Chestermere No Frills accused of unionbusting

Earlier this week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their first new applications report of July 2025.

In it was an application accusing a Chestermere employer of unionbusting.

Local 401 of the United Food and Commercial Workers filed the application at the end of last month

According to the application summary provided by the ALRB, Local 401 is accusing the management of the No Frills in the bedroom community east of Calgary of interfering with their efforts to unionize the workplace.

Now, to be fair, the application does not use the term “unionbusting”. That is a term I am using to describe No Frill’s actions.

But do not take my word for it; see for yourself if it is accurate.

According to the application summary, Local 401 has accused the No Frills in Chestermere—also known as Seun & Alexandra’s NO FRILLS Chestermere and 16003109 Canada Inc.—as well as Loblaw Companied Limited, as communicating negative anti-union comments and messaging during the certification campaign.

They claim that this messaging interfered with the representation of the workers, which itself violates section 148.1.a.2 of Alberta’s Labour Relations Code.

No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall participate in or interfere with the representation of employees by a trade union

They also argued that these actions violated section 149.1.c because the employer(s) were trying to compel workers to not join the union.

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

They also allege that the employer(s) hired new workers who were friendly to them, making it harder for the union to find the 40% of workers they need to file a certification application, let alone have enough workers for a majority vote in favour of unionizing with Local 401.

According to Local 401, this also violates section 148.1.a.2 of the Labour Relations Code.

Finally, the union asserted that the employer(s) reduced the hours of one of the workers who was helping on the unionization campaign and that they did so specifically because—at least as one of the reasons—they were trying to unionize their fellow workers.

This violates section 149.1.a.1, the Local 401 argued in their application.

No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall refuse to employ or to continue to employ any person or discriminate against any person in regard to employment or any term or condition of employment because the person is a member of a trade union or an applicant for membership in a trade union

The labour board has yet to schedule a hearing for this application.

Because the ALRB doesn’t archive their new application reports, I have included a copy of this week’s report below for your convenience.