‘Today's decision is a significant victory for women working in our long-term care sector’
The Ontario Court of Appeal is allowing women working in long-term care (LTC) to have continued access to the proxy method of comparison for maintaining their pay equity rights.
The ruling overturns a 2019 Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal decision. On April 30, 2019, Ontario's Divisional Court awarded a decision that granted personal support workers, nurses and other healthcare workers in private nursing homes without access to male comparators in their workplaces the right to maintain pay equity with continuing reference to a male comparator.
However, on May 16, 2019, the Ontario government and affected nursing homes filed an appeal on the ruling, which was heard in 2020.
With the latest ruling, the court held that the fundamental purpose of the Pay Equity Act is to redress systemic discrimination in compensation. And to do so, there must be an ongoing comparison between male and female job classes.
This was a welcome development for unions.
“The court has found that the Act is clearly written to ensure ongoing access to male comparators through the proxy method in order to not just achieve pay equity, but to maintain it,” said Vicki McKenna, president of the Ontario Nurses Associations (ONA). “The court has found that the Tribunal's decision was unreasonable and dismissed the appeals and cross-appeal of the Participating Homes.”
In November 2020, Ontario announced it is increasing the hours of direct care for each long-term care resident to an average of four hours per day.
“More than ever, healthcare workers are demanding ‘respect us, protect us, and pay us,’ and today's decision is a significant victory for women working in our long-term care sector,” said Sharleen Stewart, SEIU Healthcare president. “While we are extremely disappointed that these nursing homes and the Ontario government dragged this out for over 15 years, we are incredibly pleased that The Court has ruled in favour of the working women of Ontario and brought a long-overdue ending to this battle.”
Also in November 2020, Ontario launched the Ontario Workforce Reserve for Senior Support, a program focused on recruiting, training and deploying individuals as Resident Support Aides (RSA) to work at homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
