A data portrait of union density in Canada

This dashboard allows the user to visually explore open-access data on trade union membership in Canada. The data source is the Labour Force Survey published by Statistics Canada. Patterns in union density can be observed across 16 different variables related to demographics, employment, and geography.

The main measure presented is UNION DENSITY which is defined as the percentage of paid employees that are union members for each level of the dependent variable. Click GET THE DATA in the chart or table footer to download the source data.

• INFO - more detailed information on the data source and variable definitions.

• CHARTS - view the union density charts. Use the top toolbar to select variables.

• TABLE - view the chart data in tabular format for each sector.

A brief history of union density in Canada

• Grey zone: Prior to 1872, it was illegal for workers to organize unions in Canada. Following the passage of the Trade Union Act that year, unions existed in a legal grey zone. Workers were no longer officially forbidden from creating unions, however, they had virtually no legal rights or protections in that area. Employers had no obligation to bargain with their employees, nor to even abide by the terms of an agreement were one to be rarely signed.

• Post-war take-off: Unions left the grey zone at end of World War Two, which was capped off by a massive strike by Ford workers in Windsor in 1945. In the wake of that strike, a system of formalized and legally bound collective bargaining was created, along the lines of the Wagner model of industrial relations adopted in the United States. A key legal ruling establishing what is known as the Rand Formula established that all who benefit from a union contract should pay dues to the union. As a result, union membership and activity expanded greatly from 1940s to the mid 1960s.

• Public sector bargaining: While public sector workers could also form unions, they did not win the right to collective bargaining alongside their private sector counterparts. It was not until 1965 that public sector workers won the right to bargain - a victory won by an illegal wildcat strike by postal workers.

• The long decline: Union density hit a high point of 38% in 1984 and has been trending downward since. Throughout the neoliberal era, governments and employers alike have undermined unions and labour rights. Those attacks, along with structural changes in the global and national economy like off-shoring manufacturing jobs, caused a long-term decline in union density that has continued to this day.

Why compare private and public sector?

The data is categorized by employment sector, distinguishing private from public sector labour dynamics. This approach recognizes the significant differences in union density and membership trends between sectors, without framing them in opposition to one another.

Unionization rates began high in the public sector and have slowly risen over time. In 1997, about 69% of public employees were unionized, growing to 73% by 2024. In the private sector, unionization rates have always much lower and have drastically diminished over time, falling from 19.3% in 1997 to just 13.5% in 2024.

One reason for this difference is that much bargaining in the public sector takes place at the central or industry-level. For example, in most provinces, the majority public sector workers in particular fields (e.g., teachers or nurses) across the province are members of the same union. Most private sector workers, by contrast, work in small to medium sized firms that stand alone. Those workplaces are more difficult to unionize and result in much smaller unions unless joined by broader industry-level bargaining.

Another reason is that public sector jobs cannot be off-shored in the same way private sector jobs can. Off-shoring manufacturing has caused employment to shift from more to less unionized industries, as manufacturing jobs are replaced with service industry jobs.