This Committee provides advice on all matters pertaining to equity, diversity, and inclusion and assists UTFA in developing approaches to pay equity, employment and compensation equity, harassment, personal safety, and accommodation.

by Arjumand Siddiqi

Equity Data 

A big win for the Association is that we negotiated an agreement with the Administration regarding the equity data the University Administration receives via its employment equity surveys. UTFA won the right to disclose to our members information, analysis or commentary about the equity data. Equally important, with access to this data the Association has information to identify systemic forms of discrimination and to seek redress for our affected members.

UTFA is also in the process of obtaining salary data collected by the Administration about what they term “equity-seeking groups” and which the Association sees as “subjugated groups” in order to analyze the data and develop a legal strategy for addressing salary discrimination for all UTFA members from equity-seeking groups for whom data exist at U of T. This includes studying the salary data for librarians and Teaching Stream, part-time, and CLTA faculty members to ensure they are not left behind.

Pay Equity and Salary Discrimination 

The Association has been strenuously pressing the University Administration to comply with its obligations to our members under the Pay Equity Act for many years. The Association has advanced two pay equity grievances (one for faculty and one for librarians) where we are seeking several orders to ensure that the Administration maintains pay equity and meaningfully participates in a joint process with our Association. The Administration, as an Employer, is legally obliged to establish and maintain pay equity under Ontario's Pay Equity Act. “Pay equity” requires an assessment of all jobs and an unbiased comparison of the work done in female-dominated job classes with the work done in male-dominated job classes, in order to determine equitable compensation. Employers cannot pay one employee group at a lower rate than another employee group on the basis of sex when they perform substantially the same kind of work and if their work requires substantially the same skill, effort, and responsibility, performed under similar working conditions. 

Special Report of the Librarian Systemic Bias Working Group (By Whitney Kemble)

The Librarian Systemic Bias Working Group is working alongside the University Administration to study biases in librarian compensation. The working group is co-chaired by UTFA Member-at-Large Whitney Kemble and UTFA President Terezia Zorić, and includes librarian members Harriet Sonne de Torrens, Kyla Everall, and Desmond Wong, as well as consultant Hugh Mackenzie and researcher Sanchia deSouza to support data analysis. UTFA and the University Administration have met together 3 times so far, examining PTR data for gender bias. In 2022, the work of the group faced interruptions and frustrations due to a number of factors, including our delayed access to equity data. Moving forward we hope to access and analyze the equity data as it pertains to promotion rate and process, rank and stream at hire, as well as conduct librarian member outreach through a survey and/or focus groups.

Acknowledgements

I began as Chair of the Equity Committee this Fall, and am grateful to the Executive for its support and for bringing me up to speed on UTFA projects. I especially want to express my thanks to former Equity Committee Chair, Kass Banning, for her warm welcome and encouragement. I also want to thank the members of the Equity Committee for their dedication and important contributions this year, and UTFA staff for their assistance as I familiarized myself with the organization. I look forward to continuing our shared work in 2023-2024.