Figure 14-7 Union Membership in Canada, 1921–2018

14.2 Labour Unions

Unions currently represent about 25 percent of the labour force in
Canada. Of those workers employed in the public sector, however,
approximately 75 percent are unionized or covered by a union contract.
Figure 14-7 shows how union membership has changed in Canada over
the past several decades. For various industries, Table 14-1 shows the
percentage of workers whose wages and salaries are covered by a union
contract (even though they may not be members of a union). As is clear
from the table, unionization is most common in the public, educational,
and utilities sectors and least common in agriculture, finance, and retail
trade.

As a share of the labour force, the number of union members has
increased significantly over the past century, but has declined gradually
since the mid-1980s. The large increases in Canadian unionization

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