Unionizing Retail: Lessons From Young Women's Grassroots Organizing in the Greater Toronto Area in the 1990s

Abstract

Unionization in the retail sector is not well researched or understood and the work of everyday organizing in retail sites is rarely discussed. This is surprising since the most common occupation for both women and men in Canada is now retail salesperson/clerk.1 Furthermore, retail work continues to be characterized by low wages, few, if any, benefits and job insecurity. Despite these conditions and the rapid growth of retail work as an area of employment, this sector remains one of the most unorganized in the Canadian labour force. In 2009, 29.5 per cent of Canadian workers were represented by a union but only about twelve per cent of retail workers were union members.2 Within the retail sector, unionized workers are concentrated in food retail/grocery and warehouse work.3 As a contribution to the larger project of understanding the challenges and possibilities of organizing retail workers, I examine two retail unionization drives in the Greater Toronto area in the 1990s which were led by young women. During this period of neoliberal capitalism, material and ideological attacks on labour unions and working-class livelihoods and identities were widespread. However, unionization continued to appeal to many workers who

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