Earlier this year, I wrote an article about dairy workers who had filed an application with the Alberta Labour Relations Board for union certification.
Local 401 of the United Food & Commercial Workers filed the application on 7 April 2026 for workers employed by WD Processing.
The company is the operational contractor for a milk concentration plant that officially began operations about a year ago near Blackfalds. The plant is owned by Dairy Innovation West, but the processed milk product belongs to Alberta Milk, representing the Western Milk Pool (BC Milk, BC Dairy, Alberta Milk, SaskMilk, and Dairy Farmers of Manitoba).
These dozen or so workers at the Blackfalds plant use reverse osmosis and ultra filtration technologies to process raw milk directly from dairy farms.
The ALRB approved their application, held a certification vote, and of the workers who participated in the vote, 100% of them were in favour of unionizing. The labour board certified them as a bargaining unit at the end of April.
In an update on their website, Local 401 announced that the workers had selected a bargaining team and that they met with the employer’s bargaining team at the beginning of October to start negotiations.
According to their initial proposal package, the workers are asking for a 2-year collective agreement with a 10% wage increase in each of those 2 years. They also want market adjustments at the start of the agreement for some of the job classifications, as well as a standardized wage grid for all classifications.
The employer has not yet proposed a contract length nor what wages would look like. It is not uncommon for employers to introduce monetary proposals in later negotiating sessions.
That being said, they did table some monetary offers.
For example, they want to pay workers time and a half for overtime hours. The workers, however, want double time. As well, while the workers want to define overtime as anything over 40 hours a week, WD Processing wants it to be over 88 hours over 2 weeks, which averages out to 44 hours per week.
Both parties agree on the following 11 days as paid holidays:
- New Year’s Day
- Family Day
- Good Friday
- Victoria Day
- Canada Day
- Heritage Day
- Labour Day
- Thanksgiving
- Remembrance Day
- Christmas
- Boxing Day
However, the workers also proposed adding National Day for Truth and Reconciliarion.
WD Processing wants to pay time-and-a-half for hours worked on these paid holidays, but the workers want double time.
The two parties differ on paid vacation lengths for full-time workers, too.
| Length of service | Employer proposal | Worker proposal |
|---|---|---|
| <1 year | 10 days | — |
| 1–7 years | 15 days | 3 weeks |
| 7–13 years | 20 days | 4 weeks |
| 13–18 years | 20 days | 5 weeks |
| 18–23 years | 20 days | 6 weeks |
| 23+ years | 20 days | 7 weeks |
Workers have not submitted a sick leave proposal yet; although they do want to discuss it. However, the employer has proposed 4 paid days each year, plus an extra unpaid day of leave.
The workers want a probationary period of 360 hours for new workers, and the employer wants 3 months, which is about 480 hours (assuming 40 hours per week and 4 weeks per month).
WD Processing wants to keep the night shift and weekend shift premiums at their current respective rates of $1.85 and $1.00 per hour. The workers want to increase these, but they did not have specific amounts listed in their proposal.
Same goes for the first aid premium: the employer wants to keep it where it is, but the workers want to increase it to an unspecified amount.
No specific changes were proposed by either party regarding health benefits; although, there was apparently some initial discussion from WD Processing regarding reducing prescription drug coverage.
The two parties have scheduled further bargaining dates for next month, December, January, and February. Hopefully, they can hammer out a first agreement quickly.
