By David Doorey, Professor of Law, York University
The United Food and Commercial Workers (Local 1518) recently concluded the first ever collective agreement (CBA) with Uber in North America, a very significant achievement. Here’s my quick and dirty summary of the CBA.
You can see find the agreement here.
Background: The Certification of UFCW
That agreement follows the certification of the UFCW by the BC Labour Relations Board last summer. The certification was based on the submission of union membership cards representing more than 55% of Uber employees in the bargaining unit, which is the Capital Regional District (essentially Victoria and environs) within the government’s regional divisions for passenger transportation. It took the parties a while to sort out the list of employees for the purposes of the “count” but suffice to say that the parties eventually agreed on which drivers are in the bargaining unit and the BCLRB confirmed that the UFCW has the support of greater than 55% of them.
[In BC, a certification vote is not required if the union submits membership evidence representing at least that threshold of employee support.]
The Question of the Legal Status of Uber Drivers
The Uber drivers were treated as “dependent contractors” and the Code provides for a bargaining unit of dependent contractors. Notably, Uber did not dispute that Uber drivers are “dependent contractors” so there was none of the tiring debate involved in this case over the legal status of platform drivers. Since all provincial labour statutes in Canada (weirdly, except Quebec) treat dependent contractors as “employees”, it would seem to follow that Uber drivers across the country are also covered by labour legislation and the laws protecting the right to unionize.
In other words, there is nothing special about BC in this regard, even though I have seen comments in media stories saying that the UFCW was only able to unionize the drivers in BC because the government amended the Employment Standards Act recently to expressly declare that “online platform workers” are employees. Uber drivers were already covered by the Labour Relations Code as “dependent contractors” so the fact that the ESA was amended to expressly declare platform workers “employees” for the purposes of that Act is neither here nor there, as far as I am concerned.
(Indeed, I would argue that one look at the ridiculously long list of rules that govern Uber drivers according to the standard Uber contracts clearly makes them “employees” applying the normal common law test for employment status in Canada.)
The First Collective Agreement
I have done a quick review of the collective agreement. Here’s my brief thoughts.
Firstly, as is typical, as a first collective agreement we should never expect huge breakthroughs for the union/workers. That is not how things work. The first collective agreement—here in an industry—would typically include marginal, incremental gains for the workers and some new protections. This is a fair assessment of this agreement.
Compensation
In terms of compensation per ride, by my basic math, there is no improvement above the minimum wage required by the BC ESA. I may be wrong about that, and if so, please someone let me know. I just did a quick comparison of the CBA and the ESA. The CBA requires a base pay of $21.90 per hour (as of June 1 2026) for “engaged time”. Engaged time is not defined in the CBA, but it is in the new ESA Regulation, which defines it as follows:
In this regulation, “engaged time” means, subject to subsections (5) and (6), the time that:
(a) begins when a delivery services worker or ride-hail services worker accepts a platform work offer, and
(b) ends when
(i) the platform work assignment is completed, or
(ii) the platform work assignment is cancelled by one of the following prior to the completion of the assignment:
(A) the delivery services worker or ride-hail services worker;
(B) the applicable customer;
(C) the applicable platform operator.
The $21.90 rate matches the minimum wage for platform workers in the Regulation. That figure represents 120% of the general minimum wage in BC of $18.25 (as of June 1). So, the collective agreement pay rates seem to match the legal requirements. Similarly, the per KM expense of 45 cents in the CBA matches the Regulatory requirement. This synergy is no coincidence, since Uber was heavily involved in lobbying the government for the watered-down labour standards laws that became the Online Platform Workers Act and accompanying Regulation. This first CBA does not tackle the BIG goal of many in the “platform workers rights movement” of achieving compensation for time on the App other than “engaged time.”
The CBA includes additional payments for “Wait Fees”, “Out of Region Surcharge”, and “Cancellation Fees” (Art. 15.05). I don’t think these amounts are any different than what the Uber drivers were receiving already under their contracts pursuant to a document known as P2P Ridesharing Addendum for BC, or if there is a difference it is marginal. However, I believe (and I may be wrong) that the CBA includes negotiated bumps in those amounts over the 4 year term of the CBA. If so, then at least the UFCW was involved in bargaining those increases instead of Uber just unilaterally deciding if and when to increase them. Frankly, I’m not sure if or how much of a benefit this is beyond what would have happened anyways.
