The federal government recently released their February 2023 job numbers. As I was reviewing the data, I came across information on union coverage in Canada, and I thought I’d take a look at how things look in Alberta.
Union coverage refers to workers who are members of a union, as well as workers who are not union members but are covered by a collective agreement or union contract.
First, here’s what union coverage looks like in every province as of February 2023. Keep in mind that these aren’t seasonally adjusted numbers.
| Total employees | Union coverage | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NL | 206,100 | 83,300 | 40.42% |
| QC | 3,934,300 | 1,555,400 | 39.53% |
| PEI | 70,700 | 25,400 | 35.93% |
| SK | 496,400 | 174,000 | 35.05% |
| MB | 613,800 | 214,300 | 34.91% |
| NB | 332,800 | 105,300 | 31.64% |
| BC | 2,295,800 | 712,300 | 31.03% |
| NS | 428,500 | 130,400 | 30.43% |
| ON | 6,728,600 | 1,807,700 | 26.87% |
| AB | 2,041,800 | 516,300 | 25.29% |
According to this, Alberta workers had the lowest union coverage in the country, with only 1 in 4 workers being covered by a union. Ontario workers were second lowest but were more than a full percentage point higher than Alberta.
Workers in Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest union coverage, at over 40%, and more than 15 percentage points higher than Alberta workers.
And this isn’t a one-time thing either. Check out union coverage over the last decade.
| Feb 2014 | Feb 2015 | Feb 2016 | Feb 2017 | Feb 2018 | Feb 2019 | Feb 2020 | Feb 2021 | Feb 2022 | Feb 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL | 38.24% | 38.13% | 36.68% | 38.09% | 39.70% | 37.94% | 39.48% | 41.17% | 41.91% | 40.42% |
| QC | 39.05% | 38.63% | 39.09% | 37.14% | 38.35% | 38.67% | 38.90% | 40.30% | 39.19% | 39.53% |
| PEI | 34.47% | 33.84% | 33.73% | 31.58% | 31.70% | 32.81% | 32.99% | 35.67% | 35.63% | 35.93% |
| SK | 34.42% | 33.34% | 33.84% | 33.53% | 33.42% | 32.27% | 33.30% | 35.48% | 33.18% | 35.05% |
| MB | 36.32% | 35.85% | 35.95% | 34.41% | 34.50% | 35.14% | 35.90% | 33.32% | 34.78% | 34.91% |
| NB | 29.10% | 30.11% | 28.97% | 30.03% | 30.25% | 28.77% | 27.28% | 30.79% | 32.19% | 31.64% |
| BC | 30.44% | 29.35% | 29.71% | 29.66% | 28.60% | 28.89% | 29.40% | 30.11% | 29.30% | 31.03% |
| NS | 32.25% | 31.44% | 32.01% | 31.08% | 30.29% | 31.29% | 28.82% | 29.64% | 30.66% | 30.43% |
| ON | 26.97% | 27.55% | 26.82% | 26.98% | 25.75% | 26.11% | 26.48% | 28.56% | 26.70% | 26.87% |
| AB | 22.46% | 22.86% | 24.79% | 24.22% | 24.54% | 24.67% | 25.95% | 25.55% | 23.65% | 25.29% |
As you can see, Alberta is at the bottom of the pack in every February over the last 10 years.
Now, here’s a look Alberta’s union coverage for every month since 2014, not just February.
The decade started out poorly for workers covered by unions, with coverage trending down until the summer of 2014. Then it started to rise over the next 3 years, before plateauing briefly and starting to decline again.
But then we saw a huge spike in union coverage in early 2020, as Alberta was dealing with low oil prices and the start of the pandemic. During that time, union coverage jumped from 24.5% in January to 28.59% over the next 3 months.
Now, it wasn’t because there was a huge union drive or anything.
In January 2020, there were 1,898,300 employees working in Alberta. In April 2020, that had dropped by 324,200 to 1,574,100. That’s a 17.08% decrease.
However, the number of employees with union coverage dropped 15,000 during the same period, from 465,000 to 450,000. That’s a loss of only 3.23%.
Compared to the general population, workers with union coverage were less likely to lose their job during the first 4 months of 2020. Had workers with union coverage seen a similar percentage of job losses, the number of workers no longer employed during that period would’ve nearly reached the 80,000 mark.
It seems as though union coverage provided some protection against job losses.
As public health protections started to be lifted in the province, however, union coverage began to decline to pre-pandemic levels again.
In fact, this past July, the month after the last remaining public health protections were lifted, union coverage dropped to 21.82%, the lowest level since August 2014.
However, that dip was brief, and Alberta workers with union coverage have since returned to the 25% mark, roughly where it was in early 2019, when the UCP took office following the previous provincial election.
