Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their first new applications report for July 2025.
One of the applications filed actually was not for union certification, nor did a union file it. In this particular case, someone named Shawn Eltom filed the application on 2 July 2025.
Eltom has owned the IGA in Banff since 2021. Prior to that, he was a district operator for Sobeys.
He also owns 2319068 Alberta Ltd., which is the name of the company he filed the application under. This company filed an application with the ALRB back in November 2024 to be the successor employer to 1958313 Alberta Ltd., which the ALRB granted this past February.
As well, Eltom is on the board of directors for Servus Credit Union, Alberta Central, and Banff & Lake Louise Tourism.
Workers at the Banff IGA are members of Local 401 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. This local has represented these workers since March 2017; although with the change in employers from 1958313 Alberta Ltd. to 2319068 Alberta Ltd., ALRB issued a new certificate, which is dated to only February 2025.
In his application, according to the summary provided by the ALRB in their report, Eltom accused Local 401 of “conducting store visits” during work hours “without consent of the employer” since 24 June 2025.
They claim these store visits were explicitly for “dissuading the employees from voting in favour of the CLAC applications”. The summary does not say what CLAC has applied for, but, according to another application from the UFCW, they are trying to poach the union representation from UFCW.
You might be asking what CLAC is. The Christian Labour Association of Canada is an employer-friendly union.
UFCW claims that CLAC has “a long history of working closely with employers and avoiding strikes and strong bargaining tactics. That might sound cooperative, but it often leads to lower wages, fewer protections, and less power for workers”.
If you were a business owner, a union with that sort of track record would be useful to have around.
Given that Eltom is accusing UFCW of visiting the store without permission but has filed no application regarding CLAC visiting the store, he must have given CLAC permission to be there.
The ALRB, in their summary, indicate that Eltom is accusing Local 401 of violating section 151.d of Alberta’s Labour Relations Code.
No trade union and no person acting on behalf of a trade union shall, except with the consent of the employer of an employee, attempt, at an employee’s place of employment during the working hours of the employee, to persuade the employee to become, to refrain from becoming or to cease to be a member of a trade union
He also apparently claimed that because of how frequent the store visits were, how long they lasted, and the manner in which they were conducted, it constitutes “intimidating and threatening behaviour” and violates section 151.f.
No trade union and no person acting on behalf of a trade union shall use coercion, intimidation, threats, promises or undue influence of any kind with respect to any employee with a view to encouraging or discouraging membership or activity in or for a trade union including activity relating to making or revoking an election
Local 401 was not sitting down on this and filed their own application the same day.
They accused CLAC of doing the very thing that Eltom was accusing them of doing: visiting the store during work hours petitioning the workers to “cease to be members of the UFCW” and “become members of CLAC”.
As well, they claimed that CLAS was making promises and providing “coercive and/or misleading information”.
Local 401 claimed that CLAC’s actions violated the same sections that Eltom was accusing them of violating.
But Eltom was not getting off the hook in this application.
UFCW alleged in their application that because “the employer” enabled CLAC to “improperly petition” workers at work during work hours, they were interfering with their ability to represent the workers, which they say amounted to employer interference, violating section 148.1.a.2.
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall (a) participate in or interfere with the representation of employees by a trade union
The also claim employer interference because “the employer” communicated with workers in a way that would cause them to “question UFCW’s representation or view the union in unfavourable terms”.
Further to that, UFCW reported in their application that the messaging “the employer” used suggests that they endorse CLAC’s application.
Apparently, there is a bulletin board at the store where a notice from the ALRB had been posted, and UFCW claims that “the employer” posted their own notice right beside it regarding CLAC’s application, which could lead to some workers assuming a connection between the ALRB and CLAC’s application.
Local 401 claimed that this posted notice could be considered not only employer interference but also employer union contributions, which violates section 148.1.b.
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall contribute financial or other support to a trade union.
The final accusation in UFCW’s application was that the employer itself was intimidating workers to compel them to leave UFCW out of fear of retaliation if they do not. If true, this would violate section 149.1.c.
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall seek by intimidation, dismissal, threat of dismissal or any other kind of threat, by the imposition of a pecuniary or other penalty or by any other means, to compel an employee to refrain from becoming or to cease to be a member, officer or representative of a trade union
The ALRB scheduled a hearing for yesterday so they could hear more from each party on this poaching issue.
Because the ALRB does not archive their new applications reports, I have included a copy of last week’s report below for your convenience.
Update (23 July 2025): 2319068 Alberta Ltd. filed another application on this matter, once again accusing Local 401 of illegally trying to prevent CLAC from poaching their members. It was not clear from the application summary whether this was regarding additional events or just another application for the same events.
