The proportion of workers belonging to a union continues to fall in B.C., according to a report by the Business Council of BC.
The share of B.C. workers who belong to a union fell to 29.1% in 2009, down from 30.2% in 2006, the report said.
It suggests the long-term decline in unionization is due primarily to the growth of self-employment and small businesses, key sources of employment growth in recent decades. The proportion of people classified as self-employed in B.C. has risen by 4% over the past 10 years.
It also argues that new immigrants, younger people and private-sector employees with post-secondary education are not joining unions as readily as they may have in the past.
B.C. has one of the lowest proportion of workers belonging to a union in Canada, ranking seventh, only above New Brunswick (27.7%), Ontario (26.4%) and Alberta (22.9%).
The report noted that the vast majority of unionized workers in B.C. remain in the public sector, with the largest including the Canadian Union of Public Employees, followed by the BC Government and Service Employees’ Union, the BC Teachers Federation and the BC Nurses’ Union.
About 38% of B.C.’s unionized workers belong to private-sector unions, with the United Steelworkers Union and United Food and Commercial Workers’ International Union being the largest with more than 36,000 members each.