth. Employment equity does not discriminate against one group in favour of another. It is not preferential treatment. It is discriminatory, however, to uphold employment arrangements that maintain inequalities.

Does employment equity mean that unqualified people will be hired?

No. Hiring decisions will be based on the availability of qualified people. No one will benefit by hiring unqualified people, least of all members of the designated groups. In addition, an employment equity plan must judge the validity of current job requirements. On close inspection, we may find that many yardsticks used in hiring are not vital to performing the job at hand.

Furthermore, it is no secret that people from the designated groups often face closer scrutiny in the workplace from both employers and co-workers. As a result, they are often forced to meet higher standards just to prove their worth and gain acceptance.

Will employment equity threaten union seniority rights?

No. The CAW has always fought for seniority rights in order to guard against discrimination based on personal favouritism and trade union activity. Today, employment equity seeks to protect workers from systemic discrimination based on sex, race, and disability status.

One employer strategy is to target union seniority clauses, calling them a barrier to employment equity. If this were true, unorganized workplaces would be models of employment equity. They're not!

Let's be clear. All workers need seniority protection, especially those stuck in the worst job ghettos. The seniority rights of long-term employees are no up for grabs here. Instead of questioning their seniority rights, employers should reward longstanding workers for their service and beef up their opportunities for early retirement.

Is a recession the time to bargain employment equity?

An unstable economy is no reason to abandon the pursuit of justice. Members of the designated groups deserve equal access to employment and fair rewards, especially to employment times. In fact, it is well documented that such groups are particularly hard hit by an economic downturn.

All workers seek decent jobs, wages, and opportunities for transfer and promotion. Employment equity, however, is necessary to achieve these goals for persons who face extreme barriers. Just like our battle against concessions a decade ago, we can negotiate effective employment equity, while building membership support and playing a firm role as leadership.

How will employment equity affect me as a member of a designated group?

While community groups and unions often sing the praises of employment equity, some members of designated groups are concerned that such programmes may set off a racist or sexist backlash. Will the established workforce resent the presence of new hires who come from a designated group? Will they be regarded as "tokens?"

No doubt, some employers may hire members of the designated groups just to give the illusion of progress. But this is not what employment equity is about. A successful plan will ensure that there are no tokens - only qualified workers of diverse backgrounds.

As women, visible minorities, aboriginal peoples, and people with disabilities enter workplaces in greater numbers, everyone will have to adapt. Over time, we will all learn that we share common ground, as workers and as trade unionists.

Employment equity is about respecting differences. In a context of long standing inequality, we cannot achieve genuine equality unless we make a special considerations. We have recognized this in the CAW. Union education programmes - like our human rights training and special courses for women and visible minority activists - will encourage both old and new members to seek unity across gender and racial lines.

"GET THE BLACKS WHO ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TOTEM POLE"

In the pre-War years, foundry work was a far cry from what it is today. The work was hot, dirty, hazardous, and physically demanding. Many white native-born employees simply refused to work in this section of GM's St. Catharines plant. Consequently, in the early 1900s, company agents scouted the central United States to recruit Armenians for these jobs. The agents also brought a small number of Black men into the foundry from Toronto. By the early 1940s, the company recruited many more Blacks from Nova Scotia.

"Look, were glad to get in there," explained retired foundry employee Richard Nicholson. "You see, money was scarce and jobs were scarce...you can't get white people to come in and do those jobs...so you go get the Blacks who are at the bottom of the totem pole..."

Over time, Blacks and Armenians became ghettoized in foundries. While they were not legally prohibited from transferring to other areas of the plant, these men faced a number of informal barriers, such as direct prejudice, that made them unwelcome in other departments. According to one worker, the Black men used to say, "You better not even think about [moving to] the engine plant...You ain't gonna get over there."

Today, with bargained seniority rights, no workers are ghettoized in one section of the plant.

• Our first collective agreement in 1937 contained an anti-discrimination clause to protect workers from prejudice on the basis of union membership. Today, this clause prohibits discrimination on various grounds, including race, creed, colour, religion, place of origin, disability, sex, and marital status.

• The CAW has also established a national Women's Department, holds annual women's and human rights conferences, and our constitution requires that locals establish women's committees and human rights committees.

• CAW has won employment equity measures at the bargaining table. In 1984, we bargained a joint labour-management affirmative action programme with General Motors. Three years later, we negotiated similar provisions with Ford and Chrysler. These programmes were designed to educate both the membership and the community about equality in employment.

• We have also bargained human rights training for our membership. GM, for example, allows every CAW member at GM time off the job to attend a three-hour training course in human rights. This training now exists in other CAW workplaces.

• In an effort to eliminate the barriers to women's participation in the workforce, the CAW has been negotiating funding for child care since 1983. In 1990, we opened a child care centre in the city of Windsor for CAW members in the Big Three auto firms. This centre offers extended care to accommodate the needs of our members who work shifts.

• In an attempt to improve the day-to-day work experiences of all our members, the CAW has implemented an anti-harassment policy to confront all forms of co-worker harassment.

• After many years of struggle to ensure that the union structure reflects its membership, we have established mandatory affirmative action positions for women and visible minorities on the CAW National Executive Board.

Change is what the union is about. We've demanded and won S.U.B. plans, pension rights, maternity leave, and child care funds always broadening our collective bargaining agenda. As unionists, we shape the society in which we live. Through constant struggle, we improve our lives, carve out our rights, move toward equality.

Advocated have made all sorts of arguments for employment equity, ranging from the efficient use of "human resources" to the "economic costs" of discrimination. However, let's speak our own language. From a union perspective, employment equity is central on our agenda because we recognize that all inequalities are connected. All inequalities have hurt individual groups of workers and threaten organized labour as a whole.

The CAW recognizes that the labour movement is composed of groups that have diverse, yet related, problems and concerns. We respect and build on these differences. Women of colour are not in and identical situation with their other sisters. Visible minority men face a different set of problems than visible minority women. History has shown us that while employers have treated each of these groups unfairly, they have never used them in identical ways. We must try to correct the inequalities, while at the same time respecting differences.

The CAW is a union with spirit and resolve. This spirit and resolve have come from our diverse membership, often engaging in heated debate, charged with controversy, and political zeal. The internal resolution of conflicts between groups within our union has produced a strong unified voice, with which we can confront management. As a workers' organization, the CAW is about democracy. It's about democracy in the workplace and democracy in our union.

Over time, employers have pitted one group of workers against another. This has been destructive for all working people. We have fought hard to build solidarity amongst our members. With employment equity, we have a renewed opportunity to achieve social justice and respect human dignity in the workplace. The labour movement, especially the CAW, has always led the way to progressive social change.

In 1970, in General Motors plants across Ontario, women moved onto line jobs for the first time in the company's history. At this time, they also secured equal rights and rewards with men under the collective agreement. Yet in spite of these contractual gains, women still faced many indignities.

This was largely because they were a tiny minority in an unsupportive, masculine work setting. While many union brothers accepted women's entry into former "male preserves," others felt threatened by their presence and reacted with contempt. Some men punished women by applying "equality" to the letter, over filling boxes that women had to lift, teaching women to perform jobs incorrectly, and neglecting to give them vital information about work operations. Others attempted to shock the women with coarse language and pornographic images.

It was the courageous struggle of the women at GM that led to the inclusion of a sex as a prohibited ground of discrimination in the Ontario Human Rights Code. Later, ground breaking negotiated employment equity measures won the CAW and GM a joint employment equity award from the Ontario government in 1987.

Click on our logo to return to the CAW Digital Collections Home Page