Equality for nurses about respect, not cash
Landmark decision a positive sign, but nurses still need to receive full recognition for the work they do
ANDRE PICARD
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
January 17, 2008 at 9:36 AM EST
Last month, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal issued a landmark ruling in the case of Ruth Walden and 430 of her fellow registered nurses employed by Social Development Canada, a department of the federal government.
Since 1972, the nurses have worked as "medical adjudicators," their job to determine if people applying for disability benefits under the Canada Pension Plan are eligible for support.
Physicians who carried out essentially the same duties were called "medical advisers."
The doctors and nurses got along well, as they do in most workplaces. They worked together in a common enterprise, using their medical knowledge to understand and assess documentation about complex cases of physical and mental disability.
(Neither the doctors nor the nurses provided claimants with hands-on patient care or conducted physical examinations, but their educational backgrounds were essential in properly assessing patient files.)
The medical adjudicators - the nurses - were paid salaries in the $50,000 to $60,000 range.
The medical advisers - the doctors - were paid about twice as much. They also received retention bonuses and more holidays, and had their professional fees paid by their employer.
This disparity persisted for decades despite the fact that they were doing more or less the same job, it must be stressed.
Clearly this is discriminatory.
It is also, according to the ruling by Karen Jensen of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
About 95 per cent of the nurses are women; about 80 per cent of the doctors are men. As the ruling states, the nurses'
"inferior working conditions are a function of the gender predominance of their occupational group."
The ruling has attracted media attention, in large part, because of its financial repercussions.
Settling with the nurses could cost the treasury about $200-million. That astounding figure is based on a crude calculation - paying the nurses the equivalent of the doctors' salaries stretching back to 1978 (the year the Canadian Human Rights Act took effect.)
The final settlement will probably be much less. Ms. Jensen has told the two parties to come up with an agreed-upon figure by March or she will impose a settlement.
The irony of the situation is that, for nurses, the issue was never money, but respect.
The fight was not about nurses wanting to be doctors, or about wanting to get the same pay as doctors.
Rather, it was nurses fighting to be recognized as nurses.
At Social Development Canada, the medical advisers (the physicians) were, under the public-service classification scheme, deemed to be health professionals.
The medical adjudicators (the nurses), on the other hand, were classified as administrators.
To its credit, Social Development Canada recognized a few years back that this was wrong, but the Treasury Board prevented the department from reclassifying the nurses as health professionals, fearing it would cost money. (It would have cost a little then, but now it's going to cost a lot.) But the issue here is principle, not money.
The classification of the registered nurses as administrators was based on the belief that nursing consists solely of hands-on care. This is an outmoded, narrow-minded and sexist notion.
Just as physicians can undertake more cerebral administrative pursuits and still be considered health professionals, so can nurses.
Modern nurses work in diverse settings: They toil not only in hospitals and nursing homes, but on inner-city streets, battlefields in Afghanistan, refugee camps in Sudan, and in schools, public health units, northern nursing stations and myriad other locales, including insurance companies and various government agencies, doing everything from program development to running the show.
They are no less nurses.
The real story in this ruling is not the money. Rather, it is that the contemptuous attitude displayed by the federal government is all too common.
Nurses' pay is not paltry, but nor is it commensurate with the skills and training required.
The work environment of many nurses is disgraceful and the rate of physical and mental injury, from chronic back problems to burnout, is distressing.
None of this is coincidental to the fact that 96 per cent of nurses are women. A small group of nurses at Social Development Canada has pushed back and they have triumphed. Good on them.
But their victory will not be complete until the recognition and respect they have earned - albeit grudgingly - is universal.
Governments cannot content themselves with muttered excuses and cash payouts. They need to see nurses for what they are: health professionals who are the backbone of the health system.
When the human rights of nurses are fully respected, we will all be richer for it.
--------
Voting system penalizes women
Gretchen Kelbaugh
Commentary
Telegraph Journal
Published Thursday January 24th, 2008
Appeared on page A5
I read Max Wolfe's commentary (Jan. 19) in which he questions whether "equal representation on the basis of sex or colour is a supreme value."
