ICBA OP/ED: B.C. unions lose ground in the workplace but gain leverage in government

The following op-ed, written by ICBA Chief Economist Jock Finlayson and consulting economist Ken Peacock, first appeared in Business in Vancouver on December 18, 2025.

The trade union movement in British Columbia, as in many other advanced economy jurisdictions, is grappling with a host of challenges. Accelerating technological innovation, stagnant productivity, and shifts in business practices and the nature of work are changing the landscape for unions seeking to grow their membership.

The evolution of “union coverage” is revealing. It measures the proportion of employees who are part of a collective agreement negotiated by a union. Union coverage is a gauge of unions’ “market share” within the overall labour force.

Unions have generally been losing ground on this core metric over the last few decades. Data collected by the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) shows union coverage declining by roughly half since 1985 across the organization’s broad membership. Several factors help to explain this pattern:

• Changes in the industrial distribution of employment. In most developed countries, net job creation has been concentrated in private sector service industries and, to a lesser extent, the broad public sector. Private sector service industries have a low union presence. In Canada, these industries collectively have accounted for the bulk of private sector job growth since the early 2000s.
• Heightened competitive pressures stemming from greater exposure to global markets and technology-driven changes in how businesses are organized and produce goods and services have weakened the ability of unions to boost employee pay beyond what can be justified by increases in productivity. This, in turn, has diminished unions’ value proposition to prospective members, particularly in the private sector.
• Finally, the growing diversity of work itself has also served as a headwind to unionization. Compared to 30 years ago, more jobs now are part-time or “gig” positions, involve remote rather than on-site work, and/or allow people to earn income as self-employed contractors. These developments have made it harder for unions to organize many workplace settings.

British Columbia has not been immune to these trends. According to Statistics Canada, union coverage in B.C. fell from almost 40 per cent in the early 1980s to around 30 per cent by 2024. Nationally, the picture is similar.

As in other provinces, unionization varies by industry sector and business size. Smaller B.C. firms are less likely to be unionized than larger ones. Unions are less common in private sector service industries than in the manufacturing, natural resource, construction, and utility sectors.

Most striking is the vast gulf that exists between the public and private sectors: workers in the former are five times more likely to belong to a union than their private sector counterparts. In the main segments of B.C.’s public sector – government administration, education, health care, and social services – between 65 and 80 per cent of employees hold union membership cards. Across the private sector, the share is closer to 15 per cent. In the fastest-growing parts of the B.C. business sector – e.g., advanced technology industries, finance, digital services, and professional, scientific and technical services – union coverage is lower still.

Since 2017, the NDP government has taken several steps to strengthen the position of trade unions in the economy and labour market. A series of policy changes has made it easier to organize workplaces and almost impossible for businesses to operate during labour disputes; steadily eroded the rights and freedoms of B.C. employers; and removed previous requirements mandating a democratic “secret ballot” vote by workers during union organizing drives. All these changes drew fire from the business community.

Today, the B.C. Federation of Labour is pressuring the Eby government to adopt a “sectoral” model of labour relations, under which businesses in selected industry sectors would have collective agreements imposed on them — eliminating the right of businesses to negotiate agreements that reflect their specific circumstances. Going down this path would provoke fierce pushback from the private sector and make B.C.’s already shaky investment climate even less hospitable.

It is not the role of politicians to either encourage or hinder unionization. Government should strive for balance and predictability in labour relations policy. The Eby government needs to avoid further disruptive changes to the Labour Code and instead focus on enhancing B.C.’s competitiveness for private sector investment and business growth. Making B.C. a more attractive choice for investment could help to address the erosion of the province’s industrial base since 2017 – a trend that has led to steep losses in the number of unionized workers in the forestry, manufacturing and wholesale trade industries.