The Pension Blueprint podcast video transcript 

Episode 7 Transcript

Celine · Nas · Clayton

0:00 Introduction

Celine: Welcome to the Pension Blueprint. I'm Celine Chiovitti, Chief Pension Officer at OMERS and your host. Caregiving, wage gaps, career interruptions, these realities disproportionately impact women's financial future and they're a big part of why women in Canada still retire with less. So what does real gender pension equity look like and how do we get there? Today, CUPE Local 79 President, Nas Yadollahi and Toronto Police Association President Clayton Campbell joined me for a conversation we first shared during Pension Awareness Week about how a strong defined benefit pension can help close that gap and how we keep breaking down barriers so every member feels confident about their financial future.

Celine: So let's get into it.

Celine: I'm so happy to have you both here, and we're going to have a really great conversation about the pension gender gap and the things that we can do to help the livelihood and financial future of women. So thank you both for being here.

1:08 Meet Nas and Clayton

Celine: I'd love to start by just getting to know each of you a little bit better, what you do, why you were called to service in the way that you've been and what gets you up in the morning. And maybe I will start with you, Clayton.

Clayton: Sure. Yeah. I mean, so I'm so proud to represent about 8,700 members of the Toronto Police Service. There's about 5,600 police officers, but we also have civilian professionals too. So special constables, parking officers, our 911 call takers, and a lot of other civilian professionals in administrative roles. And I'm so proud that they're out there each and every day keeping the City of Toronto safe.

Clayton: And I have the privilege of representing them in things like collective bargaining, but also the privilege of being their voice. Those members are actually prohibited by law from speaking about certain things. So I get to be their voice, explain to the public, explain to politicians the things that they need to do their job effectively and keep the City safe.

Celine: That's great. Thank you, Clayton.

Clayton: You're welcome.

Celine: Nas?

Nas: I am fortunate and actually this has been an incredibly humbling experience to be able to represent over 32,000 workers across the City of Toronto who very similarly deliver very essential services to people across the City.

Nas: I think what some of the things that kind of gets lost is the magnitude of work that our workers do do, whether it's childcare, public health, personal support workers, transportation officers, licensing and standards, and everything from getting people married. We don't un-marry them, but we do marry them. And so it's really incredible to be able to do this work. And I don't do it on my own. I consider my position to be that of 32,000 workers. And we just kind of move through things together and ensure that they are being taken care of while they're working to take care of the City of Toronto.

Celine: That's so great.

Celine: And I always love when I speak to each of you and just looking collectively at what you do, really keeping the City itself thriving and safe and running. And then the advocacy work that you do for your own members. And so making sure that their futures are better. And so, again, differences and similarities.

Celine: I'd love to just dig in a little bit to the demographics of the people that you represent, because I know we were talking earlier, Clayton, about the fact that you've got a lot of younger members just joining the workforce. What does that look like? And what's on their mind? What's top of mind for them?

Clayton: Yeah, I mean, we've really... The Toronto Police Service went through a period of underfunding where we didn't hire people for a long time. Maybe something similar you guys went through. And so now we're hiring again. So we have about 1,300 new members out of our 8,700. The average service is about nine years of service. If you see the police officers out there answering the radio calls, it's more like three years. So three years average they're out there.

Clayton: Our civilian members of about 3,000 of them, half are female. With our front line, we're still struggling to recruit really good women to police in Toronto, but it's at about just under 20%. And really they talk about they want to have a good life. They want to serve the community. They want to have a job that they can provide for their family as well.

Clayton: And so I think when you talk about pensions, which we'll get into, although it's not on the top of their mind, it's something we really try to educate them about, things like ABCs that we've talked about, to make sure they set themselves up for the future when they do retire.

Celine: Yeah, that's great. Thank you. How about you, Nas?

Nas: We have our makeup is 70% women, which is why I think this conversation is so important. And 60% of those 70% women are racialized. So we have a very diverse group of workers, but predominantly women and predominantly racialized.

Nas: We have a large group of young workers. You can start working for the City of Toronto as early as 14 years old. And sometimes people dismiss the significance and the importance of those workers, but they are the people that you see in full-time positions 20, 30 years later in different divisions across the city.

Nas: And so I think many of them are struggling. And whether it is wages not keeping up with the cost of living, et cetera, and that they are predominantly women who are also caregivers in the home. I think this is an important piece of statistic, as you call it, that we should point out when it comes to 79 folks and why these discussions are important.

