Questions About Pay and Equity
In 2001, the Ontario Literacy Coalition Board of Directors responded
to member concerns about “wages, workloads, poor working
conditions, and stress levels of individuals.” The Board
heard that similar “complaints are common in professions
involving ‘caring labour,’ and [present] challenges
[that lead] to problems of absenteeism, high employee turn-over,
sick leaves and leaves of absences.” The Board struck a Pay
and Benefits Review Sub-Committee to survey literacy workers in
Anglophone programs. In early 2002 the OLC released The Level
of Pay, Benefits, and Working Conditions of Literacy Employees
of the Anglophone Community in Ontario, 2001. The following
excerpts are from the report’s Executive Summary.
…The majority of respondents were female, averaging just
under six years experience in the literacy field, earning an average
wage of $20.57 per hour. Less than 5% of respondents reported earning
more than $33.00 per hour, and only 15% reported union membership.
Over half of those surveyed work for Community-Based literacy agencies
where average wages are between 25% and 55% lower for all job categories
when compared to the College and Board of Education sectors. Half
of the respondents are teachers/instructors, 40% of who earned
less than $15,000 last year even though the mean salary for that
job category was $20,116 across all sectors. This can be explained
by the fact that only 40% of respondents reported working full-time
hours, and only one third of those surveyed were employed 52 weeks
each year. Regular periods of unemployment and part-time hours
contribute to low annual incomes for literacy workers.
…This feedback describes the state of literacy as it is
now, for a relatively small sample (approx. 3%) of the entire Anglophone
field population. While the individual statistics calculated in
this report may not be applicable to the wider population as a
whole, the underlying beliefs, values and concerns expressed by
this group warrant serious consideration nevertheless. These
results prompt us to ask more questions, such as if literacy workers
feel continued pressure and demands placed upon their time, do
we risk losing them, possibly to retirement or employment opportunities
elsewhere? How is the ageing population and expected shortage of
skilled workers going to affect the literacy field in the future?
The consensus that this survey has revealed is that these workers
are here because they love the work; not because they feel they
are well compensated for performing it.
To continue this work, the report recommended that the Pay and
Benefits Subcommittee should distribute the key findings; “[d]evelop
guidelines for wages, benefits and workloads for the major job
classifications in the field; “analyze discrepancies…amongst
sectors to identify whether sectoral differences are real; and
do more research to “determine if there are real gender related
issues affecting the level of pay, benefits and working conditions
in the literacy field” and to “see what people are
being attracted to the literacy field and if [hiring] practices
are keeping people motivated…or if [Boards] are having trouble
attracting and maintaining people.” The report also recommended
that the literacy field should:
Investigate other caring labour professions (i.e. focus on nurses,
teachers, etc.) to compare levels of pay and benefits and effect
of unionization on the profession. Attempt to answer questions
such as, ‘Is it true that all caring professions have poor
working conditions? If so, how come?’ and, ‘What would
it take to change this?’
SOURCE:
Falcigno, Kim (2002). The Level of Pay, Benefits, and Working
Conditions of Literacy Employees of the Anglophone Community
in Ontario, 2001. Toronto: Ontario Literacy Coalition. Available
online at www.on.literacy.ca/pubs/pay/cover.htm.
