Union Update
Spotlight on Black History Month February 2009
- Spotlight on Black History Month
- Black History Month: the fight against discrimination continues
- Remembering Cal Best: labour activist and equality pioneer
- Employment equity and racialized workers: very little progress
- Queering Black history
- PSAC to fight budget bill: Union will challenge wage roll backs and the destruction of pay equity
Equity Pioneer
In 1958, Cal Best was elected President of the Civil Service Association of Canada. This union became a founding member of the Public Service Alliance of Canada in 1966.
Spotlight on Black History Month
February is Black History Month, also known as African Heritage Month. It is a time for PSAC members to highlight and acknowledge the immense benefits that the labour movement and Canada in general have achieved through the contributions of Black people and people of African heritage. These achievements did not come without overcoming great obstacles. As a deep recession unfolds, we can expect racism and discrimination to intensify.
Black History Month: the fight against discrimination continues
The mad scramble for fewer jobs and resources is the perfect condition for corporate elites to divide the working class, and an effective weapon in their arsenal is racism. Although all workers suffer from weakened class solidarity, workers of colour, including those of African heritage, are the more disadvantaged. This can be gleaned from Canadian history, in fact, even from current demographics.
In the late 19th century, as international demand for Canadian agricultural products grew, the federal government began a campaign to attract immigrant farmers by offering free farm land. This was a very attractive offer to many Blacks in the United States, many of whom were recently freed slaves but who were denied access to dwindling agricultural lands in that country. However, they found they were also not welcome in Canada.
Although no law had been enacted to specifically exclude Black immigration into Canada, immigration officials devised backdoor schemes to exclude Blacks and reject applications for settlement from African- Americans.
Low paid work
The few African-Canadians already settled in the country were relegated to menial, low-paying jobs that most Canadians did not want, such as domestic helpers and railway porters. From the 1950s to 1970s, most of the Black immigrants to Canada were Caribbean women recruited as livein nannies and domestic helpers. As these women's struggles for equal rights as workers intensified, Canada's immigration policies for domestic helpers became more restrictive.
Leading the fight
Due to their leading role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, African-Canadians won rights that their ancestors at the beginning of the century could only dream about. By 1975, every Canadian province had Human Rights Commissions, and in 1977, a federal commission was established to oversee the Canadian Human Rights Act. The Charter of Rights was enacted to enshrine fundamental equality rights of all people in Canada.
Racial discrimination, however, continues to exist in Canada. Although it is less overt, it is more systemic and, therefore, more difficult to target and eliminate.
The 2006 census reports that 16.2 per cent of Canadians identified themselves as a “visible minority,” an increase of 27 per cent from the 2001 census. Those who identified themselves as Black rose 18.4 per cent to 783,800, the third largest visible minority group.
The higher number of visible minorities is due to an increase in immigration from non-European countries. And yet, unemployment rates and incidence of low income are higher among visible minority immigrants than among those who are Canadian-born, despite having attained, on average, higher education than the latter.
A long way to go
Racialized persons in the federal public service also remain under-represented. The Canadian Human Rights Commission recently reported that “there was very little improvement” in visible minority hiring in recent years. It further states that 2007 “was the lowest proportion of hires in the past six years” and as a result of low levels of hiring, “visible minorities will likely remain underrepresented in the public service in the coming years.”
Remembering Cal Best: labour activist and equality pioneer
The son of a human rights activist and a railway porter, James Calbert Best's career in the federal public sector began in the Department of Labour in 1949, where he co-founded the Civil Service Association of Canada, one of the organizations that merged in 1966 to form PSAC.
Cal was born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and as a young man founded, with his mother, the first African-Canadian owned newspaper in that town, The Clarion. The paper covered local news and sports, but more importantly, delved into the deeper racial issues facing black people in Nova Scotia and across North America. It featured the case of Viola Desmond, who has been referred to as a Canadian Rosa Parks. In 1946, she was arrested and fined for sitting in the "whites only" section of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow and refused to move when authorities tried to force her to.
After achieving degrees in political science and public administration, he embarked on a 49-year career in the federal public sector, including a term as Canadian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago.
Even in retirement, his considerable contribution continued. In 1999, he served as a member of the Treasury Board President's Task Force on the Participation of Visible Minorities in the Federal Public Service.
Cal Best died in the summer of 2007 at the age of 81.
Employment equity and racialized workers: very little progress
Historically, racialized workers experience higher levels of discrimination and harassment in the workplace and have higher levels of unemployment and lower incomes than their non-racialized workers.