You bet it is. If a city has 30 per cent Chinese immigrants but only 5 per cent of city councilors are Chinese Canadians, then being of Chinese descent is an important quality in some candidates for city council. Likewise, in a country that's more than 50 per cent female but whose government is only 21 per cent female, being a woman is an important quality to consider when voting. Not the only quality, but an important one.
"Democracy" means "rule by the people." Canada, the United Kingdom (20 per cent women elected) and the USA (16 per cent) share democracies that are based on an outdated voting system and several other gendered factors. These result in "rule by men." Usually it's wealthy white businessmen or lawyers. This makes our government members sharp on matters of white-collar crime, corporate tax and penile dysfunction. It leaves them deficient, however, on matters such as living with poverty, racial discrimination, violence against women, reproductive rights, childcare, pay equity and health concerns of women.
It's really kind of shocking when you think about how narrow the pool of experience is in our elected representatives.
Studies in Canada and the UK show conclusively that women, including women politicians, put more emphasis than men do on issues of social welfare, such as education and healthcare, and that men are more interested than women are in economics, the military and foreign policy. We need both perspectives among our lawmakers.
It's time we had more women's points of view sitting at cabinet meetings where the big decisions are made. Not that women share one opinion. Far from it. But on many issues - from the environment to childcare - they tend to see things a bit differently from men. In general, women MPs of all parties have opinions that are a bit left of the opinions of the men in their parties. If women were fairly represented in Canada, policy debate would shift noticeably.
The quickest way to increase the representation of women in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. is to change our 200-year-old voting system.
First-past-the-post with regional representation worked well in the past when voters were all male and mostly white. What distinguished a voter's needs was most apt to be the region where he lived, be it rural or city, mountainous or by the sea.
Now voters have many concerns beyond the regional, concerns often shared by others of our gender, racial or ethnic group.
Most major democracies threw out the old voting system years ago in favour of proportional representation, or some compromise between the two systems, to reflect this diversity of voters. If Canada were to switch to, say, the Mixed Member Proportional system used in Germany and New Zealand, the number of women members and minorities would jump by at least 10 per cent in the first election. MMP, as it's called, was recommended three years ago in the report of the N.B. Legislative Democracy commission, a report that's been ignored by two male-dominated governments.
There are many other reasons why we don't have more women elected. It's not because Canadians don't vote for them. We do. There are enough barriers to women trying to run for office that usually those who make it as candidates are highly qualified by any standard. Women win elections at almost the same rate as men do.
The hard part in our system is for women to become candidates. Several reasons for this are: the high cost of running a campaign (women working full-time still make only 70 per cent as much as men do); the power of local party constituencies to choose whoever they want, and they usually want the incumbent, and he's usually male; and the mindset, of both men and women, that politics is still the domain of men. Party leaders have to start thinking outside the box when they look for possible candidates.
Our parliamentary system was set up my men and so it tends to be adversarial and hierarchical in nature (if in doubt, watch the Parliamentary Channel). Many men don't go into politics for this reason, but even more women do not. Women are more apt to want to work in organizations that value consensus and teamwork. (Ask backbenchers how often their opinions are sought by their party leader.)
There are further barriers to women. Recent studies (conducted in part by UNBSJ's Dr. Joanna Everitt) show that the media treats women politicians by a subtle sexist standard. Also, most provincial legislatures still don't provide daycare or regular working hours, which affects more women politicians than men. These shortcomings are slowly improving as more women do join government.
There's the word: slowly. Max Wolf says "slower might be better" when it comes to minorities fighting for "their place in the sun." Easy for him to say. If he wasn't a middle-class white man, I wonder whether he'd be as patient?
What if things were reversed and we had a woman Prime Minister, 13 women premiers and mainly women cabinet members? Would men notice and care? Would men care if it were mainly women passing laws about child support and sexual assault or budgets about economic support for single-parent families (mainly mothers), the poor (mainly women) and research into better birth control?
In 1993, following the second big push for women's rights, Canada's government had grown to 18 per cent women; now, fifteen years later, we're at 21 per cent. Hallelujah. At the current rates of change in Canada, the U.S. and U.K., it will take 100-200 years before our 'democracies' include a fair number of women.
