Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their final new applications report for June 2026. In it was an application accusing an employer of unionbusting.
Local 401 of the United Food and Commercial Workers submitted the application on 26 June 2026.
To be clear, they never used the term unionbusting, but as you will see shortly, it seems to be the most fitting word in this case.
In November 2019, a majority of the 40 health care aides employed by Bayshore Home Care out of Strathmore voted in favour of joining local 401 of the United Commercial and Food Workers.
It took nearly 4 years for them to reach their first contract, and that was after about a year and a half in mediation.
That contract expired in November 2023, so these workers have been working off an expired contract for over 2.5 years.
Negotiations began in December 2023—even the bargaining team for the workers served notice to bargain the previous July—but Bayshore Home Care has dragged their feet on reaching a new agreement, including walking out of negotiations, denying all proposals proposed by the workers’ bargaining team, and refusing raises for the workers, who are making under $20 an hour.
According to the summary provided by the ALRB in their report, Local 401 has accused Bayshore of bad faith bargaining. They claim that Bayshore has proposed unreasonable offers that they are sure workers would reject if it went to a ratification vote. They also, apparently, have offered only a handful of dates for the rest of the year to continue bargaining.
The union reports that Bayshore’s bargaining team also told the workers’s bargaining team that they are unwilling to bargain further and “that the union can go on strike”.
But wait. There’s more.
Allegedly, Bayshore has been advertising non-unionized job openings and promising in those postings wages that are higher than what they had proposed to their unionized workers in bargaining.
In their application, Local 401 has accused Bayshore, through these actions, of discouraging their workers from unionizing and interfering with Local 401’s ability to represent the workers.
They have argued that Bayshore in its unionbusting has violated several sections of Albert’s Labour Relations Code.
No employer, employers’ organization or bargaining agent and no authorized representative acting on behalf of any of them, after having served or having been served with a notice to commence collective bargaining pursuant to this Division, shall refuse or fail to comply with subsections (1) and (2).
Labour Relations Code, 60.3
The subsections 1 and 2 of section 60 read as follows:
- When a notice to commence collective bargaining has been served under this Division, the bargaining agent and the employer or employers’ organization, not more than 30 days after notice is served, shall
- meet and commence, or cause authorized representatives to meet and commence, to bargain collectively in good faith, and
- make every reasonable effort to enter into a collective agreement.
- The bargaining agent and the employer or employers’ organization shall exchange bargaining proposals within 15 days after the first time they meet for the purpose of collective bargaining or within any longer time agreed on by the parties.
They also said it violated the following sections.
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall participate in or interfere with the representation of employees by a trade union,
Labour Relations Code, 148.1.a.ii
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall refuse to employ or to continue to employ any person or discriminate against any person in regard to employment or any term or condition of employment because the person is a member of a trade union or an applicant for membership in a trade union,
Labour Relations Code, 149.1.a.i
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall seek by intimidation, dismissal, threat of dismissal or any other kind of threat, by the imposition of a pecuniary or other penalty or by any other means, to compel an employee to refrain from becoming or to cease to be a member, officer or representative of a trade union;
Labour Relations Code, 149.1.c
ALRB listed Hana Bhuiyan as an employer contact in their application summary. There is a LinkedIn profile for someone with that same name, which lists their current position as a national director and the head of labour and employee relations for Bayshore.
I reached out to Scott Payne, a communications director with Local 401, hoping he could provide me with more context that what was available in the ARLB summary.
He sent me the application itself that they had filed with the ALRB.
According to the application, the two parties met once in December 2023 and then 4 times in 2024 (January, March, and twice in April) to negotiate the agreement.
After the last bargaining session in April 2024, Local 401 applied for informal mediation, which was held in May, June, and September 2024. However, by the last mediation session, it became clear to the mediator that the parties were at an impasse, and she wrote out of the mediation.
Before the two parties can advance to formal mediation, they must negotiate an essential services agreement, which would basically determine what services would continue being performed should a strike or a lockout occur.
The bargaining team for the workers served notice in November 2024 to Bayshore that they wanted to begin negotiating the ESA. After a year of that going nowhere, Local 401 filed an essential services complaint with the ALRB in December 2025.
Since that complaint, the two parties resumed negotiations on the new collective agreement, concurrent to negotiating the ESA, with a session in February 2026 and two in April.
By the end of the second session in April, Local 401 determined that Bayshore still “was not prepared to meaningfully engage in negotiations”, refusing to provide any reasoning for its bargaining positions and indicating that it would concede to nothing more that “small modifications to the offer they presented in June 2024.
That same day, the workers’ bargaining team tabled a revised position on their proposals. As of last month, the employer still had not responded, other than to say that they cannot meet for bargaining until after the summer.
Local 401 claimed in their application that “the only provisions that have been resolved are housekeeping items or minor administrative provisions”, and that leaves of absence, scheduling, wages, hours of work, and overtime all remain outstanding.
When the workers’ bargaining team brought up the non-unionized job postings I mentioned earlier, the employer’s response was to remove the wage range from those postings.
Because the Alberta Labour Relations Board does not archive their new applications reports, I have included a copy of last week’s report below for your convenience.
