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“I’ve been taking calls from colleagues and co-workers across the country who’ve been following this trend in Halifax very closely and looking at it as a model for talking to young workers in other cities,” said Tracy.

“I think we’ll still be analyzing this one for years to come.”

Labour organizing in the service industry has been traditionally low for both ideological and economic reasons, said David Doorey, a professor of labour and employment law at York University in Toronto.

“It is a highly competitive industry, and employers believe unionization will pose a threat to their profit margins,” he said in an email.

“The labour force is often part-time, there is high turnover, and pay and benefits are low. Many of these workers do not have enough commitment to the job to tolerate the inevitable tensions that arise when the employer begins to resist the union campaign.”

But that may be changing, Tracy said.

“It’s not a temporary job anymore,” he said.

“We’re seeing a lot of young workers unable to find work in their field and find themselves working in coffee shops for a period of years.”

These usually university-educated workers often realize their stop-gap employment has become more long-term and they are motivated to turn these positions into good jobs, he added.

The move seems to mimic a similar trend among janitors across the country, as well as one that saw Halifax’s casino workers unionize in 2007, he said.

“It’s really an effort on the part of young workers stepping up and coming to the realization that these are the jobs they have — and they seem to be having for periods of years — and working to make those livable jobs.”