Collective bargaining in Canada in the age of precarious employment

ABSTRACT

The decline in the prevalence of the Standard Employment Relationship in Canada has created challenges for Canadian unions. This article reviews the available estimates of the prevalence of precarious employment and gig work in Canada. Using data from the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) research group it evaluates both the success of unions in organising workers in precarious employment and bargaining for them. The last section reviews recent union strategies to organise workers in precarious employment with a focus on the subset of precarious employment referred to as gig work. Organising gig workers presents unique challenges for unions as many are deemed by their employers as independent contractors and as a result not covered by existing Canadian labour legislation and hence not eligible for union membership. The paper concludes by arguing that organising precarious workers is a work in progress, whose ultimate outcome remains uncertain.

Keywords:

• Precarious employment
• gig work
• unions
• Canada

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. PEPSO was a joint university community project between the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University and United Way Toronto. It was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. For summaries of the PEPSO studies see www.PEPSO.ca.

2. To see the full list of types of employment included under informal paid activities see SCE-SIWP I, December 2015, question 27. https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/databank.html.

3. In a similar effort, Google employees launched the Alphabet Workers Union in early 2021. Operating under a ‘minority union’ model, the union could act as a spokesperson for their members but would not have formal collective bargaining rights.

4. The CFU was original created by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union in 2008 and became part of UNIFOR when CEP merged with the CAW in 2013.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [833-2009-1008].

Notes on contributors

Wayne Lewchuk

Wayne Lewchuk is Professor Emeritus in the School of Labour Studies and Department of Economics at McMaster University. He holds an MA in economic history from the University of Toronto and Ph.D in economics from the University of Cambridge. He was co-director of the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) project.