Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board released their first new applications report for December 2025. In it was an application certification.
Actually, it was two appplications.
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees filed both applications on 28 November 2024.
According to the application summary provided by the ALRB for the first application, AUPE is filing to represent all the workers employed by Christenson Communities Ltd. at their Devonshire Village facility.
Based out of Edmonton, Christenson Communities is a division of Christenson Group of Companies, which operates the division as an “asset management company” that oversees over 1,500 homes in 10 luxury retirement communities in cities and towns near Edmonton and Red Deer.
Devonshire Village, where these 90 or so workers work, is an executive retirement living complex in southwest Edmonton that includes condos, large assisted living homes, and a 125-bed long-term care centre.
Services at the facility includes meals, housekeeping, laundry, and personal services, including a staffed reception.
The second application is for the same number of workers but for the employer Arch Services Ltd., which provides staffing services for Christenson Communities, including health care aides.
To apply for certification of a bargaining unit, a union must demonstrate support from at least 40% of the workers in the proposed unit. In this case, that would be 36 workers.
If the ALRB approves the application, they will conduct a certification vote, during which time the workers will democratically choose whether to unionize with AUPE.
Assuming the theoretical 36 workers (it could have been more) follow through and vote in favour of unionizing with AUPE, they would need to convince 10 more of their fellow workers to join them. This would give them the majority they would need to win.
The ALRB has scheduled a hearing for this application for this morning. During the hearing, representatives from Christenson Communities and Arch Services will have a chance to present arguments, if they have any, against this certification.
Should a majority of workers vote to unionize with AUPE and the ALRB awards these workers with a certificate, one of their first tasks will be to form a bargaining committee to begin negotiating their first contract with Christenson.
Since the ALRB does not archive their new applicaions reports, I have included a copy below for last week’s application.
