Pay transparency

What is pay transparency?

Despite its growing popularity as a tool to reduce gender-based wage discrimination in the workplace, the concept of pay transparency is still little known in New Brunswick and other jurisdictions without applicable legislation.

Pay transparency legislation requires employers to disclose their pay structures and provides the needed information to analyze gendered patterns in the workplace.

Women in the workplace often have no means of knowing whether they are being paid equitably compared to their male counterparts because of the secrecy around remuneration. They can even be disciplined and even terminated for asking about or sharing wage information.

Far from replacing pay equity legislation, pay transparency could provide working women with an additional tool to identify and address gender pay gaps when they occur in the workplace.

Establishing the foundation for pay transparency legislation in New Brunswick

Funding was granted by the Canadian Bar’s Law for the Future Fund for a new research project on pay transparency. The project’s leader researcher, University of New Brunswick’s Kerri Froc, Faculty of Law professor has partnered with the Coalition to provide policy-makers and members of the public with an understanding of pay transparency legislation.

Project goal: To provide policy-makers and members of the public with an understanding of pay transparency legislation and how it works to ensure non-discriminatory pay practices.

The three-fold project that is underway will:

1. complete research on pay transparency legislation in various jurisdictions
2. provide training on the requirements and potential of such legislation to equality seeking organizations
3. develop a "model law" on pay transparency