Last month, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their second new applications report for April 2026, covering the period from 13–21 April.
In the report was an application for union certification.
Local 222 of the Operative Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ International Association of the United States and Canada filed the application on 17 April on behalf of workers employed by Firma Contracting Inc.
Based out of Saskatchewan, Firma specializes in civil construction, including earthworks, underground utilities, concrete, and industrial. They have an office in the Edmonton area.
According to the application summary provided by the ALRB in their report, Local 222 wants to represent general construction cement masons employed by Firma.
This would amount to 8 workers in the Edmonton area.
To apply for union certification in Alberta, a union must demonstrate support from at least 40% of the workers who would be covered by the proposed bargaining unit.
In this case, that would work out to 4 workers.
The ALRB has scheduled a hearing for later today, during which time, representatives from Horizon can present arguments, if they have any, as to why these workers should be unable to unionize with Local 222.
Listed as representatives of Firma are Zak Parker, president of Firma, and Randy Gratton, a superintendent with the company’s concrete division, according to one LinkedIn profile.
Should the ALRB approve the certification application, they will conduce a certification vote, which will give all 8 workers the chance to democratically choose whether to unionize with Local 222.
Assuming all 4 workers who showed initial support follow through and vote in favour of unionizing, they would need to convince just 1 more of their fellow workers to vote with them in order to win.
Should the workers win their unionization drive, one of their first orders of business will be to elect their bargaining committee, so they can 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.
