i. What is the significance of a job class?

“Job class” is a pay equity term that has specific meaning under the Act and will therefore be interpreted using a standard of correctness. An employer is required to identify job classes in the establishment upon which comparisons for pay equity must be done.

ii. What is the definition of a job class?

“Job class” means those positions in an establishment that:

• have similar duties and responsibilities;
• require similar qualifications;
• are filled by similar recruiting procedures; and
• have the same compensation schedule, salary grade or range of salary
  rates [1. (1)].

iii. How does an employer identify a job class in the establishment?

The positions in one job class must meet all four of the criteria in the definition of a job class. If one position differs from another on any one of the criteria, these two positions would be in two different job classes. Some job classes may include many positions occupied by many employees all performing similar duties and responsibilities with the same compensation. Other job classes may have only one position, occupied by a single incumbent [1. (6)].

iv. How are the criteria applied to determine job classes?

It must be noted that the first three requirements use the word “similar” allowing for some discretion in applying the criteria. The fourth requirement uses the word “same”; this must be applied exactly in order to meet the criteria.

To determine similar qualifications of the job class, employers should consider both the nature of the qualification (for example, special credentials or skills) and the level of the qualification (for example, a community-college diploma could be equivalent to a three-year apprenticeship in a trade). The qualifications of a job class should reflect those required to do the work and not be the qualifications of the employee who happens to be in the job, or a desired qualification that may be not really required.

To determine similar recruitment procedures of the job class, employers should consider the scope of search (i.e. local, provincial, national, international), method of recruitment (i.e. union hiring hall, college campus, internal, external, newspaper advertisement, search firm) and /or recruitment requirements (i.e. application, interview, tests).

All the positions in a job class must have the same compensation schedule, salary grade or range of salary rates; they must be paid the same AND have equal access to the same benefits.

v. Are people with disabilities in a separate job class?

The Act specifies that a position cannot be assigned to a job class different than that of other similar positions only because the needs of its incumbent have been accommodated to comply with the Human Rights Code.