For many years, union membership among workers under 35 was assumed to be in permanent decline. Young people, the narrative went, were individualistic, distrustful of institutions, and more likely to see themselves as entrepreneurs than as members of a collective. Recent years have complicated that picture considerably. Across Ontario and the rest of Canada, young workers are organising in sectors where unions were previously rare, and doing so with an energy that labour councils have not seen in decades.

The Context: Precarious Work and Rising Costs

To understand why young workers are organising, it helps to understand the conditions they face. Workers under 35 in Ontario entered the labour force in an era of structural change: the decline of manufacturing employment, the growth of service-sector work, and the rise of contract, temporary and gig-economy arrangements that offer few of the protections that defined earlier generations' working lives.

Statistics Canada data show that young workers are significantly more likely than older workers to be employed in temporary or part-time positions. They are less likely to have access to employer-sponsored pension plans or extended health benefits. At the same time, the cost of housing in Greater Toronto and the surrounding Peel Region has risen to levels that make it difficult to accumulate savings on even a moderately paid full-time salary — let alone a part-time or contract income.

These conditions have made the classic union promise — stable employment, predictable wages, collective protection from arbitrary management decisions — newly relevant to workers who might otherwise have assumed it was their parents' concern.

Where Young Workers Are Organising

Organising drives among young workers in Ontario over the past decade have included:

• Retail and food service: Workers at national chains have filed for certification in increasing numbers, citing unpredictable scheduling, low wages and little recourse against dismissal. Organising in these sectors is difficult because of high turnover, but successful drives have demonstrated that it is possible.
• Universities and colleges: Contract academic workers — instructors, teaching assistants and research assistants — have organised in growing numbers as precarious academic employment has expanded. Several Ontario universities have seen significant strikes or job actions by contract faculty in recent years.
• Tech and digital media: Workers in video game development, digital news and software development have filed for unionisation in Canada, motivated partly by concerns about job security during rounds of layoffs and partly by broader dissatisfaction with working conditions.
• Warehousing and logistics: The rapid growth of e-commerce has created large warehousing operations where young workers face demanding productivity targets, physical strain and injury rates higher than the industry average.

What Draws Young Workers to Unions

Surveys of young union members and organisers in Canada point to several consistent motivations. Wages and benefits are important, but they are rarely the only factor. Scheduling predictability matters significantly — workers with irregular, on-call hours cannot plan childcare, education or a second job. Protection against arbitrary dismissal is a major concern in workplaces where management discretion is wide and workers feel vulnerable.

There is also a values dimension. Many younger workers bring strong commitments to equity, climate justice and social responsibility into their workplace expectations. Unions that have engaged with these concerns — through anti-racism training, climate bargaining clauses and transparent governance — have had more success recruiting and retaining young members than those that have not.

Barriers to Organising

Young workers in Ontario face real barriers to union membership. Certification under Ontario's Labour Relations Act requires an application showing that a majority of workers in a proposed bargaining unit wish to be represented. In workplaces with high turnover — which includes many where young people are concentrated — maintaining majority support over the weeks or months it takes to process a certification application is genuinely difficult.

Employers in some sectors have responded to organising drives with aggressive counter-campaigns, holding mandatory meetings, circulating literature, and in some documented cases, engaging in practices that labour boards have found to constitute unfair labour practices. Young workers with little job security can be particularly vulnerable to this kind of pressure.

The gig economy presents a specific challenge, because workers classified as independent contractors have no right to collective bargaining under current Ontario law. Ride-share drivers, delivery couriers and others in similar arrangements have sought legislative change to allow sectoral bargaining or to reclassify gig workers as employees — campaigns that have had partial success in some Canadian jurisdictions.

Getting Involved

For young workers in Ontario who are interested in unions, the starting point is finding out whether a union already represents workers at their workplace — and if not, whether there is interest among colleagues in exploring certification. Labour councils like the Peel Regional Labour Council provide information about unions active in the region and can connect workers with organizers who have experience in their sector.

Post-secondary students interested in labour issues can connect with campus labour studies programs, student unions and the Canadian Federation of Students. Many unions also offer youth committees and leadership development programs specifically designed for workers in the early years of their careers.

For national data and resources on young workers, Statistics Canada publishes annual data on union coverage by age, and the Canadian Labour Congress maintains resources on organising and youth engagement.