TORONTO — Ontario is accumulating feedback on rules geared toward eliminating the gender salary gap, such as asking companies how hard pay transparency reporting would be
The Progressive Conservative authorities paused implementation ultimate yr of a regulation from the previous Liberal authorities that would require all publicly advertised job postings to consist of a income charge or variety, bar employers from asking about past compensation, limit reprisal in opposition to personnel who speak reimbursement and require large employers to tune and document compensation gaps.
Based on the latest statistics from Statistics Canada, the gender salary hole accounting for the annual income of all workers is 29.Three in step with cent, which means that women earn about seventy-one cents for every greenback that men make. The gap for an annual income of complete-yr, full-time people, is 22.6 percent, as extra ladies than guys are in element-time paintings. And while the usage of hourly salary quotes, space is eleven — three in line with a cent.
Labour Minister Laurie Scott said the Liberals passed the law right earlier than the election with none consultations, and she told humans laid low with the law wanted an opportunity to be heard.
“We’re dedicated to ultimate the gender wage gap,” she said in an interview. “I assume taking the time and paying attention to the various stakeholders approximately a way to do it nicely — and how to have, in some instances, thrilling ideas that we haven’t heard of on the way to address the gender salary hole — is treasured.”
Under the regulation, employers with a hundred or greater employees might have to calculate their salary gaps and record that facts.
The session questions ask the pleasant manner to calculate the salary cap, inclusive of if bonuses, overtime pay, and commissions must be worried, what the reporting intervals have to be, and how much time and money it might take to fulfill reporting requirements.
“If you’re an organization with a hundred or greater employees, how lots do you estimate the fee of pay transparency reporting may be,” along with IT, software and employees charges, the consultation paper asks.
“How many hours do you assume pay transparency reporting will absorb overall?”
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath stated she is insulted by way of the questions, and all ladies have to be, too.
“What the message is with that sort of a survey and that form of a question is that I wager this government believes that pay equity for women in purple tape and there’s no want to make sure that ladies have pay fairness,” she said.
“If we’re ever going to get to an area in which we’ve got pay fairness we want to know what the numbers are.”
Scott defended the questions, pronouncing she wishes corporations with a purpose to record their salary hole numbers.
“I don’t need it to be hard, but we want as great deal participation as we can get,” she stated.
Ashley Challinor, the vice-president of policy on the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, said the business enterprise acknowledges the gender wage gap as an assignment and is calling ahead to giving remarks.
“Our challenge is that this law does not interact with the Pay Equity Act, the present rules that seek to address the pay hole,” she said in an assertion. “This is, regrettably, an example of layering on of law as opposed to modernizing and streamlining it — which negatively influences compliance and the effectiveness of the law.”
