Earlier this week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their second new applications report for July 2026, which covers applications to the board between 5 and 12 July 2026.
In the report was an application for union certification.
Local 401 of the United Food and Commercial Workers filed the application on 8 June for workers employed by Kensington Art Supply Ltd.
Two days later, they filed a similar application, but it listed the employer as 1074867 ALBERTA Ltd.
Located in southeast Calgary, Kensington Art Supply is the largest locally-owned art supply store in Western Canada.
According to the summary provided by the ALRB, Local 401 applied on behalf of all workers employed by Kensington, except those working in office or clerical positions, which amounts to 7 workers.
In Alberta, for a union to apply for certification, they must demonstrate support from at least 40% of the workers in the proposed bargaining unit. In this case, that would be 3 workers.
The labour board will likely hold a hearing on this application, during which time, they will hear arguments, if any exist, from representative of Kensington Art Supply as to why they think these workers should not be able to unionize with Local 401.
Listed as representatives of the employer are Lisa Roberts, retail sales manager, and Annette Wichmann, president.
Should the ALRB approve the application, they will hold a certification vote, and the workers will be able to democratically choose whether to unionize with Local 401.
Assuming the 3 workers I mentioned earlier follow through and vote in favour of unionizing, they would need to convince just one other fellow worker to vote with them in order to win.
If a majority of workers vote in favour of unionizing and are successful in becoming certified as a bargaining unit, one of their first items of business would be to elect their bargaining committee to begin negotiating their first collective agreement.
