In this episode, the Pay Equity Unit speaks with Mariam Abou-Dib, from Teamsters, to discuss the important role unions play in promoting pay equity within the road transportation sector and in driving positive change. By uniting for equality, the road transportation sector can continue to flourish as a crucial pillar of the global economy, benefiting workers and businesses alike.
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Eric Diotte: Welcome to Putting Pay Equity Into Practice. I'm Eric Diotte, director of the Pay Equity Unit at the Canadian Human Rights Commission. In this podcast, various industry guests join me to discuss how these industry leaders are experiencing the opportunities and challenges of pay equity. Join us to learn more about pay equity. Welcome Mariam, and thank you for accepting our invitation to participate in our podcast.
Mariam: Thank you, Eric. It's good to be here.
Eric: Can you please tell us a bit about who Teamster represents and the federally regulated road transportation industry in Canada?
Mariam: Teamsters Canada is made up of over 125,000 members, mostly in the transportation sector. Our work is mostly dealing with supply chain, making sure that goods get from one place to the other. We have most of our members in the freight and tank haul industry, in the parcel delivery sector, armored cars, as well as rail and aviation, warehouses. Then outside the transportation sector, we've got the solid waste folks, the retail, brewery, dairy. We even have drivers in the movie and trade show industry and social services. We've got long-term care homes that are unionized with the public support workers. We also have Teamsters in construction, but the vast majority are in the transportation, and a huge chunk of them are in road and freight.
Eric: What would you say are some of the challenges that your member have experienced during the pandemic?
Mariam: I think probably what's important to say around our members in the pandemic here is that most of our members did not stop working. Let's start with that. They could not stop working. They were the drivers that were moving essential goods. They were moving food, they were moving fuel, they were moving vaccines, and there was immense pressure on the sector and on the workers in particular.
During the pandemic, not only did they not stop working, but there was a lot more work for them to be doing. I think it is fair to say that the Pay Equity Act and Pay Equity will make a significant change in this sector. This is currently a male-dominated sector where women are clustered in mostly clerical administrative positions, but at the same time, there's also a huge shortage of workers in this industry.
There's a big shortage of drivers, there's a shortage of employees in these companies. A new workforce is going to include more women, youth and not only in the driver job category. A lot of the workers are also looking for more work-life balance. There's a lot of challenges in the industry itself with the shortage, but again, more women are located in clerical and administrative positions, and so that job classification has traditionally been undervalued.
I think that with an exercise to reevaluate the job versus the others in any workplace, we will hopefully adjust any potential gaps.
Eric: In your mind, what are the main reasons of this labor shortage?
Mariam: The labor shortage, we can have a whole podcast on the labor shortage, but I'll give you the rundown here. Doing work, driving a truck, driving long distances, this is not an easy job. Right now in Canada and North America, we have a number of sectors in which we have these shortages, this is one. Many folks don't aspire to become truck drivers. A lot of people happen, by happenstance are truck drivers.
However, this is not because there isn't value in driving a truck. This is mostly because also driving a truck and the notion of driving a truck has not been valued in our society. It's a skill, it is intense, it takes a certain kind of dedication and devotion, and it needs to be valued a little bit more. The working conditions as well need to be improved, whether it's wages or, I think I said earlier, the newer generation, unlike, I'm going to date myself, ours, we maybe invented the notion of work-life balance, but we did not attain work-life balance in our work-life generation. The newer generation is set on doing that, and we should be glad that they are. The shortage, I think, is due to an industry that needs to be modernized. Whether it's road or rail or aviation, a lot of, in the transportation industry need to be looking at how work is organized so that workers are attracted to the job, so that they stay, we have retention. They're retained in the job. Conditions of work, training opportunities, opportunities for advancement, and of course, work-life balance is really important.
Eric: Yes, it sounds like you're talking about a cultural shift that needs to happen in this industry in order to attract younger people.
Mariam: Yes, more women, more youth, and again, valuing these jobs. As part of my work at the Canadian Labour Congress, we did a lot of comparing and contrasting in terms of the international community and various trades. In Europe, the trades are treated very differently than they are here in North America. The trades in North America often are seen as, "Okay, those who can't really do math or those who can't go to university, who aren't the smartest, go to the trades." Well, that's not true, and trades need to be valued, and in those trades, are included the trades in the transportation industry.
Eric: What are you hearing from your members about the Pay Equity Act?
Mariam: I'm not hearing from my members about the Pay Equity laughter]. That's part of the problem. I think there's a misconception about pay equity, and this is a record I'm willing to break, because the misconception is that there isn't a need. The misconception is that there's problem differentiating between equal pay for equal work, and equal pay for work of equal value. I think for a lot of sectors, and I know this isn't just going to be for transportation, but it will be for a number of sectors.
Education is going to be very key, raising awareness on what pay equity really is, awareness on the historical value or devaluing of work where it's been predominantly women who've held certain jobs. The challenge, I think, is going to be making sure that people understand what pay equity really is and why there's a need.
Eric: Where do you think organizations are at in the pay equity process?
