Earlier this week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their third new applications report for December 2024. In it was an application for union certification.
Local 2559 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees filed the application on 9 December 2024 on behalf of workers employed by the Northern Lights School Division.
Based out of Bonnyville, this school division oversees K–12 education at several schools in the area, including in Ardmore, Caslan, Cold Lake, Glendon, Iron River, Kikino, Lac La Biche, Plamondon, Wandering River, and, of course, Bonnyville.
This application is specifically for about 390 education support workers employed by the school district, including administrative assistants, educational assistants, cafeteria assistants, student advocacy counsellors, therapists, technicians, coordinators, librarians and library assistants, wellness and graduation coaches, and out-of-school caregivers.
Local 2559 also represents education support workers in the Fort McMurray Catholic School system, who you probably heard went on strike earlier this year.
The ALRB hasn’t yet scheduled a hearing for this application.
If the application is approved, the labour board will hold a certification vote, and the workers will have a chance to choose whether to join CUPE.
When they submit a certification application, unions must show a minimum of 40% support among the workers they’re trying to organize, so there’s usually a pretty good chance the workplace will unionize.
In this case, that’s 78 workers. That’s significant, but it still leaves over 300 workers to get on board, and that could be a challenge.
If these workers do join, however, one of their first orders of business will be to form a bargaining committee to begin negotiating their first collective agreement with the employer.
Because the ALRB doesn’t archive their new application reports, I’ve included a copy of this week’s report below for your convenience.