5:45 Understanding the Gender Pension Gap

Celine: Yeah, that's so true. And you also represent a lot of non-full-time employees, people working sort of in less than a full-time role. And all of those things, just sort of setting the stage for our conversation today, really end up being the factors around the pension gender gap.

Celine: And so just to sort of set context there, across all OECD countries, what we're seeing is women tend to retire with less take-home income than their male counterparts sort of at the end of their career. They also live on average longer, so about four to five years. And so the impact of a defined benefit pension plan is so much more important because if you have that, at least you know you have access to secure stable income for as long as you live.

Celine: But in Canada, the pension gender gap is about 17%. So for every dollar that a man takes home, a woman takes home about 83 cents. And there's lots of sort of historical reasons that that is, and we'll talk about a few of them. But it's something that I think many of us have sort of opened our eyes to and said, like, in today's world, why is this so?

Celine: And so if I kind of go over to you, Nas, what are the, like, do women in Local 79, especially the younger women, are they thinking about their finances? Are they thinking about their futures? Is this something that's a concern for them or are they really, really focused on today and just sort of trying to get by today?

Nas: Yeah, I think if we, like, place ourselves in this particular moment in time, it is so difficult, especially for women who have multiple responsibilities inside and outside of the house to make that a focal point.

Nas: And of course, when you're younger, one of the things about being young, which is beautiful, is you think you're young forever.

Celine: Right.

Nas: So you're not really thinking about it. Boy, do you realize that's not the case pretty quickly.

Nas: And so I think it's not a question of it not being important or significant. One with the younger workers is that they are, it's not in their sphere of thought, just because of where they're at in life.

Nas: But for those who are more seasoned and have been around, how do you make time to consider those things when you are struggling just to get by day to day?

Nas: And when you think about, when you put this in the context of single parents, single moms who are trying to get by. So you finish an eight-hour shift. Oftentimes in caring sectors where you've been taking care of other people's loved ones, be it their children, the elderly or vulnerable populations. And then you're going home and having to think about how you're going to make that paycheque stretch enough to feed your kids, put a roof over their heads, and then continue to do that day in and day out, leaves very little emotional, mental, physical capacity to think about what comes next.

8:45 Parental Leave and Pay Equity

Celine: I want to go to you, Clayton, for a second, because I know that you recently achieved a really significant improvement when it comes to top-up pay for pregnancy parental leave. Talk a little bit about what happened, why that was important for you and for the Toronto Police Association.

Clayton: So we for a long time, I think let some of our women down in our bargaining. Women are under 30% when you look at it overall.

Clayton: So when you're in bargaining, you're trying to get contracts ratified. You're trying to get the members what they want. I think over time, women were left behind when it came to maternity leave. So it's something we prioritized this time.

Clayton: It's the right thing to do, but it's also we're trying to attract women into policing. The class before bargaining, it worked out great. When you're on the other side, you're trying to get the members what they want. Right when you're on the other side, only four women out of 90 were hired in a class of police officers. And that happened right before we sat down to bargain our contract.

Clayton: So we're really happy we were able to get 95% pay for the first 17 weeks. It's still not perfect. We have parental leave that goes beyond that at 75%. I'd love to see it at 100% for the entire year, because I think if we're trying to retain women, that's the time to look after them. So they'll come back and be productive members of the police service going forward. So we're very happy to at least achieve an improvement.

Clayton: And as we get into other rounds of bargaining, it's something that's a priority for me. And I know our board to keep advancing that. But when things are left behind in bargaining, you have to start somewhere. So we're very proud to get that in the last round of bargaining.

Celine: Well, I think that's incredible. Congratulations. And Nas, you've done a ton when it comes to wages and pay equity. And again, just looking at the members you represent, can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Nas: Wages are directly connected to your pensions. So how much you make determines how much your pension is later on. And so really, the enhancement in your pensions sort of starts at the bargaining table.

Nas: And for a long time, and actually forever across this country, unions would bargain percentage wage increases. What does that do to a local like 79 where you have 70% women and most of those workers fall below what we call a rental wage. So below $36 an hour, you have to get really creative with how you negotiate so that you can lift the bottom up.

