EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE - WHAT A JOKE IN ONTARIO

Even decades ago when women were legitimately complaining that they were getting paid less than men and or being pigeon holed into different jobs than men thus enabling the employers to claim that the men's jobs were more difficult or responsible etc. it was all a crock. A red herring. Back then the argument was how do you objectively determine which job is of equal value to another? Again a crock. I say this because then and now there are jobs that are identical ie. the same duties and responsibilities yet they pay vastly differently even by the same employer. The "difference" if you will is solely determined by the employer. They call one job full time permanent and the other part time or casual. Even if the duties are identical and the hours similar. It's was and is simply a way of getting cheaper labour by employers.

Two examples come to mind. Both were unionized! Shameful! Brinks guards and drivers did exactly the same job whether part time or full time. You carried the same guns, the same bags of cash and drove the same armoured trucks. The full time unionized guards in those days were receiving $20-25 per hour and the part timers $9 per hour. I never did see what the route to full time actually was.

Brewers Retail were just as bad. They had identical work within Brewer's Retail stores selling beer by the case to the public. Full timers again made more than double the part timers working right beside them doing the exact same work. The route to the full time, union protected jobs was through the A and the B lists. If a part timer somehow offended either a union guy or a store manager he would never be promoted onto the A or B list. Note the key word is offended. It could be a joke, a look, a failure to jump high enough when requested/ordered; it could literally be anything. And you never knew until after a few years when the updated A and B lists came out and you still weren't on them. Of course your manager still wanted your services and why not when you worked just as relaibly and hard as the full timers (or harder) but for half the money. What a deal for the company.

City of Waterloo summer public works department employees were the same thing. Only there you soon learned what it took to get hired on full time with a union protected job. Organized sports in high school were key. If you played baseball or hockey then you were one of the good old boys and you were on your way. Otherwise forget it, you were going nowhere. What a system.

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carried a story titled "Precarious work at Ontario colleges". It's all about the current strike at the community colleges. A big issue is the issue of Sessional or Contract faculty at Ontario's Colleges and Universities. Once again it's a blatant case of underpaying hired help to do the exact same jobs as your full time employees. These are often highly educated individuals, including Doctorates at the University level, who for some reason have been hired on a part time or Contract basis to teach courses. To date these workers are part of the huge exceptions permitted under Ontario legislation allowing employers to discriminate on whatever basis they choose. It is reprehensible and grossly unfair. And it continues on. Perhaps the colleges exploitation will diminish after the next contract is signed. Perhaps not. Shame on the decision makers at both the College and University level who were and are responsible for this blatant discrimination.