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Why 2023 could be the year of the union

Labour shortages, inflation, new organizing rules and the ‘Starbucks effect’ are all expected to spark new union drives.
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In 2021 only 30 per cent of British  Columbian workers were covered by a collective agreement

A “budtender” at a cannabis store in Victoria. An employee at a movie theatre in downtown Vancouver. A cashier at a university grocery store.   

They don’t have much in common, except they and their co-workers voted to join a union in the past month.

After decades of decline, private-sector  unions in British Columbia are gearing up to grow, hoping a combination  of high costs, low unemployment and new changes to sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ law will pave  the road for expansion. 

It’s happening where you might not expect  it: in cafés, cinemas and other brick-and-mortar businesses with  relatively few staff and high turnover. 

Call it the Starbucks  effect. Organizers say the high-profile union drives at the coffee  giant’s stores in the United States — and now sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ — have had a ripple  effect, emboldening young workers already itching for change as  inflation eats their savings. 

“I hate to call it a  perfect storm. But we’re sort of in this moment that workers who have  not traditionally had access to joining unions are now considering  joining,” BC Federation of Labour president Sussanne Skidmore said.

The question now is whether they’ll be able  to capitalize on the moment — and if unions can meaningfully reverse  decades of decline in private sector unionization rates. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s going to be a boom  time,” University of British Columbia labour economist Craig Riddell  said. “But we probably will see some more success in the private sector  for unions than we’ve seen in the past decade or two.”  

Evan Strain got a job at the movie theatre  before the end of his Grade 12 year. The 18-year-old slung popcorn, sold  tickets and was laid off along with the rest of the staff when the  COVID-19 pandemic arrived. 

When he came back to the Surrey Cineplex in  Strawberry Hills, Strain noticed problems. Suggestions to management  were ignored. Equipment was inadequate. When he was promoted to  supervisor, he got a raise of just 25 cents an hour.

“I was like, this is not worth this wage.  But I really cared about my fellow co-workers and my fellow supervisors  who I had been with for a few years,” said Strain, now 21.

“So I was like, can I unionize this movie theatre?” 

By the time management knew, it was done  and dusted, thanks largely to NDP government legislation passed this  year that lets workplaces unionize automatically if at least 55 per cent  of workers sign a card. 

Previously, workers had to sign cards and  then take a second vote to confirm certification. In the interim,  Patrick Johnson of the United Food and Commercial Workers International  Union says management would often employ a mix of carrots and sticks to  dissuade staff. 

“We’ve seen pizza parties. We’ve seen ice  cream socials. We’ve even seen the employer take everyone out for nachos  and a spa day,” said Johnson, the secretary-treasurer of UFCW Local  1518. 

The new, single-step process — known colloquially as “card check” — has changed that. 

Riddell says it comes as many workers have  been looking to unionize thanks to a combination of rising costs and a  tight labour market. A November analysis from the federal government  pegged sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½’s overall unemployment rate at just 4.4 per cent — slightly  up from October but below the Canadian average of five per cent. That  means workers have options. Employers, less so.

 “The overall picture is good  for union organizing,” Riddell said. “A tight labour market is positive.  People are less worried about job loss, because there’s lots of  alternative jobs… and they are certainly concerned in making gains on  the wage front.” 

The numbers have yet to bear that out. The  Labour Relations Board and Statistics sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ track the number of  certifications as trade unionization rates, but likely won’t have solid  data for months.  

Anecdotally, though, many unions are  already noticing more activity. The Laborers’ International Union of  North America’s Nav Malhotra says his local, which represents  construction workers, has seen growth of 26 per cent over the past year.  They now count more than 10,000 dues-paying members in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ and the  Yukon, the largest they have ever been.

“If I look at the numbers as a whole, even  at the board, we are getting more signatory companies becoming  unionized, and it’s been quicker,” said Malhotra, the business manager  at LiUNA Local 1611. 

The Retail Wholesale Union’s Randy  Anderson-Fennell says they recently organized two stores, their first  new additions in a decade.  

“I can tell you with our first shop, I’m  not positive the outcome would have been the same as it was under card  check. The employer immediately went out and intimidated the workers,  and we heard about it,” Anderson-Fennell said. 

Both those locations, he said, were small,  retail stores with high turnover.  There are various reasons those kinds  of workers are unionizing. One is card check. Another big one,  mentioned by many organizers and workers, is Starbucks. 

In recent years, more than 250 of the  coffee chain’s locations in the United States have unionized. So have a  handful of Canadian shops. The visibility and size of that union drive,  which is organizing workers store by store, has emboldened other retail  and services workers. Many, Johnson said, are young workers who may only  be in a given job for a year or less.  

“We are undeniably seeing younger workers in shorter-term jobs unionizing at a higher rate,” Johnson said.  

Thomas Reimer counts himself among the  inspired. In 2021, Reimer helped lead a charge to organize Seed and  Stone dispensary in Victoria, which joined the “BC Bud” division of UFCW  1518. Reimer was frustrated, he said, by the high turnover at the  store, which left him with supervisor-level duties after just a month on  the job.

That high turnover was also the biggest  barrier to negotiating their first contract with the company. Reimer  said the process took months. By the time they got to the table, a good  number of the staff who had voted to unionize were gone. 

“It was definitely a marathon and not a sprint,” Reimer said. 

Al Bieksa is the president of United  Steelworkers’ Local 2009, which represents Starbucks workers in three  locations across sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ He says the precarious nature of work in those  stores may be why workers want to unionize. But it also makes it harder  to build the long-term organizing and support needed to finalize a first  agreement. 

 “We’re trying to put together a bargaining  committee, but we’re having a hard time putting the committee together  because all the people who voted for the union are gone,” Bieksa said.  He said employers can take advantage of that by punting the start of  bargaining further down the road. 

“The longer they stall, the less chance we’ll ever get to a collective agreement,” Bieksa said. 

That could be a key challenge for unions  hoping to expand their reach in those types of businesses, where  Skidmore said unions don’t traditionally have as many members. 

In 2021 only 30 per cent of British  Columbian workers were covered by a collective agreement, according to  Statistics sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½. That figure includes the public sector, where more  than three-quarters of workers belong to a union. Numbers are  considerably lower in private businesses, Riddell said. Fewer than one  in five workers in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ are unionized, a rate that has steadily  declined in recent decades. 

Riddell believes those rates will increase, but not by much. 

“It may turn around now, but the factors that led to the decline are still largely there,” Riddell said. 

Skidmore is more optimistic. The federation  leader said shortly after her election in November that she wants the  organization’s member unions to focus on growth, particularly given the  frustration workers have with the rising cost of living and warnings  about a coming recession. 

“It seems inevitable we will see some  growth,” she said. “But the question is, does it reach into areas where  we do not traditionally see union growth?” 

Strain, the former Cineplex supervisor,  already knew he would likely leave the job when the unionization drive  kicked into full swing. He said he and other workers stuck around, in  part, to make things better for the people who came after. 

“They were very willing to make sure other employees wouldn’t have to go through what they went through,” Strain said.