The terms in the agreement may provide clear standards around such topics as wages, benefits, vacation time, paid and unpaid leaves, job security, training, anti-harassment, occupational health and safety, and hiring policies. A strong collective agreement with good protections and benefits for workers is won through building unity and collaboration among workers, and engaging in a diversity of strategies that increase the leverage of workers at a worksite. Union members themselves determine the priorities for bargaining, and participate in the bargaining process with the support of the union. In the case of a workers’ cooperative where members have no single employer, the collective agreement is a document that members have agreed will outline their conditions of work.

Each province has labour laws that outline an employee’s constitutional right to join a union and participate in union activities without fear of retribution and without discrimination. Your employer cannot fire, suspend, intimidate or transfer you for joining a union or participating in a union drive during your breaks, after work, and in your own free time.

Your vote to join a union, which occurs in some provinces after a majority of cards are signed, also remains confidential.