On July 2, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1518 in British Columbia announced that more than 500 Uber drivers in Greater Victoria have unionized.

This historic decision follows months of organizing among drivers and marks the first ever union certification of app-based drivers in Canada.

Uber only began operating in Victoria in June 2023 and recently expanded its service across B.C.

UFCW 1518 is the province’s largest private sector union local, representing more than 28,000 workers in the retail, grocery, health care and cannabis industries.

The mega-local has made significant organizing breakthroughs over the past several years. After successfully unionizing the B.C. cannabis sector, 1518 also secured representation for nearly 400 temporary foreign agricultural workers at Highline Mushrooms farms in Langley and Abbotsford. This was the largest group of agricultural workers ever to organize in Canadian history and a major development in the struggle for temporary foreign worker rights.