Personally, my patience is Max'ed out.
Gretchen Kelbaugh is a writer and filmmaker. She lives in Quispamsis.
***
Number of women in decision-making roles outrageous -- professor
By ROB LINKE
Daily Gleaner
Canadaeast News Service
Published Tuesday January 8th, 2008
Appeared on page A4
OTTAWA - Are women the Liberal government's most ignored supporters?
And could leaving them out of key roles undermine the transformation of the economy that Premier Shawn Graham is seeking?
These questions arise in part from the appointments made by Graham and his ministers.
But they also emerge from some surprises which suggest women have been passed over as potential contributors to the province's goals.
Women weren't members of either of the two most influential task forces the premier appointed: the two-man panel who recommended sweeping reforms to post-secondary education and the two-man panel who envisioned how New Brunswick could boost the economy and population so it becomes a self-sufficient province by 2026.
In the provincial cabinet, there are 19 male ministers and two women. Among the seven new deputy ministers appointed since Graham took office, two are women.
Such noticeable numbers would be unthinkable if, instead of women, the under-represented group was anglophones or francophones.
The attention given to linguistic balance often leads to significant political panels -- such as the post-secondary or self-sufficiency task forces -- having co-chairs: one French, one English.
Similarly, it would have spelled trouble had Graham's government failed to look to rural residents or Moncton residents or Saint John residents or to the north -- all-important political sub-groups -- as it formally sought advice or offered senior posts.
But women, who are nearly 52 per cent of the population, haven't figured as prominently as that in provincial appointments.
The Liberals have made 174 appointments, a tally compiled from government news releases, of which 131 went to men and 43 to women.
That means 25 per cent of Graham government appointees are women.
Perhaps the highest profile female appointee was the chair of the task force on the non-profit sector, former MP Claudette Bradshaw.
There were, however, several significant firsts for women: the workplace health, safety and compensation commission got its first female chairwoman, and the province's inaugural public trustee is a woman.
But for the most part, the provincial government is keeping to well-established ways in which women are under-represented.
In 2004, when Progressive Conservative premier Bernard Lord was in power, 30 per cent of the 1,115 members of provincially appointed boards and commissions were women, according to government figures cited by the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
In 1996, it was also 30 per cent. It was 18 per cent in 1982.
The numbers are outrageous, said Wendy Robbins, the University of New Brunswick professor honoured last fall by Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean for her work advancing the cause of women.
"But sadly, we've set the bar so low for so long that it begins to look normal," she said.
The problem with low numbers of women, particularly in key advisory roles, is that it's women who, by and large, are more aware of and sensitive to the fact that many economic and social policies affect men and women differently, Robbins said.
"Things that seem to be gender-neutral often are not," she said. "It's important that we make decisions with all New Brunswickers in mind, and that we have decision-makers aware of gender differences and committed to changing them."
That brings us to the outcomes that may be linked to the absence of women on key advisory panels or other documents.
For one, the 33-page self-sufficiency action plan doesn't use the words "women,-gender" or "female."
The final report of the premier's task force on self-sufficiency pays insightful but spotty attention to women.
It recommends quality day care to improve women's access to the workforce and speaks of the particular gains to be made from improving women's literacy rates.
But it shows no thorough awareness of the solid evidence -- mostly from developing countries -- that jurisdictions looking to make great leaps in education, incomes, skills and economic growth -- such as New Brunswick -- do best if they target their efforts toward women.
That's because women often lag in the relevant areas where their incomes are lower, their unemployment rate higher and so on.
The task force on post-secondary education's final report mentions women and gender briefly, but does so in important contexts.
It recognizes that "women are still under-represented in certain occupational areas" and that their access to education, such as the access of aboriginals, must be improved.
And one of its recommendations is for all public post-secondary institutions to have performance contracts that demand special efforts to increase the numbers of under-represented groups, such as women, aboriginals and the disabled.
But Robbins argues the post-secondary panel was oblivious of the damage its key recommendation could do to young women's educational prospects.
