Collective Bargaining and Labour Market Outcomes for Canadian Working Women
I INTRODUCTION: UNIONS, LOW PAY, AND EARNINGS INEQUALITY
The major purposes of this paper are, first, to examine the impacts of collective bargaining on labour market outcomes for women workers in Canada, specifically with respect to pay, benefits coverage, the incidence of low pay and the extent of earnings inequality, and, second, to suggest ways in which positive impacts could be extended via the expansion of collective bargaining coverage. This part of the paper briefly reviews the literature on the impacts of collective bargaining on earnings, low pay, and earnings inequality, and Part II provides some background description of the labour market position of Canadian working women. Particular attention is paid to the situation of the majority of women who continue to work in lower paid, often insecure and part-time, clerical, sales, and service jobs. The central conclusion of the empirical analysis in Part III, mainly based on data from Statistics Canada's 1995 Survey of Working Arrangements, is that collective bargaining coverage, controlling for other factors, has significant positive impacts in terms of raising pay and access to benefits, and in terms of reducing the incidence of low pay among women workers. However, the level of collective bargaining coverage for women is very low in precisely those sectors of the economy where women in low paid and insecure jobs are most concentrated, namely in private services and in smaller enterprises. Promoting better labour market outcomes for women workers accordingly requires a major extension of collective bargaining. Part IV of the paper briefly considers ways in which this could be achieved through trade union action and through changes to public policy.
The 1996 OECD Employment Outlook comprehensively documented profound differences in the degree of earnings inequality and the incidence of low pay in the advanced industrial countries, noting that these two labour market characteristics are closely related in that "the incidence of low pay tends to be highest in those countries where earnings inequality is the most pronounced." While there is significant variation between countries, a generalized pattern is that continental European countries, particularly in Northern Europe, have a strikingly more equal distributio...
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...omen in non-unionized jobs, while for men, the wage difference was about $4.50 - or 24 per cent. The wage premium associated with unionization is shown for selected subgroups of women and men in Table 3. It is notable that the apparent union wage premium tends to be higher for less educated workers, though this is more clearly the case for men than for women. This is consistent with the fact that managerial and professional occupations in the private sector have very low rates of unionization.
Table 3. Average Hourly Wages of Women and Men, by Unionization and Selected Characteristics, Canada 1995
WOMEN
MEN
Union
Non-Union
"Union Premium"
Union
Non-Union
"Union Premium"
All
Age 15 to 24
Age 25 to 44
Age 45 to 69
Less than high school
High school grad.
Certificate/Diploma
University degree
Full-time
Part-time
Managerial/Admin.
Professional
Clerical
Sales
Services
Blue Collar
Firm size less than 20
Firm size 20 to 99
Firm size 100 to 500
Firm size + 500
16.68
11.23
16.92
17.37
12.16
14.60
16.56
21.38
16.90
15.95
18.59
19.49
14.47
The paper will discuss minicases on ‘The White-Collar Union Organizer’ and ‘The Frustrated Labor Historians’ by Arthur A. Sloane and Fred Witney (2010), to understand the issues unions undergo in the marketplace. There is no predetermined statistical number reported of union memberships in this country. However, “the United Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) excludes almost 2 million U.S wages and salary employees, over half of whom are employed in the public sector, who are represented at their workplaces by a union but are not union members. Not being required to join a union as a condition of continued employment, these employees have for a variety of reasons chosen not to do so. Nor do the BLS estimates include union members who are currently unemployed” (Sloane & Witney, 2010, p.5). Given this important information, the examination of these minicases will provide answers to the problems unions face in organizational settings.
As companies look to expand operations and hire new employees, many economic and environmental factors are taken into consideration. The cost of labor is one of the primary concerns as labor generally constitutes a large part of company budgets. The organization of labor by unions further increases this concern. The wages of unionized workers are significantly higher than the wages of nonunion workers in almost every industry (Fossum, 2012). Higher wages generally result in reduced company profits, lower share prices, and reduced shareholder returns (Fossum, 2012). Unionization also reduces the employer’s flexibility with regards to hiring, transferring, or promoting employees (Fossum, 2012). Productivity may be negatively impacted by unionization because merit is often eliminated as a criterion for wage increases or promotions (Fossum, 2012). As a result of these negative impacts, employers are motivated to oppose unionization.
Women’s Trade Union League: Evolving Focus The Women’s Trade Union League was established in 1903 during the height of the Progressive Era. Elite women and eventually working women as well, set out to improve the lives of the poor, working class women in the United States by promoting to both men and women the importance of the workingwomen coalescing into unions. They believed that organization and education were the keys to enacting change in the workplace and protecting the working women’s economic interests. The WUTL gave women a place to meet and discuss important issues regarding their problems with their employers and their working conditions while also providing a mechanism for funding the strikes as well as support and experience. This was the role they played in the many strikes that took place in the early 20th century and they continued to believe that unions were the answer to the struggles that women faced as a result of industrialization.
Munition-ettes suffered the flaws in the system of gender bias when looking at equal pay: "many [women] left low-skill, low-wage jobs, especially in domestic service, for better paying skilled labor in ...
