Template letter requesting the pay equity notice and to set up the Pay Equity Committee

Employer:  Your Human Resources counterpart                              

Address

Dear  :

RE: Federal Pay Equity Act Compliance and requirement to negotiate a pay equity plan

As you are no doubt aware, the federal Pay Equity Act applies to all employers with 10 or more employees in the federal jurisdiction as defined by section 2 of the Canada Labour Code.  The Act came into force in August 2021 and applies to your company.

We write to request a copy of the Pay Equity Act notice which the company was required to post in the workplace on Nov. 3, 2021. The Act required that the notice set out the company’s obligations to establish a pay equity plan and establish a Pay Equity Committee to develop the pay equity plan.

Section 12 of the Act requires every employer to establish a pay equity plan. The Act establishes a very clear deadline of Sept. 3, 2024, for posting the pay equity plan in the workplace.  The draft plan must be posted 60 days in advance to allow employees to comment or raise challenges to the plan.

A Pay Equity Committee must be established by an employer where a bargaining agent represents employees pursuant to sections 16 and 19 of the Act. Given that there are several steps to undertake to develop the pay equity plan, we request that you begin those steps immediately with the creation of the committee. 

As a bargaining agent, we recognize that we are required to provide you with the name of our committee representative.  We are also aware that the Act prescribes certain requirements for the committee including that 2/3^rd of the committee’s membership are employees to whom the plan relates and that at least 50% of the committee members must be women.

We look forward to this joint process and working with the company to fulfill the goals of the legislation.  Please provide me with a copy of the pay equity notice no later than [four working days from sending the letter].    

Please contact me at your earliest convenience regarding setting up of the Pay Equity Committee and the other next steps.

Sincerely,

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