Robbins is among the female academics in the province who have expressed concerns about the impact the province's interest in moving towards more technical programs in post-secondary education will have on young women in New Brunswick.
A case can be made that promoting technical courses and eventual careers would boost female enrolment, but she's seen figures that indicate young women aren't interested in the offerings at Canada's existing polytechnic schools.
If New Brunswick pours scarce resources into creating those kinds of programs, women and their aspirations will be shortchanged, Robbins said.
To be fair, women do not have to be appointed to a panel or specifically mentioned in a report to actually benefit. The best example of that is the third increase in the minimum wage, to $7.75 an hour by March 2008, which represents a 16-per-cent jump since the Graham government took office.
The change will benefit proportionately more women than men, since it is women who dominate entry-level, casual and low-wage work.
And the wage increases were recommended by the male task force on self-sufficiency.
There are also efforts targeted at young women to address their under-representation in certain fields.
Earlier this month, the government funded the sixth annual conference to help increase the ranks of young women entering information technology careers, for example.
There is also the issue of pay equity. The Liberal government is committed to legislating it in the public sector, while taking flak from the Coalition for Pay Equity for leaving women in the private sector to the mercies of the market.
But as Robbins puts it, "surely if we're serious about the province pulling itself up by its bootstraps, the more you can do for the people at the bottom, the greater the progress will be. Those are the people who can go up exponentially."
Social Development Minister Mary Schryer, the minister responsible for the status of women in New Brunswick, could not be reached for comment through the holidays.
Senator Joe Day, a Hampton lawyer, has become a convert to making special efforts to develop policy with women in mind.
He was persuaded of its value from chairing the Senate finance committee, which monitors the functioning of federal government departments. Federal Treasury Board rules, like the provincial cabinet's rules, ensure the social and economic differences between the sexes are integrated into planning and decision-making.
In New Brunswick, staff in the women's issues branch, perform "gender-based analysis" of cabinet proposals. Looking at how policies affect women "has become a healthy preoccupation for us when deputy ministers or officers of Parliament appear before us," said Day, who said he has the impression too much lip service is still being paid to gender in Ottawa's policy-making.
After having his eyes opened in the nation's capital, Day argues New Brunswick cannot afford to overlook women as it tries to address challenges, such as the shortage of skilled labour that threatens to put the brakes on economic growth.
Like the country turning to women to run assembly lines when a million Canadian men were overseas during the Second World War, Day said the province has to recognize the untapped contributions women can make.
"We have to be thinking in terms of all the human potential we have," Day said.
**********
Is Liberal government an old boys' club?
Equality: Women have been largely ignored in posts, recommendations and policy, both the critics and data suggest
ROB LINKE
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
Published Saturday January 5th, 2008
Appeared on page A1
OTTAWA - Are women the Liberal government's most ignored supporters?
And could leaving them out of key roles undermine the transformation of the economy that Premier Shawn Graham is seeking?
These important questions arise in part from the appointments made by Graham and his ministers. But they also emerge from some surprising data which suggest women have been passed over as potential contributors to the province's goals.
First, the numbers.
Just one-quarter of all the appointments announced by the provincial government, for positions both powerful and obscure, from deputy ministers to members of the used Tire Stewardship Board, have gone to women.
Women were not members of either of the two most influential task forces the premier appointed - the two-man panel that recommended sweeping reforms to post-secondary education and the two-man panel that envisioned how New Brunswick could boost the economy and population so it becomes a self-sufficient province by 2026.
In the provincial cabinet, there are 19 male ministers and only two women. Among the seven new deputy ministers appointed since Graham took office, there are just two women.
Such noticeable numbers would be unthinkable if, instead of women, the under-represented group was anglophones or francophones.
The scrupulous attention given to linguistic balance often leads to significant political panels - such as the post-secondary or self-sufficiency task forces - having co-chairs: one French, one English.
New Brunswick governments learned decades ago that to overlook either linguistic group to the extent women have been is not only unjust, but political suicide.
Similarly, it would have spelled trouble had Graham's government demonstrably failed to look to rural residents or Moncton residents or Saint John residents or to the north - all important political sub-groups - as it formally sought advice or offered senior posts.
