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Nearly 90 employees of Craig’s Cookies have voted to unionize across five shops in Toronto as the Canadian chain expands nationally.
After a two-week organizing drive that began in early December, upwards of 85 employees voted last week to unionize with Unite HERE Local 75, which represents workers in the food service and hospitality industries.
The employees work at five Craig’s Cookies shops across Toronto: its East York, Church-Wellesley, Leslieville, Parkdale and Union Station locations.
“The most immediate factor — sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back for these workers — was the decision to remove paid breaks,” said Daniel Janvier, a researcher at Unite HERE Local 75 who helped with the organizing drive.
According to Janvier, workers are also concerned that their wages have not kept pace with inflation and are no longer competitive in relation to the broader food service industry.
“The company is growing. It’s incredibly successful. It’s successful because of these workers,” he added. “These workers know what they put into the company is why they have such expansive growth through the city — through the country, even.”
A spokesperson for Craig’s Cookies told CBC News that the company respects the results of the vote and the workers’ decision to unionize, and that it will work with the union in good faith.
“Craig’s Cookies has always been committed to competitive compensation, which includes extensive benefits and fair treatment to team members,” the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson did not add anything further when asked for a response to the union’s allegation that the company had ended paid breaks.
Craig’s Cookies is owned by Craig Pike, who launched the chain as a home baking business in 2013. While it largely operated under a pop-up model during its first few years, the first brick-and-mortar Craig’s Cookies location opened in Toronto in 2018.
Since then, it has expanded to 22 shops nationwide. The majority are in Ontario, with others located in Calgary and Pike’s hometown of St. John’s. A 23rd shop is expected to open in Halifax in the new year.
‘Pretty unique’ for Canadian food services industry
For a maturing business that is expanding — but might not yet have a sophisticated HR system in place — consolidating multiple shops under one collective agreement can be an appealing option, according to one expert.
“Once you get to that scale, it’s hard to operate as a kind of mom-and-pop operation and workers’ [demands] grow,” said Rafael Gomez, director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto.
“If you don’t have a sophisticated HR system in place, a union model is attractive to workers.”
Craig’s Cookies partly operates under a franchise model, meaning the corporation licenses its brand and products to individual store owners. That doesn’t change with a collective agreement, but Gomez points out that it might be a turn-off for some potential franchisees.
“On the other hand, it might not be. A collective agreement also simplifies a lot of things. You don’t really need your HR team when the union and the collective agreement have essentially specified most of the terms and conditions of work,” he said.
Statistics Canada data shows that unionization rates have been on the decline in Canada since the 1980’s, with private sector employees less likely to be covered by a collective agreement than their public sector counterparts.
The food services industry in particular has a low coverage rate — just 5.2 per cent of the industry was unionized in 2023. The unionization of dozens of Craig’s Cookies workers is therefore “pretty unique from that standpoint,” said Gomez.