Wallerstein, M. & Western, B. 2000. Unions in Decline? What Has Changed and Why? Annual Review of Political Science. 3: 355-377.
“Honey, you’re not a person, now get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!” If a husband were to say these words to his wife today, he would likely receive a well-deserved smack to the face. It is not until recently that Canadian women have received their status as people and obtained equal rights as men. Women were excluded from an academic education and received a lesser pay than their male counter parts. With the many hardships women had to face, women were considered the “slave of slaves” (Women’s Rights). In the past century, women have fought for their rights, transitioning women from the point of being a piece of property to “holding twenty-five percent of senior positions in Canada” (More women in top senior positions: Report). The Married Women’s Property Act, World War I, The Person’s Case, and Canadian Human Rights Act have gained Canadian women their rights.
Before the outbreak of World War I women could rarely get jobs, the role of a woman was to stay home and take care of her husband and children. It was when World War I broke out, that working women became a normal sight . Unfortunately, when World War I was over, women were expected to return and resume their role of taking care of their family. Then the Great Depression broke out, and women were still expected to stay at home, even though it would have been advantageous for them to be working with their husbands. When World War II broke out women were once again called upon to work in factories, and just like the end of World War I, returning veterans wanted their jobs back . It was still not accepted by the majority of Canadian men for women to work. Job aspects were looking down for women, by 1946 the rate of women's participation in the labour force had dropped to Depression levels , but since women’s contribution in World War II had been so impactful, a feminist movement started to occur; married women began entering the labo...
Stienstra, D., Brewer, N., & Stinson, J. (2010). Factsheet Women and Restructuring in Canada. CRIAW ICREF, 1-16.
Al-Waqfi, M., & Jain, H. C., (2008). RACIAL INEQUALITY IN EMPLOYMENT IN CANADA: EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS AND EMERGING TRENDS.
If Ontario is able to get an equal pay law that essentially benefits women than America should consider looking into their law. With the amount of schooling both men and women are required to go through in order to obtain a certain job, there should be some type of equal wage involved. In England, there is a similar situation going on involving the wage gap. Where several women believe that they are not getting the fair amount of income when it comes to the amount of time and effort they put into the job. Amanda Stratton, an entrepreneur and co-founder of Hacker Studios, believes that individuals should find solutions from an evidence-based perspective in order end wage discrimination (“Women’s”). By doing this, it will help with the common usage of basis towards males and females on whether they deserve to get paid more than one another.
The article The Gender Gap in Wages insights the issue about the wage gap in the early 21st century, observing that is not actual discrimination in the workplace, but rather the type of work and time put into it that changes the wages between male and female workers. June O’Neill gives sufficient statistical data that is focused on work experience and how productivity in the home is a result of the wage gap. Her claim introduces a great amount of statistical data that shows the reader the reasons for a wage gap to exist. She is knowledgeable about the subject and is straight-forward about her point. O’ Neill’s argument is justifiable meanwhile, it can be argued that her neutrality on the wage gap does not give a specific reason as to how this
The war in pay inequity in the United States has been raging since the 1940s. This paper is focused on the pay differences among men, women, and mothers and why it exists. The government has made strives to close the income wage gap between men and women, however it still exists and must be dealt with. Among women, deciding to bear children has greatly impacted earnings potential, retirement, and career choices. As more women decide to go to college and earn degrees, there is still a disparity in income in the labor market. Forty percent of the pay gap that exists cannot be explained by occupation, race, or experience.
Firstly, according to Reskin (1993), the notion of occupational segregation is the understanding that men and women are guided into different professional jobs and responsibilities. This notion is based on society’s stereotypical viewpoints of what a man’s jobs are and what a female’s job is. In the occupational field, men are often holding superior roles than woman (Reskin, 1993). It is evident that occupational segregation is still existent in contemporary society; females are still tolerating occupational segregation in the workplace environment. This notion can be supported by Gazso (2004) according to his literature about workplace inequality, it is distinct that Canadian men still inhabit superior employment statuses and greater waged positions than women, men are
However, that does not mean that inequalities no longer exist between the two genders, the pay gap between men and women is one of the larger gender inequalities seen today. According to an article “ Explaining the Pay Disparity Between Women and Men in Similar Jobs” the authors state that, “ equal pay ranked higher than health care, family and medical leave, pensions and social security for most important legislative issues” (Hessaramiri,Kleiner 3). People want something done about this injustice and are looking towards the government to intervene. The Equal Pay Act is one of these interventions put in place to make employees under the same profession paychecks’ equal no matter the gender. After forty years though, the Equal Pay Act has done little to stop the pay gap from continuing. Hessaramiri and Kleiner inform us that, “ According to the Monthly Labor Review, the weekly earnings of women were lower than that of men for full time employees across all broad occupational categories” (4). Most of the time these employees suffering from the pay gap do not even realize that they are being
O'Neil, June. "A Flexible Work Force : Opportunities for Women." Journal of Labor Research (1992): 67-72.