Uber Drivers Have Won A Contract For The First Time In Canada

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Unionized Uber drivers in Victoria have won a contract.

On April 28, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) announced that drivers voted to ratify a first collective agreement covering more than 1,000 workers. These drivers joined UFCW Local 1518 in July 2025.

The deal is not only a local labour victory: it marks a breakthrough in one of the most precarious parts of the labour market. The UFCW and Victoria Uber drivers have demonstrated that under the right circumstances, app-based work can be union work.

For years, platform companies like Uber sold politicians and the public on a fantasy of “flexibility” and entrepreneurship while workers absorbed the costs — paying for gas, insurance, and vehicle maintenance, waiting unpaid between rides, and dealing with opaque algorithms that could slash their income or deactivate them without reason or recourse. Drivers were treated like “independent contractors” when it benefited the app companies and like tightly managed employees whenever control and discipline were required.

By winning a collective agreement, workers in Victoria have forged a different path.

The recently secured union contract is the first of its kind in Canada and among the first in North America. It follows an historic and successful union drive in 2025, made possible by changes to British Columbia labour law that lowered the barriers to unionization for platform workers and extended other important employment protections.

According to UFCW, the union bargained with Uber for eight months to achieve the new union contract.

As UFCW explained in its tentative agreement summary for workers: “Achieving stronger representation and establishing a foundation for workers to have a voice were at the forefront of our efforts throughout negotiations. This agreement is built with that principle in mind: that platform workers deserve not just improved conditions, but a seat at the table when decisions are made.”

The deal establishes formal dispute resolution procedures, improved health and safety measures, wellness benefits, and mechanisms to better regulate driver discipline and deactivation. Importantly, the agreement will provide drivers with face-to-face union representation during disputes with Uber, instead of having to face the company alone.

These measures matter enormously in an industry where workers can effectively lose their jobs at the push of a button, and statutory employment security protections, such as notice and severance rules, don’t apply.

As well, the contract will significantly enhance the economic security of Uber drivers in Victoria, particularly those for whom “gig work” is their primary source of employment.

Beginning in September, drivers with at least 150 completed trips will receive quarterly bonuses. Those with 751 or more trips completed in a year will earn an annual bonus of more than $2,500 by the end of the four-year deal. Drivers will also see yearly 5 per cent increases (20 per cent across the life of the contract) for wait time fees, cancellation fees and out-of-region fees.

These benefits stand to make a significant difference in an industry where economic insecurity is widespread.

Drivers themselves described the contract as a long-overdue step toward dignity and fairness in an industry built on labour exploitation.

“This agreement is irrefutable proof that when workers unite to work together in solidarity with a common goal, great results can be achieved,” said Uber driver and bargaining committee member Gilberto Talero Almanza in the union press release issued after the ratification vote. “This contract enables all Uber drivers in Victoria to continue to contribute to society while ensuring they have respect and dignity at work.”

Amninder Singh, who is also an Uber driver and a bargaining committee member, said: “Over the past year and a half, Uber drivers here have united to build something great with UFCW behind us [...] With this contract, we have achieved fairness, fair pay, strong support and real tangible gains. We now have protections for drivers when they have issues and that ultimately will lead to better conditions for everyone.”

President of UFCW Local 1518 Patrick Johnson also noted that the contract could redefine gig work: “This worker-led, historic first collective agreement demonstrates how collective organizing can help the changing workforce meet the current moment and stand up for fairness and accountability [...] The monetary gains, the health and wellness wins, and the protections that come with the contract ratified today will strengthen the rideshare industry for years to come. Today, Uber drivers are redefining what being part of a union means. UFCW 1518 is proud to stand behind them and to be the union of platform workers in B.C.”

Unlike previous partnership agreements signed between platform companies and worker organizations, including UFCW Canada, this is a legally enforceable collective agreement negotiated by unionized workers themselves.

That distinction matters.

For more than a decade, the gig economy has been a frontline in the battle for decent work. Companies like Uber have attempted to skirt labour standards by classifying workers as independent contractors and pressured governments to rewrite laws to impose inferior conditions on platform workers. In most jurisdictions across North America, the status quo still allows app-based employers to evade minimum wage laws, overtime pay, workers’ compensation premiums, termination rights, paid leaves and a myriad of other employment protections.

When chances to end employee misclassification and raise labour standards have arisen, platform companies have spared no expense and fought like hell to maintain the second-class status of their workers.

The experience of Victoria drivers shows this pattern is not inevitable. The labour law reforms undertaken in B.C., while important, were far from revolutionary. They failed to fully address gig workers’ lack of employment status and they didn’t go as far as most unions and labour advocates wanted. But by opening the door to unionization, the legal changes created the possibility of winning reforms through collective bargaining rather than through employment standards.

Corporate lobbyists warned that stronger labour protections and more regulation would destroy flexibility, impose costs on customers, and harm local businesses. Unfazed, workers organized.

The fruits of their success are now visible in an historic collective agreement.

The Victoria victory also challenges the notion that gig workers can’t organize because they are too dispersed, individualized or transient.

Uber drivers built a union despite language barriers, isolated working conditions and algorithmic management systems designed to fragment work and workers. Drivers organized through parking lot conversations, WhatsApp chats and worker networks built across the city. The campaign demonstrated that even workers who are managed by apps have shared interests and can come together to address common concerns.

The implications extend well beyond Victoria.

Gig work continues to expand across Canada, particularly in ride-hailing, food delivery and parcel services. Many of these workers are recent immigrants and racialized workers facing economic insecurity and unsafe working conditions with limited legal protections. Their conditions resemble the broader labour market employers would like to build: unstable, low-cost and permanently “flexible.”

This is why these victories matter far beyond a single bargaining unit.

For organized labour, the UFCW-Uber agreement in Victoria stands as evidence that unions can grow in sectors previously considered impossible to organize. For gig workers elsewhere, Victoria provides a roadmap: it shows what it takes to get a union as well as what it takes to secure a contract. For employers hoping platform work will permanently weaken collective bargaining, it serves as a warning that unions are adapting and workers still have power.

The challenge now is to build on the momentum generated by drivers in Victoria. Replication will be difficult in other Canadian jurisdictions where labour law remains a barrier. Platform companies can also be counted on to continue lobbying governments against reforms that protect workers and expand the right to organize.

But victories are contagious.

How long before gig workers in other cities and provinces demand a union and a contract of their own?

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