Mariam: For the employers where Teamsters members work in transportation and particularly, I know we want to talk about road, it's still pretty early in the process. Pay equity committees are just being established. We have to come up with a plan by September, 2024, so we're just over a year before that deadline comes into play. For the most part, we're in the establishing of pay equity committees, just very first meetings. Some employers we haven't heard from yet. We're nudging a little gently now, but it'll become a little more aggressive soon if we don't hear from you. That's where we are in road. In rail, we're a lot further along. In road, we're still early in the stages.
Eric: What are the reasons why members and employers are starting to work on it now and they didn't start two years ago, for example?
Mariam: Well, I'm going to be the person who's going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and say that I think the pandemic had an impact on prioritizing survival and key aspects of the production, the work, over internal processes. I think that's probably the biggest factor.
Eric: Yes, and that's actually a good answer. We're also seeing this in other sectors, too. The pandemic threw a curveball for everyone. What do you think are some of the challenges that employees are experiencing as they work to advance pay equity in their workplace?
Mariam: This is that broken record I'm going to go back to. I think the education awareness piece. People are also afraid that pay equity is super-uber technical, and I'm not going to be able to totally understand everything. There's a fear of getting involved because the fear of complicated formulas that I have to understand. I think the process is complex. It's not complicated, but it is complex. I think that with the proper technical briefings and training that the committee can function very, very well. There's also some confusion, I think, around what to do in a mixed workplace, and I say mixed from a union perspective, sort of unionized and non-union working under the same roof or in the same company. Employers tend to want to divide the workplace in this way and we're saying, "No."
Employers want to try to have, "Let's have a plan for the non-union workers and a plan for the union workers." That's not what the intent of this exercise is. We're looking at all of the work in the workplace that fall under the same pay classifications. It's really important to make sure that unionized and non-unionized workers are looked at together. I do think that there is good collaboration with most employers about keeping the objective of the act at the fore and viewing the workplace as a whole, not just to divide it up because it's convenient or easier or something like that.
We are working well with the employers that have begun the process. I know that some challenges have already gone before the Pay Equity Commissioner and she's ruled and we're reviewing all of that and making sure that everyone's adhering to those rulings as well and the interpretations. When you're working with legislation, it's always open to interpretation and we're hoping that we all find a consensus on how to interpret.
Eric: You already provided elements for my next question. How are workplaces and employees working together to address and overcome these challenges?
Mariam: As I said, I think the most important thing is that you have open and honest communication, collaboration with the employer. The union representatives and the representatives of non-unionized workers working together with the employer to ensure that we are coming to a consensus on how to advance, how to move forward, how to interpret the law and so far that's been working.
Eric: Yes, basically we're all working towards a common goal. Right?
Mariam: Precisely.
Eric: What kind of support do unionized employees need to help them achieve pay equity in their workplace and how could we help?
Mariam: In terms of the support needed, I think, again, the most important thing, first and foremost, ensuring that there's regular and constant communication. Updates, communication, what are any new decisions or clarifications that have been made, so we're not reinventing the wheel and so that we're all working from the-- singing from the same songbook, right, so we're not coming at it from completely different perspectives when it comes to employers and workers and their representatives.
The technical briefings I think are important in terms of support from the commission, from the experts. I'm going to say this again. If I say one thing, this is it. It's really important to bust a lot of the myths that are out there around pay equity. Even at a very basic level, most workers and employers are still saying, "We don't need this because we've dealt with, "We don't pay men and women differently."
Again, the confusion around equal pay for equal work versus equal pay for work of equal value. I think education on the components of, on the reasons behind the historical devaluing or undervaluing of women's work is really important. The commission can play a big role in providing tools for employers and unions to work with together.
Eric: Have you had the chance to look at our pay equity toolkit?
Mariam: I have.
Eric: Did you hear any feedback?
Mariam: Not yet. Again, because of the early stages, we are using the toolkit in the process. I know that employers are also hiring third-party firms to work with pay equity committees. I understand very expensive third-party firms. Anything the commission can provide and resources and tools that the commission can provide to help offset a lot of that would be, I think, welcome on all sides, whether it's the employer or the union. The toolkit is very good, but I think a really good walk through the toolkit by commission representatives would be welcome.
Eric: I'm happy to hear that the technical briefings are welcome. Just to let you know, for the next year or two years we're trying to target our technical briefings towards small and medium industries. We're also thinking of including a presentation about the toolkit during technical briefing. I don't think it's going to be a two, three hours deep dive, but at least an introduction so that employers can see what it is, what it does, and then hopefully use it.
Mariam: I think that's a great idea and I completely support and understand the need to really target the smaller workplaces, the smaller industries, sectors so that the ones that really can't afford the big [laughs] multi-million-dollar companies. I think having some sort of overview of the toolkit accessible, and whether it's a video presentation, even if you're not going to every workplace committee or whatnot live to do this with possible Q&As, whatever video tools I think would also be welcome.
Eric: A live demo. Okay. Again, thanks for agreeing to participate. It was really appreciated, and thank you.
Mariam: It's my pleasure, Eric, and this is really important work we're doing. Let's go to the end of this. Thank you.
Eric: I agree. Thanks.
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Eric: This has been Putting Pay Equity Into Practice. Be sure to visit payequitychrc.ca for all the news on pay equity. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. Simply search Pay Equity Unit. I'm Eric Diotte. Thanks for listening.
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