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Showing posts from October, 2017

Public Sector Unionization Grows

The composition of the labour movement has fundamentally changed over the last twenty years. The article below reviews dramatic changes in public and private sector unionization and some surprising differences that have emerged between Ontario and the rest of Canada. Potential for growth is possible, even in the public sector. Ontario has 1.3 million public sector workers and currently 943,000 of them are covered by a union. That means that 72.2% of public sector employees have union coverage.    Since 1997, public sector union density has modestly increased from about 70% to 72% of total public sector employees.  With a significant increase in public sector employment also occurring over that period, there has been an increase in public sector union coverage from 652,000 to 943,000 employees–  about a 47% increase in 19 years . That still leaves another 363,000  unorganized public sector employees. Assuming that 10% of public sector employees are management (130,000)