This article was first published in the Labour Intelligence Report, Progress Alberta’s trade publication for Alberta labour unions.
Over 5 years ago, in the summer of 2020, Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Government passed Bill 32, what they called the “Restoring Balance in Alberta’s Workplaces Act”.
Bill 32 was the largest attack on labour that the working class in Alberta had seen a long time. It was opposed by several unions and labour organizations, including the AFL, Boilermakers, CUPE, CUPW, GSU, UFCW, UNA, and Unifor.
Editorials in several media outlets—such as Alberta Politics, Jacobin, The Maple, Rank and File, and Spring Magazine—also highlighted all the changes in that bill that would harm workers.
Finally, a few academic publications also opined on it: ABLawg, Centre for Constitutional Studies, Parkland Institute, Public Interest Alberta
Among the many changes to Alberta’s Labour Relations Code was the introduction of section 26.1 “Deduction election”. It has 12 subsections, so I will not list them all here, but it basically mandated unions indicate how much of their dues went to “activities relating
to collective bargaining and representation of members” and how much went to other activities.
Plus, they had to disseminate this information to their members, and members were supposed to vote on funding non-core activities.
Well, no one has tried to challenge a union on any of this. Until now.
Or, rather, until August 2022.
In a decision published by the Alberta Labour Relations Board back in May, they ruled on whether a specific union had violated the changes that Kenney and the UCP introduced with Bill 32.
Before we get to their ruling, however, we need to go over what happened.
CSU 52 represents over 7,000 technical, professional, administrative and clerical workers in Edmonton employed with 5 employers:
- Capital Power
- City of Edmonton
- Edmonton Public Library
- EPCOR
- TELUS World of Science
At their AGM, as per their usual practice, the union leadership presents their annual budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
According to the decision document from the ALRB, CSU 52 members vote on each line item in the budget. One of their members, Nathaniel Vos, a technical manager with the City of Edmonton, disagreed with two of the line items in the budget back in 2022.
The first item was a student tuition bursary. The union makes it possible for their members to “receive up to two bursaries for any accredited post-secondary institution which their eligible dependents attend”; although each dependent gets only 1 bursary. As well, the bursary is a reimbursement, so they have to pay the tuition first, then apply for the reimbursement.
The second item was the Len Douziech Memorial Music Scholarship, which CSU 52 established in 2020 in memory of one of their members who died the year before. Any member can apply for the scholarship, which as of August 2022, has been funded through rental income that the union generates from renting out some of the office space it owns.
Vos claimed that these items were non-core activities and as such—according to section 26.1 of the Labour Relations Code— should have been voted on, but there was no vote on them.
So, he filed an application with the ALRB on 18 August 2022 in which he claimed that CSU 52 violated section 26.1(9) of the Labour Relations Code by not holding an election.
I should mention that parts of section 26.1 (1, 3, 5, 6, and 9–13) came into effect in February 2022, and the rest (2, 4, 7–8) six months later, in August 2022, which is interesting timing on Vos’s part, especially when you consider section 6.1 of the Election of Union Dues Regulation.
A trade union shall give each dues payer an opportunity to make an initial election during the period beginning on the date of the coming into force of this section and ending on July 31, 2022.
Less than a month after that deadline had passed, Vos filed his application.
Anyhow, section 26.1(9) is as follows:
If there is a dispute
(a) as to whether the union dues, assessments or initiation fees relate to an activity referred to in subsection (1)(a) or directly relate to an activity referred to in subsection (1)(b),
(b) as to whether an election was made under subsection (3) or revoked under subsection (4) in accordance with the regulations,
(c) as to whether the information required by the regulations to be provided by a trade union is sufficient to enable a person to make an informed decision for the purpose of making an election under subsection (3) or revoking an election under subsection (4), or
(d) with respect to any other matter under this section, a party to the dispute may apply to the Board to resolve the dispute.
More than 2.5 years later, the ALRB finally issued a decision on this dispute.
The ALRB’s case management directive restricts arguments from parties in a dispute to written arguments only. As such, both Vos and CSU 52 submitted their arguments on the matter.
They also received submissions from the broader labour relations community, as this was the first time that the board has been able to interpret section 26.1.
As well, Vos was permitted to also present a reply submission.
The board considered all these submissions in their deliberations on the matter. Ultimately, they dismissed the application, finding no breach of section 26.1
In coming to their decision, the ALRB kept in mind “that the Board’s powers under the Code should intrude into the internal affairs of unions to the minimum extent consistent with the wording of the Code”.
In fact, they emphasized that “the independence of unions to the degree necessary to ensure no substantial interference with the alignment of their activities with the interests of their members is a principle underlying freedom of association under the Charter”.
According to the decision, the board summarized Vos’s arguments as suggesting “that any activity that does not directly benefit dues payers in the workplace should, by virtue of the Regulation, be seen as a political activity or cause” and that regulations control “whether the activity is a political activity or other cause, not the Union’s own view”.
In other words, he thinks the union should not determine what does and does not count as “political activity or cause”, that the amended Labour Relations Code already does so.
The labour board disagreed with Vos’s position, arguing that the “failure to directly benefit workers in the workplace has no necessary logical correlation to something being a ‘political or other cause’”.
“Any number of union activities may fail to directly benefit workers in the workplace but are in no sense activities concerning general social or political causes or matters of charitable concern, in furtherance of some social or political viewpoint or broader social good.”
Further to that, they explained that an activity does not need to impact all members of a union for it to be a core activity. Just because the education bursary was unavailable to members without dependents, does not make it a non-core activity, for example.
“A benefit provided to union members or their dependents as a result of the member’s employment is not a ‘cause’ merely because it accomplishes a beneficial result for the member. A simple bursary applicable to any post-secondary program pursues no political or other cause.”
Regarding the rental income used to fund the Len Douziech scholarship, Vos argued that the “rental income would not exist but for the income generated from union dues. Further that income would presumably otherwise be used to fund core activities. It is therefore indirectly funded from union dues.”
However, as the ALRB points out in their decision, the money used to purchase the building used for rental income came from dues collected before the amendments came into force. Plus, nothing in the legislation showed that the amendments would have a “retrospective effect”.
“The concept of ‘indirect’ dues has no basis in the words of the section”.
As a result, the board dismissed the application “in its entirety”.
Of course, CSU 52 welcomed the decision of the ALRB.
“We’re very pleased with the Board’s decision in this case,” said Bryce Jowett, the union’s president. “By taking a narrow view of what constitutes ‘union dues’ under Bill 32, the Board has affirmed that unions can continue supporting scholarships, bursaries, and other community initiatives using rental income, interest income, or other derivative income. This ruling strengthens the ability of unions across Alberta to maintain their longstanding role as active community members and supporters of local charitable work.”
