Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board released their final new applications report for November 2025. In it was an application for union certification.
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees filed the application on 19 November 2025 on behalf of workers employed by Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse Society.
Over the last 30 years, workers at CCASA have helped it become the primary provider of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and sexual assault crisis, counselling, and education services in the Calgary area.
Last year, for example, these more than 30 workers provided over 5,000 individual counselling sessions, over 1,200 hours of support, and over 400 referrals.
According to the ALRB’s application summary, AUPE is trying to unionize “all employees” working at CCASA.
ALRB has scheduled a hearing for this application. It is set for this Friday (5th), during which time, Danielle Aubry—the executive director fo CCASA—or a representative will have the chance to present her arguments, if she has any, as to why these workers should not unionize with AUPE.
For a union to apply for certification, they must demonstrate support from at least 40% of the workers who will be part of the proposed bargaining unit. In this case, that would be 13.
Should the ALRB approve the application, they will need to hold a certification vote, which will allow the workers to democratically choose whether to unionize and select AUPE as their union.
Assuming the 13 workers who initially showed support follow through and vote in favour of unionizing, they would need to convince just 4 more of their workers to do the same, in order to win.
If a majority of workers vote in favour of unionizing, one of their first orders of business will be to form a bargaining committee and begin negotiating their first collective agreement.
Because the ALRB does not archive their new application reports, I have included a copy of last week’s report below for your convenience.
