Closing the Gender Wage Gap

While 39 percent of women are in precarious jobs, 43 percent of racialized women and 48 percent of recent immigrant women are in precarious work.7 The Ontario government has launched the Closing the Gender Wage Gap Consultation to develop a strategy to close the wage gap between women and men. [...] Over the past year, the Workers’ Action Centre has held meetings with members, precarious workers and allies to identify key problems facing workers under Ontario’s labour laws and to develop recommendations which have been submitted to the Changing Workplaces Review.8 Because of the gendered and racialized nature of precarious work, we believe that many of these recommendations are critical for s [...] Gaps in in the ESA: shifting risks and costs of employment to women Changes in labour market regulation and practices have realigned the distribution of risks, costs, benefits, and power between employers and employees. [...] Gaps in the Employment Standard Act (ESA) have enabled employers to develop strategies for work organization that evade core labour standards and that have pushed workers beyond the protection of the ESA. [...] Recommendation: • No exemptions to the ESA Gaps in the ESA: creating gender inequalities The ESA has failed to regulate the growing predominance of part-time, temporary, and self- employed work.