Pay Equity Bulletin

March 26, 2008

Your Central Pay Equity Steering Committee has been hard at work to move the process forward since we signed off Terms of Reference with the participating hospitals last June. 

Since then the parties have drafted, tested and finalized the Job Information Questionnaire, which will be used to collect detailed information about the jobs in our bargaining unit, as well as the male comparator jobs.

We would like to thank those individuals who agreed to help test the questionnaire. The turn-around time for the test was short, but the responses and suggestions were immensely helpful. 

The finalized Job Information Questionnaire will be in electronic form, but with the ability to be filled out in hard copy.

The parties have also designed a Gender Neutral Comparison System, which will be used by the evaluation committee to evaluate the information that is gathered from the questionnaires.

As you are aware, the goal of pay equity is to ensure that female-dominated jobs are paid appropriately when compared to their male comparators. Because OPSEU bargaining units have predominantly female jobs, the parties have agreed that we need to look outside of our bargaining units for male comparators.

We are currently in disagreement with the participating hospitals over disclosure of upper-level managerial job and salary information. OPSEU has applied to the Pay Equity Commission for assistance in resolving this dispute and we are hopeful that the matter will be addressed quickly by the Commission to avoid delay in the process.

We are optimistic that the Job Information Questionnaire process will be rolled out as soon as possible, though there is still much to be done, including the development of an educational process for the people who will be assisting the process at the local level.  We will be asking local presidents for assistance with the rollout at each hospital.