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People of colour, women, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people, aboriginal people, and people with disabilities face many different forms of discrimination in the workplace. It ranges from being excluded from social activities to harassment. From being the last to know about training opportunities to being denied the opportunity to do a job that you are qualified for. This section will look at one aspect of that discrimination - the economic impact.
This section provides information on incomes and wages rates for people of colour, women and people with disabilities (Comparable data is not available for aboriginal people and LGBT people). Our experience in the labour market depends on the combination of our sex, our race and our disability status. It is difficult to show the complexity of our experience with numbers. As a beginning, when possible, information on sex will be included with information on race and ability.
There is another similarity between earnings of equality-seeking groups: union membership.
Unions make a difference.
Unions help to increase average wage rates and close the wage gap.
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The information below shows the economic impact of discrimination in the workplace. The experience of discrimination and the way that it occurs varies among equality-seeking groups. For people with disabilities, many barriers prevent them from entering the labour market. Other groups feel the effects of discrimination by how difficult it is to get a job, and which workplaces and jobs they find themselves in. However, the end result is similar — lower wages and less money to live on for you and your families.
People of colour
Over the last 30 years, Canada has become increasingly racially diverse. The percentage of people of colour in the population was under 4 per cent in 1971, grew to 11 per cent in 1996 and is projected to be 20 per cent by 2016. However, the national numbers do not show how diverse our larger cities have become. In 1996, people of colour accounted for 32 per cent of the population of greater Toronto, 31 per cent in Vancouver, 16 per cent in Calgary, and 12 per cent in Montreal.
Canadian people of colour are more likely to be unemployed, have lower incomes, to work in low paid jobs, and less likely to work in well paid jobs. The poverty rate among people of colour was 36 per cent in 1995, compared to 20 per cent for everyone.
The chart below shows earnings from employment by race in 1998. It shows that, on average, people of colour earned almost $4000 or 19 per cent less than white people in that year.
A recent study by Grace Edward Galabuzi shows that these differences in income remained when you compare the incomes of people of colour and white people in a number of different ways. These differences in income remain when you compare low-income earners, and when you compare high-income earners. They remain when you compared those with a lot of education and when you compared those with little education. What this shows is that the differences in income cannot be explained away by factors other than discrimination.
Impact of organizing
The chart below shows the impact of unionizing on the wages of workers. We all know that unionized workers make earn more than non-union workers. There are two other important aspects of organizing for people of colour. The first is that organizing has a bigger impact on people of colours’ wages. Unionizing increases people of colours’ average wages by 39 per cent and white people’s wages by 32 per cent. The second is that the wage gap between people of colour and white people is smaller for union members.
The next chart shows the impact of unionizing on wages rates for women of colour and men of colour. It tells a similar story to the last one. It shows that unionizing increases wage for both men and women. Because women of colour’s wages increase more as a result of unionizing, it also shows that unionizing closes the wage gap between men and women.
Unionizing for equity
The data above show that unionizing helps to close the wage gap between people of colour and white people. Unionizing is an important strategy for getting more equity in the workplace. As right wing governments roll back employment equity and other progressive legislation for people of colour, unionizing is becoming one of the few strategies available.
Lower unionization rates among people of colour and higher interest in joining a union mean that there is a large potential for organizing more people of colour. A recent Vector opinion poll shows that 35 per cent of non-union people of colour would like a union in their workplace. This is slightly higher than the 32 per cent for all non-union workers. The chart below shows that while 32 per cent of white workers are organized, only 23 per cent of people of colour are organized.
Women
Women work in the paid labour force to support themselves and to support their families. Despite 30 years of increasing labour force participation, breakthroughs in pay equity legislation, and all our organizing, working women in Canada made 64 cents for every dollar that working men made in 1998.
There are a number of reasons for this difference in wages. Women work in industries and jobs where the pay is lower. Women are more likely to work part-time than men. Women spend more time out of the labour force taking care of their children and other family members
The chart below shows the impact of that difference in earnings on different types of families. The differences are really large for families with kids. While two-earner families averaged about $66,000, families with two parents and one earner had an average income of about $45,000. The average income for a single mom was about $24,000, and 57 per cent of those families lived with incomes below the poverty line.
These differences remain, although they aren’t as large, when you compare women and men who are living on their own. Men on their own average about $5,000 more a year in income than women on their own do.
Impact of organizing on women’s wages
One of the best ways to make more money, and close the gap between men’s and women’s wages, is to unionize. Last year, union women earned $18.27 an hour on average compared to $13.19 an hour for non-union women. As the chart below shows, the wage gap between unionized men and women is smaller than the wage gap between non-unionized men and women.
People with disabilities
People with disabilities face a number of barriers before they get to the labour market, and they also face barriers and discrimination in the workplace. Access to education, training and the workplace itself can be a barrier to people with disabilities. Another barrier is that fact that daily living is more expensive for people with disabilities. These costs range from medication to personal assistants to transportation. As a result, people with disabilities need more money to meet their basic needs. Disability pensions and other public benefits cover these costs. If people with disabilities find a job, these benefits are cut off or reduced. This makes it difficult for people with disabilities to leave these benefit programs even though they provide very low incomes.
As a result of these barriers, in 1995 people with disabilities were less than half as likely as people without disabilities to participate in the labour market. In that year, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was almost double that of people without disabilities. People with disabilities in the labour force had dramatically lower earnings from employment than those without disabilities in 1998. People with disabilities had average earnings of just over $7,000 while those without disabilities had an average of over $22,000.
Not surprisingly, people with disabilities have a greater chance of being poor than those without disabilities. The percentage of people with disabilities who were poor in 1995 was 31 per cent compared to 18 per cent of the total population who were poor.
Women with disabilities
Women with disabilities face many of the same employment barriers as those confronting men with disabilities. But, because women’s daily reality is often different than men’s they can often face additional barriers that men do not face.
Women with disabilities are more likely than men to live as single parents than men with disabilities. As a result, they are more likely to be out of the paid labour force because of family responsibilities. Mothers with disabilities have to find childcare that is both accessible and affordable to work outside the home. Despite these additional household responsibilities, women with disabilities are less likely to have assistance with household tasks than men with disabilities. Experience shows that having help with household tasks can help women with disabilities to get and keep a job.
Impact of organizing on people with disabilities’ wages
Organizing increases the average wage of people with disabilities and reduces the wage gap between people with disabilities and those without disabilities. While unionizing assists people with disabilities in the workplace, many other barriers need to be addressed that are beyond the reach of collective bargaining.
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