New report shows unionization delivers measurable gains for workers in Alberta

EDMONTON, AB — For years, Alberta governments have pressed ahead with a steady stream of anti-union legislation aimed at curbing labour’s bargaining power — a push that most recently produced the Back to School Act, the province’s most aggressive move yet against workers’ rights. Even so, unions have managed to hold their ground and, as a new Parkland Institute report shows, continue to deliver measurable gains for the workers they represent. Drawing on fresh Statistics Canada data, Alberta’s Union Advantage: Wages, Equity, and the Power of Collective Bargaining lays out how unionization boosts wages, shrinks pay gaps, and broadens access to benefits.

“The union advantage is undeniable,” says Andrew Stevens, who co-authored the report with Angèle Poirier. The data analyzed in the study places Alberta’s overall union wage advantage at 10%, or $3.40 per hour. That is the amount unionized workers make over their non-union counterparts. But this pay boost does not look the same across industries. Construction workers and educators, for example, see higher gains at 15% and 27% respectively, while unionization brings almost no wage increase in oil and gas. The report also examines cases where average wages appear lower for unionized workers, explaining the demographic and structural factors behind those patterns.

Alberta’s vulnerable and precarious workers have much to gain from collective bargaining, as unions play an important role in correcting long-standing inequalities and reducing pay gaps. For women, this translates into an average wage advantage of 19%, compared to 4% for male workers. Unionization also helps shrink the gender wage gap, which falls sharply from 19% in non-unionized workplaces to 8% among those covered by a collective agreement.

These equalizing effects extend to part-time workers, who are disproportionately clustered in low-wage, insecure jobs but see substantial improvements when covered by collective agreements. For unionized part-time workers, the union advantage is a staggering 29%, a difference of $9.66 an hour over their non-unionized counterparts. This contrasts sharply with the more modest 5% wage advantage for full-time workers.

Unionization also plays a critical role for immigrant workers, who continue to face systemic barriers in the labour market. While Canadian-born employees typically earn more than immigrants, this gap narrows — and in some sectors is eliminated or even reversed — when workers are unionized. The report highlights particularly strong gains in accommodation and food services and in education, industries where immigrants make up a significant share of the workforce.

Beyond wages, unionization has a marked impact on access to benefits like health insurance and pensions. The report shows that 94% of unionized workers in Alberta have access to supplemental benefits, compared to just 79% of non-unionized workers. These gains are especially meaningful in low-wage sectors where benefits are often scarce or entirely absent. Collective agreements secure entitlements such as paid sick leave, parental top-ups, dental and pharmaceutical coverage, and retirement plans, protections that strengthen workers’ overall economic security and improve their ability to plan for the future.

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For the full report, visit https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/union_advantage

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Rita Espeschit
Research Communications Specialist, Parkland Institute
[email protected]