Two-tier wage agreements and various « grandfather » clauses were introduced in Quebec in the mid-1980s. In recent years, a vigorous debate has arisen about the legality of such clauses. A significant part of the debate has focused on the discriminatory nature of two-tier wage plans as considered under the Quebec Human Rights Charter. Opponents of two-tier wage plans, such as youth organizations and the Human Rights Commission itself, argued that such agreements could be discriminatory, primarily on the basis of age. Only an amendment to the Act respecting Labour Standards making two-tier wage agreements illegal, argued the opponents of two-tier wage plans, could address this problem. Despite strong opposition frorn employers' associations, the National Assembly finally amended this Act in December 1999.

But changes to the Act respecting Labour Standards can only be viewed as a partial response to the problems raised by two-tier wage plans. The new chapter VII. 1 only makes illegal those plans that are permanent in nature (i.e. collective agreements with two scales of wages for the same work, depending on the date of hiring). Despite the lack of clarity of article 87.3, the intented effect is to deny any remedy against temporary two-tier wage agreements, where the progression of workers with little or no seniority towards wage parity is delayed by different means. The only reservation is that the temporary inequality should be gradually abolished, in a « reasonable time ».

Chapter VIL 1 of the Act respecting Labour Standards does not affect many of the inequalities produced by two-tier wage plans. There remains some scope for the application of the Human Rights Charter, when discriminatory effects, on the basis of age or other grounds, can be statistically proven. In the first part of this article, the author examines the concept of discrimination in the Quebec Charter of Rights, taking into account the recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Meiorinand Grismercases, and applies it to the analysis of discriminatory situations in the context of two-tier wage agreements. The exceptions to the notion of discrimination in the Quebec Charter are then examined. The author concludes that these offer scant defence against complaints of discrimination on this count. In the third part of the article, the jurisdictions of the Quebec Human Rights Commission and the Commission des normes du travall, which will enforce chapter VIL 1, are analysed with regard to complaints about two-tier wage plans and other « grandfather » clauses. It is argued that the Human Rights Commission, which played a significant part in the debate on two-tier wage agreements, should continue to play an active role and accept complaints as long as the scope of chapter VIL 1 is not defined more precisely by the courts.

The social and political implications of the debate will probably bear strongly on the legal discussion of the rules involved. In essence, at the symbolic level, two-tier wage plans gave rise to public controversy in Quebec because they raised the larger question of the integration of youth as full citizens. This analysis is made with reference to the concept of industrial citizenship,first advanced by T.H. Marshall in England and translated in the Canadian labour context by H.W. Arthurs.