But women, who are nearly 52 per cent of the population, have not figured anywhere near as prominently as that in provincial appointments.
The Liberals have made 174 appointments, a tally compiled from government news releases, of which 131 went to men and 43 to women.
That means only 25 per cent of Graham government appointees are women.
But women are far from entirely shut out.
Perhaps the highest-profile female appointee was the chair of the task force on the non-profit sector, former MP Claudette Bradshaw.
And there were several significant "firsts" for women: the workplace health, safety and compensation commission got its first female chairperson, and the province's inaugral public trustee is a woman.
But for the most part, the provincial government is keeping to well-established ways in which women are woefully under-represented.
In 2004, when Conservative Bernard Lord was in power, 30 per cent of the 1,115 members of provincially-appointed boards and commissions were women, according to government figures cited by the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
In 1996, it was also 30 per cent. It was 18 per cent in 1982.
The numbers are "outrageous," said Wendy Robbins, the University of New Brunswick professor honoured this fall by Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean for her work advancing the cause of women, "but sadly, we've set the bar so low for so long that it begins to look normal."
The problem with low numbers of women, particularly in the key advisory roles, is that it is women who by and large are more aware of and sensitive to the fact that many economic and social policies affect men and women differently, Robbins argues.
"Things that seem to be gender-neutral often are not," she said. "It's important that we make decisions with all New Brunswickers in mind, and that we have decision-makers aware of gender differences and committed to changing them."
That brings us to the surprising outcomes that may be linked to the absence of women on key advisory panels or other documents.
For one, the breezy, 33-page self-sufficiency action plan does not use the words "women,-gender" or "female".
The final report of the premier's task force on self-sufficiency pays insightful but spotty attention to women. It recommends quality daycare to improve women's access to the workforce, and speaks of the particular gains to be made from improving women's literacy rates.
But it shows no thorough awareness of the solid evidence - mostly from developing countries - that jurisdictions looking to make great leaps in education, incomes, skills and economic growth - just like New Brunswick - do best if they target their efforts on women, because women often lag in the relevant areas, like they do in New Brunswick, where their incomes are lower, their unemployment rate higher and so on.
The task force on post-secondary education's final report mentions women and gender briefly, but at least it goes so in important contexts.
It recognizes that "women are still under-represented in certain occupational areas" and that their access to education, like the access of aboriginals, must be improved.
And one of its recommendations is for all public post-secondary institutions to have performance contracts that demand special efforts to increase the numbers of under-represented groups, such as women, aboriginals and the disabled.
But Robbins argues the post-secondary panel was oblivious of the damage its key recommendation could do to young women's educational prospects.
Robbins is among the female academics in the province who have expressed concerns about the impact the province's interest in moving toward more technical programs in post-secondary education will have on young women in New Brunswick.
A case can be made that promoting technical courses and eventual careers would boost female enrolment, but she's seen figures that indicate young women are not interested in the offerings at Canada's existing polytechnical schools.
If New Brunswick pours scarce resources into creating those kinds of programs, women and their aspirations will be shortchanged, Robbins fears.
To be fair, women do not have to be appointed to a panel or specifically mentioned in a report to actually benefit.
The best example of that is the third increase in the minimum wage, to $7.75 an hour by March 2008, which represents a 16-per-cent jump since the Graham government took office.
The change will benefit proportionately more women than men, since it is women who predominate in entry-level, casual and low-wage work.
And the wage increases were recommended by the male task force on self-sufficiency.
There are also efforts targeted at young women to address their under-representation in certain fields. Earlier this month, the government funded the sixth annual conference to help increase the ranks of young women entering information technology careers, for example.
There is also the issue of pay equity. The Graham government is committed to legislating it in the public sector, while taking flak from the Coalition for Pay Equity for leaving women in the private sector to the mercies of the market.
But as Robbins puts it, "surely if we're serious about the province pulling itself up by its bootstraps, the more you can do for the people at the bottom, the greater the progress will be.
"Those are the people who can go up exponentially."
Social Development Minister Mary Schryer, the minister responsible for the status of women in New Brunswick, could not be reached for comment through the holidays.
