In an historic agreement, the Quebec provincial government will give some 400,000 women working in the public sector back pay and raises totaling $4 billion to make up for the wage gap between women and men. Quebec’s Treasury Board president Monique Jerome-Forget, in making the announcement, said that though people may think this is a large amount of money, “…you can also say that for years there were people who were underpaid and who did work for which they should have received a larger share of remuneration,” according to Quebec’s The Gazette.
The agreement was reached to narrow the gap in salaries between male- and female-dominated job fields. The agreement gives raises to about 95 percent of women eligible for pay equity, leaving only 20,000 women, mostly managers, in the public sector without compensation. Discussions for these positions are ongoing. The government has until 2008 to pay the salary adjustments.
“We are resolving an injustice that has lasted for many years,” said Jerome-Forget in a recent press conference, according to Canadian Press.
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