Nas: And one of the things we did was we negotiated a dollar amount increase in conjunction with a percentage increase to lift those folks who are being left behind up. And it wasn't just the part-time workers that we were doing this for. It was half of our full-time complement saw a much higher, some got as high as close to 8% in the first year. And half of them got more than 3.95% in the first year.

Nas: Again, why do I mention that? Why is that important? Because it directly impacts these other pieces like their pension.

Nas: And so closing gaps looks like many things. Certainly it belongs at the bargaining table where you're not just negotiating parental leaves and top-ups and things like that, but the everyday wage enhancements that build up and build your future in the way that it can.

12:13 Supporting Women and Caregivers

Celine: So at OMERS, one of the things we've really been thinking about is providing tools and having conversations to empower women about their financial future and their pension. And about 60% of all members are women.

Celine: And so it's really important and I'm conscious of the fact that International Women's Day is just around the corner. What are some of the things that you're thinking about to help women in this space?

Clayton: Yeah, I can start. So we have a WISN, Women's Internal Support Network. It's run by women in the Toronto Police Service. And the part, their really goal is to educate, empower, to help them along their career path.

Clayton: And so they're putting a really good event together in March where they're going to bring together paramedic services, Toronto Fire and Police in one huge event. I think you might get an invitation to speak at it, which will be great. So hopefully that'll be an opportunity for you and OMERS to talk about the importance of pension to an audience like that. It'll be a really good event. So hopefully see you at it.

Nas: That's great. Thank you, Clayton. We have women's committees at all levels at CUPE. So we have it at the local level, at Local 79. We have a women's committee as part of our provincial body, CUPE Ontario, and then the national body has a women's committee as well. And they do different kinds of advocacy depending on the need in that moment.

Nas: And I think one of the things that we try to do is embed the things that we need to continue to highlight the significant contributions of women in society throughout. And then that really culminates in a celebration of what women bring to the table on International Women's Day. So it's a larger conversation and a larger celebration of just who women are and what they bring to society as a whole.

Celine: Yeah, I think it's all connected. I mean, when we think of a career in the pension gender gap, wages certainly play a big factor in that. I think historically the type of work that women take on has tended to be more precarious work in the past, leaves.

Celine: And so if you think of, even if you take two pregnancy parental leaves, like the impact on your pension. And then as women get older, they're just the natural caregivers of their parents and family members. And so those leaves all have an impact.

Celine: We were talking earlier and we talked a little bit about this reference to the motherhood penalty and the risk that I think women still feel that if I take time away from the workplace, I am somehow held behind. Do you believe that that is still the case? Do you think we're making progress there? Do you think there's more that we can do?

Nas: I think women in particular are very aware of the financial, I will say, predicaments that they're in. The majority of women are making just or just above, like I call it a rental wage, which means that they are hyper-aware of the cost of living and their financial state.

Nas: So they're dealing with cost of living, demanding work and those caregiver responsibilities all at the same time. But they do, like they care. They want to know that they're, how are they being protected, especially in jobs like this, where they are making contributions. What do those contributions, what does it mean for them later on? What does it look like?

Nas: And like I mentioned in the beginning, it's how is that information being transferred to them so that they're not chasing after that information and trying to find the answers, I think is really important. And I hope that we'll have some time to talk about how do we make it easier and remove barriers to access for that information?

Nas: Because I will say I find some of the most daunting things that come to my door in large packages that say your pension and then you open it up and it's like pages upon pages upon pages. The one I like to flip to is when's my end date? When can I actually get out of here? It's a while. It's still a while before I can get there, but it is like when you think about what you need to do with that information as well.

16:43 Making Pension Education Accessible

Celine: It's I honestly think that, and again, you know, when you know better, you do better, all of those things. But I feel like sometimes administrators, we've done a disservice in making it so complicated.

Celine: And so when you think of the defined benefit plan, like again, it's, you know, at the end of the day, it's about that secure, stable income that you have at the end of the career. And so part of it is you don't need to worry too much about it. You know, it's there, continue to contribute, stay with your employer, continue to pay attention to it.

Celine: But there's not a lot that we need you to do. Some things because you can actually optimize your pension by taking, you know, some little steps.

Celine: But at the same time, we've shared all of the sort of legalese-type documentation in the past that has done a disservice.

Celine: And so I think moving towards thinking about your pension as one tool for your financial future. And so like everything else, educate yourself and we need to make it simpler and more accessible.

