The following letter was written by CUPE Local 79 President Steven David as a “letter to the editor” to the national newspaper The Globe and Mail.
The men and women in CUPE Local 79 read with dismay your editorial on pay equity (The Politics Of Wages – Nov. 22). You seem to conclude that wage discrimination is a figment of the Attorney-General’s imagination.
The women in our union know differently. Day-care workers, nursing attendants and registered nurses (female) who work for Metro Toronto earn less than Metro’s chauffeurs, laborers and truck drivers (male), respectively. Our members, male and female, are insulted by your reference to “the pernicious self-selection of women for lower-paying jobs.” Think again, please. Most of us got our jobs when The Globe and Mail was still publishing separate “Help Wanted Female” and “Help Wanted Male” advertisements.
There’s nothing pernicious about choosing a career as a day-care worker, a nursing attendant or a registered nurse. There is something pernicious, and mean-spirited, about a newspaper that grasps at employers’ excuses to deny women workers economic equality.
Steven David
President, CUPE Local 79