Senator Joe Day, the Hampton lawyer, has become a convert to making special efforts to develop policy with women in mind.
He became persuaded of its value from chairing the Senate finance committee, which monitors the functioning of federal government departments.
Federal Treasury Board rules, like the provincial cabinet's rules, ensure the social and economic differences between the sexes are integrated into planning and decision-making. In New Brunswick, staff in the women's issues branch, perform "gender-based analysis" of cabinet proposals.
Looking at how policies affect women "has become a healthy preoccupation for us when deputy ministers or officers of Parliament appear before us," said Day, who said he has the impression too much lip service is still being paid to gender in Ottawa's policy-making.
After having his eyes opened in the nation's capital, Day argues New Brunswick can not afford to overlook women as it tries to address challenges such as the shortage of skilled labour that threatens to put the brakes on economic growth.
Like the country turning to women to run assembly lines when a million Canadian men were overseas during the Second World War, Day said the province has to recognize the untapped contributions women can make.
"We have to be thinking in terms of all the human potential we have," Day said.
---------
L'Acadie Nouvelle
Forum public, lundi, 31 d?cembre 2007, p. 12
Mon opinion
Corriger une injustice
M. le Ministre de l'?ducation postsecondaire, de la Formation et du Travail du Nouveau-Brunswick, Ed Doherty, le 10 d?cembre a eu lieu la Journ?e internationale des droits de la personne. En cette ann?e 2007, o? la province du Nouveau-Brunswick a c?l?br? le 40e anniversaire de l'adoption de sa Loi sur les droits de la personne, j'aimerais rappeler certains faits ? votre gouvernement.
La Loi sur les droits de la personne du Nouveau-Brunswick statue "que la reconnaissance du principe fondamental de l'?galit? de tous les ?tres humains en dignit? et en droits, sans distinction de race, de couleur, de croyance, d'origine nationale, d'ascendance, de lieu d'origine, d'?ge, d'incapacit? physique, d'incapacit? mentale, d'?tat matrimonial, d'orientation sexuelle, de sexe, de condition sociale ou de convictions ou d'activit? politiques, est un principe directeur sanctionn? par les lois du Nouveau-Brunswick".
Si, effectivement, le gouvernement de cette province adh?re au principe fondamental de l'?galit? de tous les ?tres humains en dignit? et en droit, sans distinction de sexe, tel qu'?nonc? dans cette loi, comment se fait-il que 40 ans apr?s son adoption, il tol?re encore la discrimination dont sont victimes plusieurs femmes dans le march? du travail au Nouveau-Brunswick?
En 2007, il est inacceptable que des femmes n?o-brunswickoises fassent encore l'objet de discrimination salariale tout simplement parce qu'elles sont des femmes. Les femmes, autant que les hommes, sont des piliers des communaut?s du Nouveau-Brunswick. Elles sont des citoyennes ? part enti?re, qui votent, qui font des ?tudes, ?l?vent des enfants, s'occupent de leur foyer, travaillent fort et contribuent au d?veloppement ?conomique de cette province. Elles m?ritent un salaire ?gal pour un travail de valeur ?gale.
Pourtant, les emplois traditionnellement ou majoritairement occup?s par des femmes sont encore souvent moins pay?s que les emplois masculins de m?me valeur.
J'exhorte le gouvernement du Nouveau-Brunswick ? adopter, d?s 2008, une loi sur l'?quit? salariale afin de corriger cette injustice qui perdure depuis bien trop longtemps dans les secteurs public et priv?.
ME LOUISE AUCOIN
Professeure de droit, Universit? de Moncton
Moncton
_______________________________
Johanne Perron
Executive Director / Directrice g?n?rale
NB Coalition for Pay Equity
Coalition pour l'?quit? salariale du N.-B.
Tel / T?l.: (506) 855-0002
Fax / T?l?c.: (506) 854-9728
51 Williams Street, Moncton, NB E1C 2G6
51, rue Williams, Moncton, N.-B. E1C 2G6
coalitio@nb.sympatico.ca
www.equite-equity.com
