The most accurate barometer of the union advantage uses median wage - where half of all workers make more than the amount and half of all workers make less. It gives a better picture of how workers are doing. Using median wage, the national union advantage is $6.80 an hour. Statistics Canada, uses average wages.

Learn more about this calculation.

The Canadian trade union movement is all about improving the everyday lives of all working people. It's about better wages and benefits. It's about better pensions and vacations.

                        Almost $7 more per hour

 

When it comes to wages of non-managerial employees, union members typically earn $6.80 an hour more than non-union workers. The difference for women? $7.94 an hour more than their non-union counterparts. That's about $15,000 more a year in the pockets of union women for full-time work!

But unions mean more than higher wages. Through collective bargaining, unions tend to equalize wages among workers and ensure fewer people are left with low-paying jobs. In fact, 53% of non-union women earn less than $13.33 an hour compared to just 6.4% of women who belong to unions. So the next time someone says union workers make too much money, ask them if they'd prefer their mothers, daughters, sisters and aunts to make less than $13.33 an hour for their labour!

Better benefits

Benefits such as pension plans, drug and dental plans have a big impact on our quality of life. Workers in unions are far more likely to have better benefits across the board for both men and women. For example, in 2005:

  • 88.5% of workers with a union received non-wage benefits like drug, vision and dental plans, compared to 68.6% of workers without unions.
  • 92.3% of large workplaces (with 500 or more employees) that were unionized had pension plans, compared to 68.4% of non-union workplaces of similar size.
  • In small workplaces (1-19 employees) just 31.1% of non-union workplaces offered health-related benefit plans and just 12.5% had pension plans. In contrast, 47.6% of similar sized workplaces with unions had health-related benefit plans and 34.2% had pension plans for their workers.

Better pensions

A pension plan makes it easier for a worker to save for a decent income in retirement. 76% of unionized workers have access to a workplace pension plan, compared to 28% of non-union workers.