Unions a missed opportunity in Yukon labour market strategy.
“Moving forward, communities, governments, and industry will have to work together to develop innovative strategies that attract and retain skilled labour for the territory,” is part of the conclusions of the March 10, 2025 publication from the Conference Board of Canada. We can tell you what attracts and retains skilled labour…Unions!
A new report on the Yukon labour market fails to address the considerable benefits that unions bring to workers, employers, and communities. This oversight is a missed opportunity to strengthen the territory’s labour force and address pressing economic challenges.
The report, “Learning From One Another: Labour Markets in Yukon,” acknowledges the difficulties in attracting and retaining skilled workers in Yukon. It also highlights the changes and growth of the labour market and the challenges facing a growing Yukon population and labour force. However, the report does not mention the potential role of unions in addressing these issues.
The Benefits of Unions
The benefits of unions are numerous. They include higher wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions. Unions also provide workers with a collective voice to address workplace issues and advocate for their interests. In addition, unions can help to reduce income inequality and promote economic democracy.
The Yukon Federation of Labour (YFL) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) have long advocated for the benefits of unions. Promoting unions as a social good, removing barriers for workers to organize and form a union, and access to union training are essential for a strong and equitable labour market.
Unions as a Solution for Yukon
The Yukon Territory could address many of its labour market challenges by embracing unions. Unions can help to attract and retain skilled workers, improve working conditions, and help connect workers across similar jobs and sectors that produce knowledge sharing, best practices, and employee wellness.
For example, unions can help to ensure that workers are paid fairly and have access to good benefits. YFL President Teresa Acheson says, “There’s a common misconception that you have to be a government worker to have union representation. That’s not the case, and we regularly are contacted by workers that could have resolved workplace issues faster, simpler and with fairness if they had a union.” Many unions focus on worker representation in the private sector. A good job is a union job; organizing workers can help reduce competition between the public and private sectors for workers. Union jobs are often more attractive jobs, a fact that could benefit the Yukon when we need to attract labour to meet the demand.1
Unions can also help promote economic development in rural communities. “Just like Canada Post employees spread across the country in rural and remote areas, there is opportunity to be connected to a union that can help workers connect to a greater movement and navigate issues in their workplace,” notes the YFL President. By providing workers with social connections and accessible labour representation expertise, unions can help to create a more stable and prosperous economy in these communities. Unions also support the physical and mental health of workers.
Learning from Unions.
Unions protect workers; this is our top priority. The YFL exists to support workers and is primarily funded by the organized workers in the Yukon Territory. Union workers understand the value of workers standing together and helping each other, which is why federations of labour exist across Canada to advance the priorities for all workers in their jurisdictions. Unions have a long history of advocating for marginalized or higher risk workers where true equity in the labour market does not yet exist, including women, youth, seniors, workers with disabilities, immigrant workers and First Nations workers.
Unions can address disparities in the labour market. The report highlights the existing gender pay gap and calls for increased utilization of women in the trades, physical and mental supports for workers, and youth employment supports to improve labour market participation.2 Unions help address all these issues. For example, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the largest union in the territory, have active committees that specifically represent and advocate for labour force and social advancements for Women, Youth, Indigenous, Access (disabilities both visible and invisible), PRIDE, and Racially Visible.
Unions excel in worker education and training, including upskilling, continuing education, as well as mentorship, having some of the most highly skilled workers in various trades. For example, IBEW Local 1574 has represented workers in northern telecommunications since 1981. Their skilled workers have extensive knowledge and experience in the north. In a meeting with the Minister of Labour on Feb 19, 2024, they proposed “increased funding to establish union training centres in the Yukon to reduce the reliance on external workforces and provide opportunities to locals first”, which keeps jobs in the territory and trains workers to benefit their communities. High school and University students should be learning about labour history and what to expect in unionized and non-unionized workplaces.
Anyone in the Yukon or who has tried to move to the Yukon for work is well aware of the housing shortage that impacts the labour force. In 2013, Teresa Acheson spoke to Whitehorse City Council, highlighting that wage offers that don’t keep up with inflation eventually price workers out of living in the community they serve. The mining industry has turned to out-of-territory workers, now making up over 50% of their workforce. As pointed out in the Northern Health Care Matters campaign, Yukon healthcare has also seen a growing amount of contract workers, that has a devastating domino affect on the territories economical health (wages leaving the territory, families not moving here to benefit communities, excluded in federal funding based on per capita of residents).
The report “Learning From One Another: Labour Markets in Yukon” is a valuable resource for understanding the challenges facing the territory’s labour market. The Yukon Federation of Labour appreciates the work that was done to study and present this information that will be essential to developing the future labour market for the territory. However, the report’s failure to include the benefits of unions is a missed opportunity. By embracing unions, Yukon can build a stronger, more equitable, and more prosperous economy. Yukon workers should start preparing now for increasing union representation within our growing workforce and ensure workers have the representation they deserve.
