A new report published by the Parkland Institute shows that despite persistent political attacks unions in Alberta continue to deliver material gains for members.
Alberta’s Union Advantage: Wages, Equity, and the Power of Collective Bargaining traces the dynamics of the “union advantage” — the dollar and percentage difference between average wages earned by unionized and non-unionized workers — across industries and demographic groups in the province. The report follows the 2023 release of a similar study focused on Saskatchewan, which was also covered in Class Struggle.
Like the previous report, Alberta’s Union Advantage was written by Andrew Stevens, associate professor in the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Regina, and Angèle Poirier, PhD candidate at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the same institution.
Using Statistics Canada’s 2023 Labour Force Survey data, Stevens and Poirier demonstrate how unions improve pay for a variety of workers in Alberta. As the report makes clear, unions in Canada’s least labour-friendly province boost wages, protect vulnerable workers, shrink inequality between workers and increase access to benefits.
As Stevens and Poirier report, unions raise the average hourly pay of workers in Alberta by 10 per cent, or $3.40 per hour ($37.88 for unionized employees versus $34.48 for non-unionized). Interestingly, Alberta’s union advantage is slightly larger than the national average of 9 per cent.
The impact of unions is also clear when it comes to equity between workers.
In Alberta, as in many other provinces, women enjoy a larger union-wage advantage than men. For women, unionization adds an average of an additional 19 per cent to hourly wages. For men, union status accounts for an average 4-per cent hourly bump, according to the report’s findings.
Unionization also shrinks, though doesn’t close, the gender wage gap. Among non-union workers, women earned 19 per cent less than their male counterparts in 2023. By contrast, female union members earned 8 per cent less than male union members. Thus, while access to unionization doesn’t eliminate gender inequality, it does play a significant and positive role in shrinking the gender pay gap.
There are similar union advantages for other workers in vulnerable situations as well.
Unionization plays an important role for immigrant workers. While Canadian-born workers typically earn more than immigrants, the gap is eliminated or even reversed for unionized workers in some key industries. In particular, immigrant workers in accommodation and food services and educational services enjoy especially large union wage advantages. Unions can thus decrease or even reverse the wage gap between immigrant and non-immigrant workers in industries with large numbers of immigrants.
As the report points out, unions have complicated and mixed histories with immigrant workers, and with immigration policy more generally. However, many unions have become strong supporters of immigrant rights and made great strides in organizing newcomers. As Stevens and Poirier write, “Union renewal and membership growth are contingent on labour’s capacity to represent the interests of these workers.”
According to the report, the union wage advantage in Alberta is largest for workers between the ages of 15 and 24.
As Stevens and Poirier argue, given the clear advantages that accrue to young workers with access to collective bargaining, unions would be wise to invest in organizing more of these young people. Combined with the fact that younger workers tend to be more pro-union, on average, there is real potential here to grow the ranks of organized labour and reinvigorate the movement.
Last, at 29 per cent (or $9.66 per hour), the union wage advantage was particularly important for workers in part-time employment, according to the report’s findings. The average hourly wage for a unionized part-timer in Alberta was $32.57, versus $22.91 for the non-unionized part-timer. This is a larger union wage advantage than the 5 per cent enjoyed by full-time workers ($38.83 per hour versus $36.86 for non-unionized full-time workers).
In other words, some of the key indicators of precariousness can be significantly improved through unionization. The pay penalties typically associated with part-time and temporary forms of employment, or being a woman, young, or an immigrant, can be reduced and in some cases eliminated through collective bargaining.
Access to benefits appears relatively robust across Alberta, with 79 per cent of workers having access to paid sick leave or health and dental plans. Yet, union status significantly improved the likelihood of having benefits as well. In 2023, fully 94 per cent of unionized workers in the province had access to benefits.
The brief NDP government in power from 2015 to 2019 brought modest gains for unions and workers in Alberta. For example, that government extended basic employment rights to non-family farm workers, introduced first contract arbitration and remedial union certification measures, and formally provided post-secondary workers with the right to bargaining collectively and strike.
Since the return to hard-right conservative rule, however, organized labour has been in the government’s crosshairs. Most of the previous reforms were rolled back, while the United Conservative Party (UCP) government sought to further weaken employment laws related to young workers and workplace health and safety. Perhaps most notably, the UCP introduced legislation attacking unions’ dues collection and worked through a variety of channels to undermine collective bargaining rights.
At the same time, as the report makes clear, unions have weathered the storm and continue to deliver important advantages to their members.
As Stevens told Class Struggle: “Unions and collective bargaining have been under attack for a long time in Alberta. This isn’t unique to Alberta, but the effects are especially acute in this prairie province. Alberta maintains one of the lowest union density rates of all the provinces, and the Kenney (then Smith) United Conservatives renewed an assault on organized labour when the right returned to power in 2019.”
But, Stevens added, “Despite these challenges, union density has increased and membership has grown. Alberta can even boast of having a union wage advantage that is higher than the national average.”
Indeed, as the report points out, between 2022 and 2023, private sector union coverage in Alberta grew from 10.5 per cent to 11.4 per cent, a modest though significant increase. Growth in the health-care and broader public sector work forces have also buoyed public sector density, which stood at 74 per cent, according to the data used in Alberta’s Union Advantage.
While the report demonstrates the strength of the union advantage in Alberta, it also notes that the province remains one of the most unequal in Canada. Income inequality slowly improved between 2006 and 2016, but since then the share of income going to the top 1 per cent has been increasing.
In other words, there’s still much work to do to improve conditions for workers in Alberta. Building on the union advantage is a good place to start. But extending the benefits of unionization will require both bringing more workers into the movement and standing up to governments when they trample on workers’ rights.
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