The clearest financial bump in the CBA is in the form of bonuses, including a “ratification bonus” for each driver who qualifies (50 or more rides between July 1 2025 and ratification date of CBA) in the amount of $250. The CBA also includes a “Quarterly Engagement Incentive” that requires Uber to pay out set rates quarterly tied to the number of trips. Payments range from $75 (150-250 rides) to $600 (751+ rides). I think that is new, but again, I’m not sure. People with more knowledge of how Uber pays drivers would no better than me.
Job Security and Representation Rights
While there are some marginal improvements in compensation, the real benefit to drivers no doubt comes in the form of legally binding representation, job security rights, newly trained union stewards, and a formal grievance and arbitration provision.
The CBA requires the employer to have “just cause and reasonable cause or appropriate notice” (Art. 19) as a condition of having their account suspended or deactivated. That language is a little unclear (Is notice an alternative to just and reasonable cause? That would be weird), but the addition of “just and reasonable cause” appears to require an actual reason for deactivation which can be challenged in a grievance, whereas the new ESA platform worker law simply requires notice and a requirement to tell the employee the reason. The CBA also permits drivers to file a grievance to challenge changes in “star ratings” that negatively impact the driver (Art 12).
Therefore, it seems that the unionized Uber drivers have some form of “just cause” protection backed up by an enforcement mechanism with union representation that includes the possibility of a reinstatement remedy from an arbitrator, while non-union Uber drivers can be punted off the App at any time at the discretion of Uber.
[Of course, the UFCW already had that little side deal that conferred limited rights on UFCW to represent drivers in deactivation cases, but that model was purely voluntary between UFCW and Uber and not backed by binding labour arbitration. Details of that UFCW-Uber deal are discussed in this OLRB decision. The new CBA is a real binding legal contract].
More generally, everything in the CBA can be enforced via the grievance and arbitration procedures, which is a HUGE improvement over Uber’s in-house model, which is set up to benefit Uber and discourage drivers from pursuing remedies. Recall that Uber dragged a case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada trying to defend its outrageous arbitration clause that required drivers to litigate disputes over a few bucks in the Netherlands and only after paying a filing fee of $14,500 US plus legal fees.
Thankfully, the SCC called bullshit and struck down the clause (see Uber v. Heller) but never forget that this is a company that designed such a model in the first place and then sought to defend it all the way to the highest court in the land. This is not a morally elevated corporate citizen, so do not underestimate the basic fact that the UFCW now has legal means to hold Uber to account (in Victoria at least).
Also, it is important to note that this agreement is now subject to Canadian labour arbitration jurisprudence: “the law of the shop”. Canadian collective agreements are read through the lens of arbitration principles of interpretation and norms. To give one important example, the right of unionized employers to introduce rules is subject to a test of reasonableness and necessity (the “KVP test”). This arbitration principle will apply, for example, to attempts by Uber to introduce new forms of surveillance or AI. The point is that Uber’s discretion is no longer unlimited.
Card-Check Based Voluntary Recognition for New Bargaining Units and Extension of the Existing CBA
The CBA has other nuggets, including rights to a 30-minute orientation by the UFCW for all drivers and a “Driver Wellness Fund” to be funded by Uber and administrated by UFCW. One of the more interesting clauses (Art 2.03) provides that Uber will voluntarily recognize the UFCW as the bargaining agent for any other region in BC if the UFCW establishes majority support. Moreover, if that happens, the CBA “will apply to all dependent contractor drivers” and the parties will amend the CBA’s scope clause to account for the change. The CBA then provides for an opportunity for the parties to bargain any tweaks to the CBA needed to account for the new employees.
This is an interesting example of an “accretion clause” that avoids the parties having to re-negotiate a brand new agreement each time a new bargaining unit is organized. It is an efficient and sensible approach, but not a common one, mostly because employers more often resist anything that will make life easier for a union to organize new workers. The clause creates the possibility of a province-wide Uber bargaining unit.
In this case, I suspect Uber would be much happier dealing with UFCW under this CBA then dealing with the unknown if a different union organizes the drivers. (Note that this CBA cannot block another union from organizing Uber drivers and applying for certification for a different group of workers in BC).
However, there is a potential risk involved for Uber too: were UFCW to organize more regions and sweep them under this CBA, it would set up the possibility of a common strike date for all of the regions in BC that are covered by the CBA. A province-wide Uber strike to try to win, say, payments for non-engaged time, sure would be interesting to watch!
DD