Reference no: EM133162918

1. Are you or have you ever been a member of a labour union? In what ways did it affect your employment experience?

2. Are there any other factors that may influence an increase or decrease in the rate of unionization in Canada?

Current Situation

Healthcare, education and social assistance are some of the fastest-growing industries in the province (UFCW, 2019). According to the textbook, 31.8% of Canadian employees were unionized in 2015 (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019). More specifically, 68.8% of unionized workers in Canada worked in the educational services industry, 63% in utilities, and 53.2 in healthcare and social assistance (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019). However, there has been a noticeable rate of decline in union membership in Canada. "Traditionally, unions have targeted full-time, manufacturing workers (which used to be almost exclusively older males) for membership. Canadian unions are unique in that they have managed to refocus their target on membership to better align with workforce realities" (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019). With this being said, the noticeable decline in union memberships has been connected to three contributing factors: global competition, demographics, and unionization of white-collar workers in Canada (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019).

Link to HR

According to the textbook, a labour union (or union) "is an officially recognized body representing a group of employees who have joined together to present a collective voice in dealing with management" (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019). The main purpose of unionization and labour unions is to give workers the power to negotiate with HR for more favourable working conditions and other benefits through collective bargaining on HR-related issues, such as pay and benefits (What are the benefits of being a union worker? 2017).

Deeper Dive

Although the textbook only has data from 2015, more recent data has shown that the unionization rates were highest in 2019, and have been slowly declining in the past 3 years (Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 2022). In my opinion, I think there have been other contributing factors to the decrease such as the Covid pandemic and inflation. A recent study shows that there has been a 9.1% increase in "voluntary turnover" in 2020-2021 (CBC, 2022). Research shows that this is mainly due to 'health-care burnout' during the high demands of the pandemic while wages do not increase due to inflation (CBC, 2022). Overall, there are many contributing factors to unionization, however, it seems the healthcare sector has been hit the hardest because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic.