Monday, May 18, 1998
Are we ever going to see an end to the pay-equity wars? The latest signs are not encouraging.
It began in 1989, when the Public Service Alliance of Canada, on behalf the Union of Northern Workers, complained that female GNWT employees were getting paid less than male employees doing similar work. Since then, the courts and the Canadian Human Rights Commission have insisted it is the GNWT's responsibility to address the gap.
Finance Minister John Todd and the GNWT, after spending vast sums unsuccessfully fighting those decisions, has finally agreed to do something.
But instead of settling the dispute separately, the government included pay equity in a $40-million contract offer to all its employees. The union wants to negotiate a new contract. Putting the equity issue on the table will not only exclude some former employees from compensation, but workers with no stake in the settlement will have equal status in the vote with those owed money.
Todd argues that he doesn't want to sign a contract without including equitable salaries because that would amount to condoning discriminatory pay rates again.
Crocodile tears don't look good on Todd, especially as the union and the GNWT have negotiated contracts since the complaint was filed nine years ago with the understanding that pay equity would be dealt with separately.
Considering the GNWT's strongarm tactics over the last few years, there are some good reasons why union members should be suspicious of anything but a straightforward and separate pay-equity settlement.
The bottom line is that pay equity is a legitimate issue. It must be settled either mutually or an authority higher than the two conflicting parties will have to make the decision.
The longer it takes, the more it will cost. Todd should go back to the drawing board.
Smart move by Northern businesswoman Marg Baile, who recently sold her art empire, Arctic Art Gallery, to Arctic Co-operatives Ltd.
ACL is a money-making giant when it comes to selling the million-dollar Northern arts movement and, unlike other carriers of Northern artwork, they have a habit of keeping profits in the North.
Smarter move, that ACL, will keep Baile on as a consultant. After all, she didn't turn a small kiosk in the lobby of Yellowknife's Explorer Hotel into the world-renowned gallery it now is by accident. Baile and the Co-op make a good team.
When the GNWT was getting out of staff housing, many employees bought their homes from the government.
Now homeowners fear the worst -- that they will be saddled with houses they might not be able to sell before they are forced to move as part of Nunavut's decentralization plan.
With new government offices under construction in Kugluktuk, Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven, Baker Lake, Arviat, Igloolik, Pond Inlet, and Pangnirtung, the list of worried employees is a long one.
Employees went public with their fears at recent meetings in Rankin Inlet and Iqaluit. When is the interim commissioner going to answer their questions? Let's hope Jack Anawak gets back to those employees soon. It will help make the transition into Nunavut a little easier for the people affected.
If southern animal-rights activists are to continue their crusade to protect the seal, they have to open their eyes and look at the whole picture, not just what they want to see.
Their well-publicized and romantic images of the marine mammal have caused a great deal of needless harm to Canadian Inuit and their livelihood. What goes on up here has nothing to do with Newfoundland's commercial harvest, for one thing.
More people need to join Iqaluit resident Aaju Peter in her efforts to educate and wake up the activists. Southern ignorance is hurting more than it is helping and keep in mind -- the Inuit and the seal hunt have been around a lot longer than their critics.
The national argument over whether the Inuit of Nunavut should kill another bowhead whale this summer is far too complex to disappear anytime soon, and until it does, media interest won't fade.
There is the scientific dispute over the size of the Eastern Arctic population of the whales, which are endangered, and there is the emotional debate, which is even less likely to find a resolution.
Organizers of the hunt, scheduled for this July in Cumberland Sound, are dreaming if they think they can dampen the fires of controversy by keeping southern or Northern media away from the scene. The federal government may award the hunters the right to take a whale, but it can't give them a monopoly on the debate.
Hay River Mayor Jack Rowe was understandably disappointed upon hearing BHP had chosen Yellowknife for a sorting and valuation plant.
Hay River did not lose for lack of trying. In fact, Hay River was first out of the gate chasing diamond business. The town was known around Europe before Yellowknife even got in the race.
Not surprisingly, the considerable economic might of the capital won out. But Rowe had a message for the Government of the Northwest Territories: Don't concentrate all the power in Yellowknife as Yukon has done in Whitehorse.
It is a message that will bear repeating in the future by all the regions. Too often those that have the most, get the most. The western territories will have to buck the trend.