Union Membership: Service Employees International Union

Service Employees International Union: Business may not welcome it, but organized labour is a well-established force for social good one that has raised the standard of living of a great many of us. Statistics Canada rightly counts union membership as a key indicator of well-being and it rose last year. About 31.5 per cent of employees were represented by a union , up from 31.2 per cent in 2011, according to The Star. Theres an opportunity here for organized labour and unions are responding. The United Food and Commercial Workers announced a breakthrough earlier this summer having organized, for the first time in Canada, an outlet in the Sirens clothing chain. A group of Halifax baristas recently voted to join the Service Employees International Union. And Unifor, now the largest private-sector union in this country, is poised for a bold drive targeting workers in precarious employment and Canadas unions are on the march this Labour Day in more ways than one. Two of our biggest workers organizations merged over the weekend to create a super-union called Unifor. After a long decline, the rate of unionization in this country has stabilized, even ticking upward last year. And several unions are engaged in an aggressive push to recruit people who are stuck in precarious employment. That still leaves a large majority without coverage, including some of this countrys most vulnerable workers. Many Canadians, especially the young, find themselves trapped in low-paying retail and other part-time employment often with few benefits, no job security and little hope for advancement. Discontent runs deep. Even in the United States, hardly fertile soil for labour organizers, there was an eruption of nation-wide protests last week as fast-food workers walked off the job demanding better pay. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.