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Pay Equity Continues to be Pushed Aside by Government


For Immediate Release

October 3, 2024

 

October is Women’s History Month, and with this year’s theme being Women at Work: Economic Growth Past, Present and Future, NL NDP Leader Jim Dinn (St. John’s Centre) is demanding government be transparent about their woeful Pay Equity Legislation and bring forward the regulations.

 

Dinn is expressing his concerns after waiting months for the regulations to be brought forward. Government stated that the regulations would be finalized and released to the public by the end of 2023.

 

“It is upsetting to see that women and gender diverse workers in our province are being denied equity,” said Dinn. “I have to ask the Minister, does she really care about pay equity? It has been two years since an ATIPP exposed the lack of work on Pay Equity Legislation, and still we are nowhere closer to reaching that equity in our province. It is shameful.

 

“The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives states in their 2024 Living Wage report that the majority of minimum wage workers are women, and we know that the current minimum wage is not a living wage,” said Dinn.

 

“The Minister claimed in 2022 that we didn’t need Pay Equity Legislation because of other ways to close the wage gap, like the $10 a day childcare program, yet we know that our province is currently experiencing a ‘childcare desert” which affects women trying to get back into the workforce. We need adequate legislation and commitment from government, but it seems the political will is just not there.

 

“The Minister of Women and Gender can get up and call this legislation ‘historic’, but until this legislation, and the topic of Pay Equity, is given priority it deserves, the only thing that history will remember is the inadequacies of the Bill and how government continues to drag its feet on gender Pay Equity.”

 

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For further information, contact Stephanie Curran, Media and Communications Officer, NDP Caucus at 330-0328 (o), or stephaniecurran@gov.nl.ca  



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