City worker wins back pay for two-year wage slash

Pay-equity decision could affect 300 other part-time employees

A recent pay-equity decision ordering the City of Windsor to provide $4,000 back pay to a part-time receptionist at the WFCU Centre for improperly reducing her wages over two years could have farreaching and costly implications.

The city may be on the hook for providing about 300 workers similar back pay, which would amount to $1.2 million if all part-time parks-and-recreation employees in question receive the same amount. Plus, one union leader worries the city will use the forced payment as an excuse to outsource even more work.

The Ontario Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal recently ruled that the City of Windsor must pay Shirley Moor, who works part time at the reception desk of the WFCU Centre, all the money she missed plus interest after the city temporarily reduced her wages.

The city entered into an agreement with CUPE Local 543 in 2013 to reduce part-time parks-andrecreation workers wages to save money in order to help pay for the $78-million aquatics complex. The state-of-the-art facility opened in 2014 and has cost up to $3.5 million a year to run.

If the union didn’t agree, City of Windsor officials threatened to outsource part-time facility jobs, which include lifeguards, community-centre instructors and facility attendants.

“It felt like a slap in the face to part-time workers,” Moor said Wednesday. “To do that just to a certain group at the corporation isn’t right.”

The situation started in 2004 when a pay-equity ruling ordered the city to pay back wages to about 300 part-time, mostly female workers. The lump-sum compensation, which dated to 1990, cost the city almost $6.8 million, $32,000 of which went to Moor, who has worked for the city 30-plus years.

Then in 2012, the city told the union that it would contract out about 60 jobs at the pending aquatics complex if it didn’t accept wage concessions. So the city and union agreed to create a new pay grid that reduced wages for part-time workers for two years to $16.48 an hour. The problem is that the payequity tribunal had previously said the hourly pay by 2012 should be $18.18.

Moor complained to the city and then to the union, but nobody budged. So she filed a complaint with the Ontario Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal — helped by her husband John Moor, who represented her throughout four years of proceedings.

The tribunal has now ruled twice in her favour, including as recently as April 11.

Meanwhile, at 63, Shirley said she is still prepared to fight on behalf of fellow workers, who she believes should get the same compensation she has. In fact, another battle may be brewing. Since the city created a wage grid, the Moors feel it should have steps to climb to, with the base being the current wage.

So could more compensation be in the works?

City CAO Onorio Colucci said he could not speak about details on the issue, since so far only an incamera report has gone to council. Colucci said the city is weighing options but would not indicate whether other city workers will receive compensation for two years of reduced wages.

“We certainly respect the process,” Colucci said. “And there are different steps in the process.

“There are options for council as far as the decision.”

Mark Vander Voort, president of CUPE Local 543, said he expects the city to compensate all parttime employees that had wages reduced, even though the union previously agreed to the temporary reductions.

“She is certainly entitled to the money,” Vander Voort said. “Anybody who was harmed by the temporary rollback should be compensated.”

Why did the union agree to the two-year reduction in the first place?

“The City of Windsor would have contracted out all those jobs,” Vander Voort said. “We were told that not only would they contract out the jobs at the aquatics centre but that eventually all those jobs would be contracted out.

“We’ll do whatever is possible to save the jobs of members of my union. And I make no apologies for that.”

Vander Voort worries the issue is not over.

“The concern I have is: are they now going to look at contracting out these services?” Vander Voort asked. “That could be the next thing that will happen. That’s the sad part.”