Last week, 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 a lockout poll, which is the last step an employer takes before locking out their workers as a way to pressure them to accept a contract they might not want.
AltaSteel Inc. filed the application with the ALRB on 17 April 2026.
Based in Edmonton, AltaSteel is a subsidiary of the Japanese steelmaking company Kyoei Steel Ltd. AltaSteel is based out of Edmonton and has a scrap-based mini-mill operation in nearby Sherwood Park, where their workers recycle steel scrap into carbon steel products.
Over 250 workers employed at the Sherwood Park plant are unionized with Local 5220 of the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, also known as the United Steelworkers.
I reached out to Jeff Kallichuk, a staff rep with United Steelworkers, to get a worker’s perspective on the lockout poll.
In a phone conversation with The Alberta Worker, Kallichuk told me that in response to the lockout poll, the workers held their own strike vote. Normally, the workers would need to wait for 7 days after the lockout application to hold their strike vote, but Kallichuk said that Local 5220 applied for an abridgement so they could hold their strike vote earlier. ALRB approved the request for abridgement.
Kallichuk told The Alberta Worker that roughly 65–70% of the workers who belong to this bargaining unit participated in the strike vote last Thursday and Friday. Of those, 98.5% voted in favour of striking.
The bargaining team for the workers, according to Kallichuk, have been waiting for a new collective agreement since last summer, when their previous one expired.
Negotiations had begun last June, and both parties had tabled comprehensive offers. Unfortunately, AltaSteel had asked for more concessions than the workers were willing to give, and they twice voted down so-called final offers from the employer.
Their first vote was this past February, when 99% of the workers participating voted in favour of rejecting the offer.
The second vote came a month later. This one was supervised by the ALRB—because the employer wanted to force it on the workers. ALRB conducted the vote at the plant, so the turnout was much higher than the first time around. Even then, about 90% of those participating voted to reject it.
Because the two parties have already exhausted the necessary prequisites to labour disruption, such as mediation and arbitration, there is no 14-day cooling off period in place. As a result, the company can issue their 72-hour lockout notice at any point. Likewise, the workers could give their 72-hour strike notice.
Hopefully, the threat of a strike will pressure the employer to be more reasonable in their offer, rather then trying to take away protections in the collective agreement.
“Our goal is to negotiate a good, fair contract that works for both sides,” Kallichuk told The Alberta Worker. “We are not interested in a labour dispute, but we will not back away from one if it comes to it.”
Because the ALRB does not archive their new application reports, I have included a copy of last week’s report below.
