Earlier this summer, organizers with the Public Service Alliance of Canada reached out to me regarding a unionization drive they have been working on in Edmonton since last year.
In October 2025, PSAC launched their drive to unionize workers employed by Boyle Street Community Services.
The non-profit organization focuses on services for those experiencing homelessness and poverty in Edmonton. They employ between 350 and 450 workers, according to the information PSAC gave me.
On 3 December 2025, a little more than a month after PSAC began talking to workers and getting union cards signed, they held an virtual information session.
The following week—on the 8th and the 10th—PSAC held in-person organizing events outside Boyle Street’s okimaw peyesew kamik location.
According to PSAC, Boyle Street management terminated the employment of one of the workers on the 11th. This worker had been involved in the unionization campaign.
In addition, PSAC claimed in a document they sent to me that Boyle Street management terminated 6 workers in total who were connected to the unionization campaign: 2 who had signed cards and 4 who had not signed cards but had been talking to the unionization committee.
On 3 occasions this past January, the organizing committee dropped flyers at the okimaw peyesew kamik location. Later, they received reports that management at Boyle Street removed the flyers.
Workers reached out to PSAC about unionization because of numerous issues they wanted to see changed. Here is a list that PSAC reps sent me:
- High turnover
- Lack of job security
- Multiple terminations without cause
- Unsafe working conditions
- Workplace fear around voicing concerns and advocating for self and community members
- Lack of support for staff with lived experience
- Worker benefits cut (33% reduction in massage coverage and lower prescription cap from $75,000 to $20,000)
- Unequal overtime policies
- Lack of communication and consistency, no good channels for feedback
- Managers not advocating for or not being allowed to advocate for workers
- Lack of consideration on how decisions affect workers, the community they serve, and program partnerships
- Tasks outside job description with no training
- Workplace fear around voicing concerns and advocating for self and community members
- Medical and family needs not being accommodated
- Favouritism, lack of room for professional growth
- Director levels not understanding what happens day to day for frontline staff
Workers hope that unionization could improve these issues through job protections, improved workplace safety, better communication, increased training, wages that match work levels and training.
PSAC said in the document they sent me that workers are “scared” to voice concerns or talk to union reps because they are worried they might lost their jobs. They are living paycheque to paycheque and cannot afford to be unemployed.
The union “have received numerous reports from staff of unsafe working conditions with little protections in place”, with workers apparently telling them that they regularly support clients who have experienced extensive trauma but then get little to no follow-up from the organization when they have “difficult experiences”.
One worker sent the following in an email to union reps:
I cleaned up vomit, blood, feces, sperm, and other bodily fluids. This included scrubbing down rooms for upwards of five hours that were absolutely caked in human shit, cleaning rooms of residents that had vomited blood all over their floors, and more. When | would refuse to clean something that was very obviously a biohazard, which as you can probably infer would have to be pretty disgusting due to the other things I cleaned, they would complain that it was expensive to bring in a biohazard cleaner and would try to get other staff to disregard their health and clean it up.
Boyle Street hires, according to the union, social workers, registered nurses, and people with lived experience. However, the union claims that workers with lived experience do not feel supported sufficiently.
One worker anonymously reported to the union the following:
Boyle really loves to have staff with lived experience—substance use, houselessness, racialized, sex work, trauma—but when they’re not fully supported it can feel like they are tokenized, and put at greater risk. Folks with lived experience are more at risk for mental health concerns, especially being retriggered or having compassion fatigue from supporting peers.
Hopefully they unionbusting will come to an end and these workers can finally unionize, which will help them collective advocate for better wages and better working conditions.
