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Some Thoughts on Canadian Unionization Rates

by David Doorey May 29, 2008
written by David Doorey May 29, 2008

Cancac, a cabinet maker north of Toronto, just announced it’s closing its factory and moving production to its North Carolina factory.  This will result in a loss of 1000 unionized manufacturing jobs.   The ongoing decline in Canada’s manufacturing sector has had significant effects on the composition of union membership in Canada.  Historically, union membership was primiarily in heavy industry (mining, forestry, manufacturing), where jobs were filled primarily by men (mostly white men).  For example, in 1987, approximately 1/3 of union membership was in the “goods producing” sector.  By 2003, that number had dropped to around 1/4, and union density in that sector fell from around 40% in 1987 to about 30% in 2003.
It is often noted that Canadian union density (the percentage of ‘non-agricultural’ workers who are union members) rate has remained relatively constant at near 30 percent for a long time.  That is true (it fell from 35.5 % in 1984 to 30.3% in 2007), but the composition of membership has changed dramatically, as this report by Stats Canada describes.   Union density in the private sector has actually fallen considerbly since the 1970s, from nearly 30% to around 17% in 2006.   The reason the overal density rate has stayed near 30% is because Canada’s public sector density rate has held at just above 70%.   The percentage of women workers who were union members was around 10% in the late 1970s.  In 2007, 30% of women workers were union members, while only 29.3% of men belonged to unions.   
In other words, if your image of a typical union member is a cigar smoking, big guy, think again.  Today, union members are more likely to be women working in the public sector.  The big challenge for unions has, for a couple of decades now, been to find ways to build support in the private service sector, where they have traditionally not fared well in organizing new members.  Check out the following union density rates by industry as of 2003:
Retail:  14.2%;  Accommodation & Food Services:  7.4%;   Finance & Insurance:  9%;  Professional, Scientific, Technical: 4.5%;  Real Estate:  7.6%;  “Other services”:  9.2%
Part of the reason why union density rates are so low in these sectors may be a lack of demand for unions by the workers (although studies seems to show that a large percentage of non-union workers would actually support a union if given the opportunity- see summary of some of the studies on p. 376-77 here).  But think about how labour laws may also contribute to the challenge unions face in organizing these workplaces.  If we assume that these employees are actually interested in unions, can you propose any legislative changes that could facilitate union organizing in the private service sector?   We’ll come back to this topic in future blogs!

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David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is the Director of the School of HRM at York and Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and on the Advisory Board of the Osgoode Certificate program in Labour Law. He is a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and a member of the International Advisory Committee on Harvard University’s Clean Slate Project, which is re-imaging labor law for the 21st century

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Here's my latest in @jacobinmag.

If Ontario's labor laws applied in Alabama, the Amazon vote would have been held months ago so workers could get back to their jobs. Instead, the NLRA permits Amazon to conduct a months' long onslaught of anti-union propaganda. https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1364613560425275392

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Amazon workers in Alabama are voting on whether to unionize, but the company is bombarding them with anti-union propaganda. In Canada, by contrast, votes are held quickly, making it harder for companies to stack the deck — a model that can work in the US. http://jacobinmag.com/2021/02/amazon-alabama-canada-labor-law-union-vote

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New from @RSandill (counsel for applicant), discussing important new "family status" discrimination decision from OHRT:

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