Seniority and Employment Equity for Women

Conflicts between seniority and employment equity became evident after the United States adopted laws in the 1960s prohibiting discrimination in employment. Seniority rights sometimes slowed down or prevented the integration of Blacks and women in the workplace; in times of layoffs, they insured that recently-hired employees from these groups were the first to go. This led to innumerable law suits culminating in a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The potential for similar conflicts is even greater under Canadian anti-discrimination provisions because Canadian laws contain no counterpart of the general seniority exemption which is included in U.S. law. In spite of this, not a single case concerning indirect discrimination by seniority systems has been reported in this country. The few reported cases involving seniority and discrimination dealt with crude questions such as separate seniority units for women and men. The main elements demonstrated in this thesis are: (1) that seniority rules have harmful effects on Canadian women; (2) that these harmful rules constitute unjustified adverse impact discrimination under Canadian law; (3) that laws prohibiting adverse impact discrimination by seniority rules are not enforced in Canada; and (4) that many measures could be taken to reduce the negative impact of seniority systems on women while retaining the beneficial effects of the seniority principle. These points are developed in five chapters. Chapter I provides background information on the nature and coverage of seniority rights, the arguments for and against them and the way in which they are applied. Chapter II assesses the impact of seniority on women to correct its unjust effects on them. Chapter III reviews the legal history of the conflict between seniority and equality rights in the United States. In Chapter IV, we consider whether unmodified seniority rules constitute unjustified adverse impact discrimination under the following Canadian laws: (1) laws on the duty of fair representation of labour unions; (2) human rights acts; and (3) the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the end of Chapter IV, and in Chapter V, we describe changes which could be made to correct present injustices. Some, like the adoption of proactive employment equity laws with vigorous sanctions and powerful implementing agencies, aim at correcting the lack of enforcement. Other proposed changes involve a broad range of modifications to seniority systems to reduce or eliminate their negative impact on women, as well as alternatives to seniority-based layoffs. Our conclusion is that if such changes were made, the seniority principle could at last become the essential protector of vulnerable workers it was originally meant to be. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Business · Demographic economics · Economics · Equity (law) · Labour economics · Political science · Seniority · Retirement, Disability, and Employment