International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 993 says workers at this Kamloops restaurant were the first Canadian A&W staff to unionize.

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After 18 months of effort, 20 workers at a Kamloops A&W have their first collective agreement.

The workers are the first staff at a Canadian A&W restaurant to successfully unionize, according to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 993.

“We’re really happy that this finally got settled,” said Kaia Sampson, who has worked at the fast-food restaurant since before workers unionized in November 2023. “It did take a while, but we’re really happy.”

The new contract, ratified earlier this month, includes funding for post-secondary education and better protections against termination without just cause.

Experts say the contract is a rare win for fast-food workers, a notoriously difficult industry to organize.

“This is definitely inspiring and it’s fantastic that they were able to negotiate a contract,” said Kendra Strauss, a labour researcher at Simon Fraser University.

A&W did not respond to requests for comment.

The shop unionized in November 2023, after one of Sampson’s co-workers reached out to IBEW. Sampson said her co-worker got most of the restaurant staff on board and they signed union cards. In B.C., a union is certified if 55 per cent of workers sign membership forms.

“We all decided this was a good decision for us,” Sampson said. “It was so we could have someone on our side in case things happen — someone that can fight for us and help us deal with work issues.”

Brian Andrews of IBEW Local 993 said the union and the employer have been hammering out the shop’s first collective agreement over the last 18 months.

“We built a really good relationship with the employer,” Andrews said. “It wasn’t us against them.”

The new contract is a two-year deal that includes a progressive dismissal policy, which sets out a protocol for managing employee performance or misconduct.

The contract also requires A&W to pay into a fund that workers can use to help pay for post-secondary education in a field of the employee’s choice — an initiative called the “Pathways Program.”

The new collective agreement did not increase workers’ wages.

According to Sampson, restaurant employees start at about $17.40 per hour — minimum wage in B.C. — and can earn raises for taking on responsibilities like opening and closing.

It’s rare for Canadian fast-food workers to unionize. Statistics Canada data shows that as of last year, only 5.8 per cent of Canadian accommodations and food service workers were unionized.

Andrews said high turnover at the restaurant made organizing difficult because workers who supported unionizing would move on to other jobs or education before the union could be certified.

“It’s an entry-level job for high school students and new immigrants,” Andrews said. “The high turnover was probably the biggest challenge.”

Strauss said that’s one of several characteristics of the fast-food industry that make shops difficult to unionize.

“Our current labour law regime is just not conducive to organizing in the service economy,” Strauss said. “It is extremely difficult and resource intensive for unions to organize in sectors like food services.”

Fast-food restaurants are often small establishments that work under a franchise model, she said. The model means each outlet is considered a separate employer and unions have to organize site by site, often dealing with staff turnover during campaigns.

“That’s really intensive,” she said, adding the current labour laws were designed around organizing large workplaces like factories, where hundreds of employees would work at a single shop floor.

A significant portion of fast-food workers are in precarious situations, including being on temporary foreign work permits, Strauss said.

Statistics Canada data shows about 17 per cent of all temporary foreign workers — nearly 140,000 people — worked in accommodation and food services in 2021.

Kenneth Thornicroft, an employment relations researcher at the University of Victoria, said the real challenge may be to maintain the union status.

The bargaining unit is relatively small and fast-food restaurants hire part-time employees, who pay less in union dues, he said.

“The cost of servicing a bargaining unit like this tends to be quite high for the union, especially if they only have one bargaining unit,” he said. “[Fast-food] certifications haven’t been very durable, and they tend to just fritter away over time.”

He added the same obstacles mean it will be difficult for the union to expand to other locations.

“The challenge is in getting continuing contracts and maintaining that certification,” he said. “I wouldn’t read too much into this as being a sea change in labour relations.”

Meanwhile, Strauss said these challenges highlight the need for sectoral bargaining legislation in B.C., which would allow all workers doing the same job in the same industry to bargain together.

“This does provide inspiration that the labour movement can build on,” she said. “It’s just very difficult to see how we can achieve those higher levels of unionization in a sector like this without a different approach, because it’s just very hard.”

— This article was originally published by The Tyee

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