Last night the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission hosted a panel discussion on pay equity issues in New Brunswick. Panel members included representatives from government, the NGO sector, an academic and a practicing labour and employment lawyer.

This effort by the Commission should be applauded, as the initiative was successful in providing a forum to discuss pay equity with participants, as well as, attract attention to the issue from local media. It is events such as these, in accordance with the Commission’s educational mandate, which are so often overshadowed by the highly demanding complaints investigation and resolution functions of the Commission. Nevertheless, the important of educational initiatives should not be neglected.

The panel made efforts, at length, to express the need to frame the pay equity discussion in human rights language stating pay equity is, in fact, a human right. If it is within the context of human rights this group of stakeholders chooses to address pay equity, then the necessity and obligation of increase educational initiatives becomes all that more apparent. Pay equity suffers from a severe communications problem, as the general public is only vaguely acquainted with the concept and quite often confused by the separate notion of equal pay for equal work.

This week a local high school visited St. Thomas University where I lecture as part of our recruitment efforts. Part the students’ St. Thomas experience was an introductory lecture on human rights. I made an effort to inspire the class to confront injustices seen in everyday life and used the examples of Craig Kielburger who founded Free the Children as well as three boys from California who co-founded Invisible Children, two very successful grassroots NGOs which were initiated by kids their age. In concluding the class, I reminded the students that great injustices and inequalities don’t only occur in such far off places as India or Uganda where my two examples have operations. I ask the girls in the class if they plan on working after finishing school – they all said yes. I then told them to be prepared to earn 86 cents for every dollar the boys sitting beside them would earn. Needless to say, the girls looked very disgruntled.

While the New Brunswick government did pass The Pay Equity Act, 2009, which will come into effect April 1, 2010, it only applies to the provincial civil service. While this is a reasonable first step of leading by example, pressure to expand the legislation into the private sector should continue to be exerted. In addition, since pay equity is being addressed through the lens of human rights, a substantial educational initiative should be launched by the government in conjunction with legislation. Like the girls in my lecture, we can’t expect the population to stand up and claim a right to which they are unaware there is an entitlement.

Marc Gionet

Marc Gionet is a rabble.ca blogger and Project Manager and Researcher at the Atlantic Human Rights Centre.