Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their latest new applications report for November 2025. In it was a new application for union certification.
Local 1722 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers submitted the application on 14 November 2025 for workers employed by Shepherd’s Care Foundation.
Based out of Edmonton, Shepherd’s Care Foundation is a faith-based not-for-profit organization providing 6 care facilities for seniors in Barrhead and Edmonton.
The application summary was not clear in which location this was for; although the list of active certificates published by the ALRB show only the Prince of Peace facility not currently unionized.
According to the application summary, Local 1722 applied for certification on behalf of 3 workers employed by Shepherd’s Care Foundation.
They will include all those who are in paramedical professional or technical worker and those employed in general support services, except for chaplains.
To apply for certification, unions must demonstrate that they have support from at least 40% of the workers who would be represented by the bargaining unit. In this case, this would be 2 workers.
The ALRB has scheduled a hearing for this Friday (28th) regarding this application. During the hearing, Alliance can present reasons, if any, why they think these workers should not join Local 1722.
Should the ALRB approve the application, they will organize a certification vote, during which time, the workers can democratically choose whether to unionize.
Assuming the 2 workers who originally said they support unionization follow through and vote in favour, that would be all they would need to secure a win, since they would also constitute a majority.
If the workers do succeed in unionizing, one of the first things they will need to do would be creating a bargaining team, so they can begin negotiations on their collective agreement.
Local 1722 already represents workers at Shepherd’s Care Foundation’s Eden House location.
According to last week’s new application report, Local 1722 has also requested that the ALRB change their Eden House certificate from “All employees at Shepherd’s Care Eden House when employed in auxiliary nursing care” to “All employees at Shepherd’s Care
Eden House except for registered nurses and chaplains”.
Because the ALRB does not archive their new application reports, I have included a copy of last week’s report below.