Celine: Clayton, you and the Toronto Police Association do so much when it comes to helping your members prepare for retirement. Now I know that's just one piece of the puzzle. Do you think we should be doing more? And do you think that's still relevant for your members?

Clayton: I think the police officers members overall we're hiring now are more educated than in the past. They're interested in their pension. Those pension seminars have been very good that OMERS has put on. Some great people to come up. They're relaxed. They make it fun.

Clayton: We encourage our members to come up three times. When you first come on, come on up and learn about your pension. When you're getting close to retirement to come up again and then obviously right before, we've had to—the employer actually, the Toronto Police Service, they didn't give pension planning anymore. So we hired somebody full-time to actually come up and help with that.

Clayton: You know, I think we've looked at other opportunities around providing more generalized financial literacy and information because we see regardless a woman or a man, any member seems to make bonehead decisions, if I can call that right off the start, which usually tends to be this is my first job. We're making some money and they go buy a brand new car and have this giant lease payment or a car payment. And we're like, you know, maybe just buy a three- year-old car and invest a little bit of that money. So some and I did the same thing.

Clayton: Right. So we all kind of make those mistakes.

Clayton: So, outside of the pension, to say make some good financial decisions early on. And as you get later on in life, you know that those decisions will have a huge impact. So yeah, I think there's room for it. And the members are eager to learn. So we always look for some new opportunities to do that.

Celine: Well, let's continue to talk about it because I'm in the same space. I feel like we need to find more opportunities to reach the workforce when they're just starting and sort of midway in their careers.

Celine: I always like I don't think we talk enough about the value of the pension. And I think, you know, someone can leave public service and they're not there to get rich. They're not there for those reasons. They typically are there because they want to be of service and they're service-minded.

Celine: But you know, having access to a defined benefit pension plan, you can't get that in the private sector. You might be able to go across the road for a little bit more money. But you know, over a life cycle of career, like you're not going to be able to replicate the value that comes from a defined benefit pension. And we just we need to talk a little bit more about it.

20:15 Engaging the Next Generation

Celine: On that, now, if we're thinking about sort of practical advice, are there, you know, a few things that you think we can do better in this space?

Nas: Um, I think starting to talk about pensions and pension education earlier is important.

Nas: Like, again, once folks get into the swing of a career and they get busy with other things, it becomes more difficult to pull them in.

Nas: So I think especially young folks, I think if you find creative ways of educating them about these things, I actually think young people these days are incredibly savvy. And what's the word that I'm looking for? Creative.

Celine: Yes.

Nas: So creative.

Celine: Yeah.

Nas: I hear both of my kids come up with interesting ideas. Sometimes you've got to walk them off the edge and say, you know, maybe not so much. But and social media has created this like, floodgate of potential opportunities, or at least a space where people are sharing ideas and information.

Nas: So starting that sooner, I think, is important and onboarding folks in this conversation early on in their careers.

Celine: Yeah.

Celine: One of the things that really strikes me is even the way people are working are different. I have a 27-year-old daughter. And what's important to her, what she values is so different. Like I really grew up with like, immigrant parents, which is like, go to school, get your education, save your money, buy a house, like stay.

Celine: And she's more about experiences. And I think that's part of the culture. And just, you know, the reality is when you're just starting out, it's less likely you will get to homeownership and things like that. But if I think about, you know, where she is and her friends, it really is more about experiences.

Celine: And I was just reading a book about sort of the new retirement. Like, you know, you work for this period of time and then you retire, now it's more fluid. And so people are taking more sabbaticals and, you know, potentially working longer and doing different gigs.

Clayton: Well, it's funny because I think it's healthier in some ways. Like I'm sure your employees, too, your members, the work-life balance type discussion, it's probably a much healthier way to be than we probably were. Where we're, you know, we're working, we're taking every overtime shift, we're doing this.

Clayton: But I think the flip side of that is, you know, you have some fun, have some work-life balance, but someday you are going to be, one, not work anymore, or you're not going to scale down how much you're working. So it's that fine balance of, I find our members are definitely much more work-life balance.

Clayton: They're taking on, even operationally, they're not as interested in taking on some of the more challenging roles. So we're trying to attract them into those roles that take more time away from family.

Clayton: Like I said, probably healthier, but we have to at least try to educate them to say, yes, have your fun, have your work-life balance, but make sure you're putting some money away and making some good decisions along the way.

Celine: And it's important that you get joy out of your work as well.

