Mediaboss Marketing

Elected or not, Liberal leader David Swann says his party will push for equal pay across the province upon returning to the Alberta Legislature.

Swann made the announcement in Edmonton Wednesday morning.

He tells 660News, Alberta is sorely lacking and needs to play catch up compared to the rest of the country.

Alberta has fallen way behind, compared to the rest of the world in pay equity, its shocking really, he said. Our children, our mothers, our grandmothers have been paid at the rate of 2/3rds of anyone else doing the same job, its not acceptable and we want to see some legislation that will fix that.

Were catching up the rest of the country. Saskatchewan pays 80 cents on the dollar that men get for the same rate and I would hasten to add its not just women that are unfairly treated, farm workers are paid significantly less in many cases and that needs to be addressed as well. We want equality for the same job.

The long-time politician and doctor calls it shameful that the provinces leadership hasnt taken this issue on and adds it should be about fairness.

We want to see the government enact legislation that would require all workplaces to demonstrate they are negotiating fairly and providing equal pay for work of equal value, thats as simple as we can put it, that sometimes can mean a negotiation framework that everyone knows when they go into a job opportunity. They can start to talk from the same language about what equity framework looks like and they can challenge bosses that are not living up to that framework.

He says the Liberals themselves are working very hard to get more women into politics, right now they have 6 which would be about 20 per cent of their compliment, but adds this isnt a favourable climate and theyre working hard to change that.

They plan on introducing it through a motion, a resolution or even a bill to get pay equity.

When I think about my own daughters, my patients, when I was a doctor, struggling with feeling discriminated against and devalued but also not being able to make payments on some of the most basic aspects of their lives.

See the original post here:
Liberals push for equal pay across Alberta