AB’s unionization rate dropped under the UCP

Earlier this month, Statistics Canada released their labour market survey results for September, which included a data table on union coverage. I was curious to see how workers in Alberta stack up against workers in other parts of the country.

Here’s a look at union coverage in each province for September 2024:

	Total employees	Those with union coverage	% with union coverage
QC	4,053,100	1,604,900	39.60%
NL	229,700	90,700	39.49%
MB	647,400	226,200	34.94%
PEI	85,900	29,200	33.99%
NS	469,000	154,400	32.92%
SK	536,500	175,300	32.67%
BC	2,387,400	752,100	31.50%
NB	365,600	112,900	30.88%
ON	6,989,100	1,842,700	26.37%
AB	2,203,600	504,800	22.91%

Would you look at that. Alberta has the worst union coverage in the country.

Canada’s unionization rate overall was 30.57%, which is nearly 8 percentage points above Alberta’s.

And it doesn’t matter if we look at public sector workers or private sector workers.

First, public sector:

	Total employees	Employees with union coverage	% with union coverage
PEI	27,800	24,300	87.41%
QC	1,082,800	909,800	84.02%
NL	71,600	59,000	82.40%
MB	188,700	152,500	80.82%
BC	602,100	480,400	79.79%
NB	106,900	84,100	78.67%
SK	165,300	126,700	76.65%
NS	144,600	110,800	76.63%
AB	450,000	326,700	72.60%
ON	1,601,200	1,152,000	71.95%

I mean, sure, Alberta’s public sector isn’t in last place for union coverage, but they are in second to last place and still more than four percentage points below the national average of 77.15%. We’re further away from the national average than we are from being in last place.

Now, the private sector:

	Total employees	Employees with union coverage	% with union coverage
QC	2,970,300	695,200	23.41%
NL	158,100	31,700	20.05%
MB	458,700	73,700	16.07%
BC	1,785,400	271,700	15.22%
NS	324,400	43,600	13.44%
SK	371,200	48,700	13.12%
ON	5,387,900	690,600	12.82%
NB	258,700	28,700	11.09%
AB	1,753,600	178,100	10.16%
PEI	58,000	4,900	8.45%

Again, Alberta is in second to last place, but this time, Ontario jumped up three spots, and PEI is in last place.

While Alberta is second-to-last place in both cases, they end up in last place overall because Ontario has a higher private sector union coverage rate and PEI has a higher public sector union coverage rate.

Here’s how union coverage breaks down by industry in Alberta. Keep in mind that Statistics Canada doesn’t publish union coverage stats for the agriculture or hospitality sectors in Alberta, because they need “to meet the confidentiality requirements of the Statistics Act”.

	Total employees	Employees with union coverage	% with union coverage
Public administration	129,500	90,400	69.81%
Educational services	157,200	101,400	64.50%
Health care and social assistance	298,600	136,100	45.58%
Transportation and warehousing	116,900	36,300	31.05%
Utilities	18,900	4,400	23.28%
Manufacturing	150,700	25,000	16.59%
Construction	203,200	30,600	15.06%
Forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, oil and gas	147,100	16,400	11.15%
Wholesale and retail trade	331,700	34,400	10.37%
Business, building and other support services	57,100	5,600	9.81%
Information, culture and recreation	70,800	6,900	9.75%
Professional, scientific and technical services	183,300	9,900	5.40%
Other services (except public administration)	71,400	2,300	3.22%
Finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing	113,600	3,300	2.90%

Only w sectors have more than half union coverage in Alberta, and unsurprisingly, they’re public servants and education. I was kind of surprised to see that the majority of workers in healthcare and social assistance have no union coverage.

Three sectors—healthcare, transportation and warehousing, and utilities—are the only other sectors with union coverage above 20%, and 5 sectors have union coverage under 10%.

I also thought, since the Job Creation Tax Cut that the UCP legislated in July 2019 was supposed to create a bunch of jobs, that I’d compare union coverage for each province in June 2019, the month before the UCP cut the corporate profit tax by 33%.

	Total employees	Employees with union coverage	% with union coverage
QC	3,836,700	1,501,100	39.12%
NL	217,900	80,600	36.99%
MB	574,900	206,700	35.95%
SK	484,400	153,600	31.71%
BC	2,250,600	674,500	29.97%
NS	419,900	124,800	29.72%
PEI	73,900	21,800	29.50%
NB	340,800	96,200	28.23%
ON	6,290,600	1,640,700	26.08%
AB	1,982,800	486,700	24.55%

Alberta is still at the bottom of the list. Not only that, but union coverage has actually worsened in Alberta since corporations making more than a half million dollars in profit got a tax cut.

In a little more than 5 years, Alberta’s union coverage rate dropped by more than 1.5 percentage points. We were one of only 2 provinces that ended up with a lower union coverage rate during that period, and of those, we had the largest drop in union coverage.

	Sep 2024	June 2019	Change
PEI	33.99%	29.50%	4.49
NS	32.92%	29.72%	3.20
NB	30.88%	28.23%	2.65
NL	39.49%	36.99%	2.50
BC	31.50%	29.97%	1.53
SK	32.67%	31.71%	0.96
QC	39.60%	39.12%	0.48
ON	26.37%	26.08%	0.29
MB	34.94%	35.95%	-1.01
AB	22.91%	24.55%	-1.64

To be fair, however, the union coverage rate for Manitoba—the only other province to drop—is still more than 12 points higher than Alberta’s.

They may have dropped in their union coverage rate, but they stillhad the third highest rate in the country last month.

Alberta, on the other hand, lost union coverage, but they were already at rock bottom.