Nas: I just wanted to add that I think how consumable you make the information and the way that you present the information is important.

Nas: And also rooted in like everyday examples. And a lot of people are looking for economic justice, if that makes sense, right? How does this apply to your current situation? How is this going to, how does this impact your children? How does this impact the people that you're caring for? How is this going to impact you when you're no longer caring for them or you want to move on and you want to do something different?

Nas: And at different stages in your life, your pension may mean something different to you. So making the information consumable and also something that makes sense for them in that time, but also this is the present, this is the near future, this is what you're looking at further down the road, this is what you're looking at for your children.

Celine: So helpful. I like literally taking things from that.

Clayton: Never thought of it that way.

Celine: That's a good way to look at it. Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it.

Celine: And I think your point about, you know, when we look at, you know, we're now, I think our youngest member is Generation Alpha, like it's crazy. I don't even know what that is.

Clayton: I have no idea. I don't even know which one. I think I want to be X, but I don't even know what they have.

Celine: I think I can't, I actually need to go and check the localities of it. Someone checked the point. What are we?

Nas: Who are we?

Celine: 12 years old.

Celine: But they are very like socially responsible and want to do well, but want to ensure that when they're in a pension plan and others that we're treating others well and that there's a collective value, which I think is amazing. And so, you know, more transparency and all of that around everything that we're doing and the impact of what we're doing for members and beyond.

Celine: But I love the tool of giving them the visuals of, you know, again, it is more like financial planning and starting to think about, about it in that way.

25:13 Closing the Gap and Retiring with Confidence

Celine: What does success look like in this space? If I were to sort of say, you know, we're fast forward three to five years and we're sitting here again, what does good look like?

Clayton: I mean, I'll take it that we have and it'd be interesting that if there's stats that OMERS probably has that we're having more in there. There are some men that take parental leave, but I say we have more women by percentage buying back that leave. We do our best we can.

Clayton: You mentioned different stages and you know, you have someone that is just back from parental, mat leave. They've just basically spent all their money there. If they have a top-up or don't, they're in a tough situation. But I would love to see that percentage be 100 percent. I'd like to see everybody buy back that leave.

Clayton: You know, in my stage with with my wife now where we're not at retirement yet, but we're starting to look at it. I'm so happy that we're both so happy that she did.

Clayton: So I'd love to see success for me would be that more people are buying back those breaks in service. It's so important as they get to the end of their career.

Celine: That's great. Thank you. Nas.

Nas: I mean, I don't I don't think it's it's very different. I think it would be and we refer to women as caregivers because that's often the role that they take on in addition to their other roles. Some of them are caregivers, caregivers in their profession and in their private lives.

Nas: But I think success would look like they are no longer being automatically penalized because they are women and women in retirement. So when you're when we penalize women because they're off on leave or can't afford to buy that piece back, what we're essentially doing is saying we're also going to penalize you in retirement. So success would look us doing away with that.

Nas: And it would be smaller wage gaps, which again translates into your pension later on. And women retiring with confidence without fear instead of retiring in fear and not knowing.

Nas: So if we can get women to a place where they're not second-guessing, OK, retirement's coming up. My mother is 70 years old. She's always been in the public sector. She's still working. She could have retired five years ago, but she hasn't because for her, her caregiving is how can I help to sustain the lives of my grandkids and what do I need to do? You know, so she's not just thinking about herself. She's still thinking about not even her children. She's thinking about her grandchildren.

Nas: And how can we get to a point where you can confidently retire at a reasonable time because you've had all these extra responsibilities on top of your profession? And how do we express gratitude for that for women who do so much to keep this, you know, frankly, society going?

Celine: That was just beautiful.

Celine: I think this is like I think there's so much work for us to do, but I am just so encouraged that we're having these conversations. And I always often with issues feel like if we could put, you know, take a multi-stakeholder approach in what we're doing, because I think there's work to do individually in kind of educating ourselves and trying to sort of do the best that we can, can do.

Celine: I think there's work for pension plans and policymakers with respect to, again, getting rid of any, you know, policies that no longer serve the way we live today and, you know, getting information in a consumable way.

Celine: I think there's work for employers. I think there's work for labour. Like, I just feel like if we can come together in five years, I think there's nothing that we can't do. And so I'm really encouraged with this conversation. I thank you both. Thank you.

Clayton: Thanks for having us.