FAQ

Pay Equity Act, art. 1:
“The purpose of the Pay Equity Act is to redress differences in compensation due to the systemic gender discrimination suffered by persons who occupy positions in predominantly female job classes”

Employees who are represented by the employee groups included in this exercise and who occupy predominantly female job classes are the only employees subject to potential pay equity adjustments.

Pay equity can often be confused with other equity matters such as:

• Market equity: Aligning salaries to external market values
• Employment equity: Increasing employment opportunities for groups identified in the Act Respecting Equal Access to Employment: Women, visible minorities, aboriginals and disabled persons
• Internal equity: Adjusting salaries of jobs for internal relativity

Most importantly, Pay Equity is NOT about the person.

It is NOT about his or her education, experience, or personal performance.

It is NOT about the person, but rather about the job that person occupies.

The employees who occupy the predominantly female job class affected by an adjustment will all receive the same percentage of adjustment.

Pay equity maintenance adjustments are identified as earnings and as such, are subject to any applicable deductions under the provincial and federal income tax legislation. Some of those deductions are, union dues, Quebec pension, UI, etc.

Question or comments must be addressed in writing to the attention of Paul Martineau, Manager, Compensation, at the following address:

Email: payequity@concordia.ca
Address:
Concordia University
Human Resources
c/o Pay Equity
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West, FB 1130
Montreal, QC H3G 1M8

No, not all female predominant classes are expected to receive an adjustment.

Pay equity is, in essence, equal pay for work of comparable value. The Pay Equity Act states that jobs must be evaluated and work mostly or traditionally done by women be compared to work mostly or traditionally done by men.

If jobs are of comparable value, then female jobs must be paid the same as male jobs.

Internal equity is, in essence, equal pay within the organization for individuals doing the same job, with the same qualifications, education or other job-related criteria.

An internal equity adjustment may be appropriate when salary inconsistencies are found due to differences in the compensation paid to staff members in the same classification with equal years of service within the classification which cannot be explained by differences in education, training, and/or job performance.

External equity is, in essence, organization’s pay rates based on the market rates.

An external or market equity adjustment may be appropriate when salary inconsistencies are found because salary survey data indicates that the mean or median salary for a like position in the outside market is considerably higher than the compensation paid to a staff member within the organization.

No, it is not the same. Equal pay for equal work addresses situations in which men and women do the same work. If a man and woman are doing the same work, such as two cooks or two machine operators on the same line, they must be paid the same, as this is described as equal pay for equal work.

Gender predominance is determined when a job category contains 60% or more incumbents of the same sex. For example, a secretary job category could have 50 incumbents: 65% of which are female. The category would therefore be determined to be female dominant.

Concordia University as the employer is responsible for the pay equity maintenance.

This is not what pay equity is about. The process aims solely at comparing compensation between predominantly female job classes and predominantly male job classes within the organization.

The details of the timelines are included in each posting as well as the contact info for all parties involved.

The personal information of an employee such as the salary, address, marital status, etc. is private and confidential. Consequently, it is impossible to divulge this information to someone other than to the employee himself.

The next pay equity maintenance exercise will take place in five years from this exercise.