Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their first new applications report of September 2025. In it was an application for union certification.
The Canadian Energy Workers Association filed the application on 29 August 2025 for workers employed by Ashcor Technologies Ltd.
As a subsidiary of ATCO Ltd, Ashcor Technologies is the largest independent marketer of fly ash in Western Canada. Fly ash is a powder produced and collected at coal-fired power plants and is a main component in concrete.
According to the new application report, CEWA is trying to unionize all workers of Ashcor except those who are managers, or department heads or who are employed in professional or confidential capacities.
This should be a little over two dozen workers.
To apply for union certifications, unions must demonstrate 40% support among the workers already employed in the potential bargaining unit. In this case, that would be 11 workers.
The ALRB has scheduled a hearing for next Monday (15 September) regarding this application. Ashcor Technologies will have an opportunity to put forward arguments, if they have any, as to why they think the workers should not be able to unionize with CEWA.
If the labour board approves the application, they will hold a certification vote, during which time, the workers will be able to vote on whether to unionize.
Assuming the 11 workers who have already indicated support for unionizing follow through and vote in favour, they would need to convince just 3 other workers to vote with them.
Should a majority of the workers vote in favour of unionizing, their first order of business will be to organize a bargaining to committee to begin negotiating their first collective agreement.
CEWA also represents workers employed with ACTO Electric, CU Inc., and Heartland Generation.