The federal Employment Equity Act was passed in 1986, and was extended to cover the federal public service in 1996. The goal of the Act is “to achieve equality in the workplace … and to correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment experienced by women, aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities …”
And yet, despite the changing composition of Canada's population and the enactment of legislation such as the Employment Equity Act, discrimination and racism is not a thing of the past but continues to pervade Canadian society. Racialized people remain significantly under-represented in many federal workplaces and in particular in the federal public service.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission, which oversees the implementation of employment equity, recently made some critical statements regarding the lack of progress that the federal public service is making toward achieving a representative workforce. They reported that “visible minority members continue to be underrepresented in the public service,” noting that there was “very little improvement” over the previous year. “In fact, [2007] was the lowest proportion of hires in the past six years” and as a result of the low levels of hiring, “visible minorities will likely remain underrepresented in the public service in the coming years.”
Clearly the federal government is not living up to the goals set out in the Employment Equity Act and the federal public service is still not reflective of the population it serves. Despite the obvious need for improvement, the Embracing Change initiative, which set out a goal of hiring one racialized person for every five hires into the public service, is no longer being funded.
PSAC is calling on the government to revive the Embracing Change initiative and restore its funding. Such measures are even more crucial in tough economic times, when racialized workers are more likely to be laid off and when normal hiring practices are frequently circumvented in favour of the use of casuals and temporary workers.
We will continue to demand an end to discrimination in staffing practices. We cannot hope to achieve a fair and just workplace until the potential and contribution of all workers is recognized.
Queering Black history
Egale Canada recently unveiled a series of postcards to spotlight Black, African and Caribbean achievers who are also part of the LGBT community. The project aims to “increase the visibility and presence of Black, African and Caribbean queers in Canada,” according to Akim Adé Larcher, founder of project partner Stop Murder Music (Canada). “It's the first of its kind in Canada and I'm proud to announce it during Black History Month.” Egale Canada is Canada's LGBT human rights organization advancing equality, diversity, education, and justice. Visit www.egale.ca to order postcards and learn more.
PSAC to fight budget bill: Union will challenge wage roll backs and the destruction of pay equity
On Friday, February 6, the Conservative government introduced an omnibus bill to implement the provisions of the federal budget that contains two “poison pills”: legislated wage rates for federal public sector workers and a problematic overhaul of federal pay equity legislation.
PSAC is committed to fighting wage legislation that would affect any of our members – especially if it threatens free collective bargaining. We also oppose changes to legislation that would undermine pay equity as a human right and make it much harder for women to demand equal pay for work of equal value.
Wage roll-backs
Bill C-10, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and related fiscal measures, legislates national rates of pay of 2.3%, 1.5%, 1.5% and 1.5% from 2006-2011, for employees of Treasury Board and all other government-affiliated agencies.
The bill explicitly states that it will roll back any wage increases that differ from this formula, stating that they “are of no effect and are deemed never to have had effect.” (19 b)
This would directly affect PSAC's members at the Canada Revenue Agency, who negotiated wage increases of 2.5% for 2007, 2008 and 2009. Bill C-10 would effectively break their collective agreement and override the 2009 wage increases that they freely and fairly negotiated with the federal government.
PSAC is convinced that Bill C-10 violates a 2007 Supreme Court of Canada decision that found free collective bargaining to be encompassed and protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The union will challenge Bill C-10 and its impact on workers at the CRA and elsewhere.
Destruction of pay equity
In addition to legislated wage rates, Bill C-10 also spells out a new federal pay equity regime that ignores the recommendations of the 2004 Pay Equity Task Force and would do more harm than good.
Bill C-10 would make it more difficult to claim pay equity, by changing the definition of a “female predominant” job group to require that women make up 70 per cent of workers in the position. It also redefines the criteria used to evaluate whether jobs are of “equal” value, leaving pay equity – a human right – open to market forces.
To add insult to injury, the bill transforms pay equity in an “equitable compensation issue” that is subject to discussion at the bargaining table. If pay equity is not achieved through the bargaining process, individual workers will be allowed to file a complaint with the Public Service Labour Relations Board, but without their union's support. In fact, this bill would impose a $50,000 fine on any union for encouraging or assisting their own members in filing a pay equity complaint.
Human rights are non-negotiable
Pay equity is a fundamental human right that should not be traded away at a bargaining table. Bill C-10 is one more example of the Harper government's attack on women's rights.
Get ready to unite and to fight these regressive actions against PSAC members and human rights!
