Clear wage gains, benefit premiums for unionized workers - especially for part-time workers
Organised labour seems to be putting financial pressure on employers, as unionized workers are gaining pay increases unseen from non-unionized employees.
Overall, unionized workers in Alberta earn a clear wage and benefits premium over their non-union counterparts, with part-time employees seeing gains of nearly 30%, reports The Conversation.
Specifically, unionized workers in Alberta earn on average $3.40 more per hour than non-unionized employees — $37.88 per hour compared to $34.48, according to the report, which cites data from Statistics Canada (StatCan). The average unionized worker earns $1,404 a week, versus $1,296 for non-unionized employees working a similar number of hours, and is more likely to receive supplementary benefits, particularly in lower-wage sectors such as food services.
These findings come as Alberta’s political environment remains sharply resistant to organised labour. In October 2025, Premier Danielle Smith ended a provincewide teachers’ strike by invoking back-to-work legislation and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ notwithstanding clause.
The Back to School Act forced 51,000 striking teachers back to work and imposed a collective agreement that teachers had previously rejected during bargaining, The Conversation reports, describing the move as “the latest in a long history of anti-union legislation in Alberta.”
Widest gaps for part-time staff
The wage gap is widest for part-time staff. Part-time unionized workers earn 29% more than their non-union counterparts, at $32.57 an hour compared to $22.91. Among full-time workers, the premium narrows to 5%, with unionized employees earning $38.83 an hour versus $36.86 for non-union workers, says The Conversation report.
With about 20% of Alberta’s workforce employed part-time, the report says these differences represent “a substantial economic boost for a significant portion of workers.”
Previously, the British Columbia Labour Relations Board ordered remedial certification of a union at a hotel establishment after finding the employer committed multiple unfair labour practices during a housekeeping union organising drive.
Equity impacts for women, immigrants and young workers
The Conversation also reports pronounced equity effects on organised labour. While unionized men in Alberta earn about 4% more than non-unionized men, unionized women earn 19% more than non-union women.
Collective bargaining “helps shrink the gender wage gap from 19 to 8%,” the authors write, and the usual wage gap between Canadian-born workers and immigrants “is either eliminated or reversed in some industries.”
The analysis finds that young workers receive “the strongest wage advantages, even when accounting for other human capital variables like education levels and work experience,” even though they are less likely to be unionized. For employers and HR leaders, the data suggest unions are acting as a levelling force for groups that are often central to diversity, equity and inclusion strategies.
Mixed results across sectors and sub-sectors
The report says unionized workers in Alberta “earn, on average, more than their non-unionized counterparts, but results are mixed across industries and sub-sectors.”
In retail, unionized employees may appear to earn less on average “largely because a higher proportion of them work part time, which pulls down overall wages.” In the province’s oil and gas sector, the analysis finds “near parity between unionized and non-unionized workers when it comes to wages.”
Even in heavily unionized fields such as health care and education, The Conversation notes that “collective bargaining can yield different outcomes within sectors.” In construction, “some sub-sectors with fewer unionized workers actually show stronger wage gains than areas where unions are more established,” a pattern attributed to industry-specific economic conditions, wage-setting mechanisms and employer responses to union activity, as well as age, sex, education and tenure.
