Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their first new applications report of July 2024. In it was an applications for union certification.
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees filed the application with the ALRB on 27 June 2024 on behalf of about 100 workers employed by Northwestern Polytechnic at their Grande Prairie campus.
These workers are general support workers and don’t include instructors, which are represented by the Northwestern Polytechnic Faculty Association.
This isn’t a new unionization driver, per se. In fact, these workers have been represented recently by The Northwestern Polytechnic Employees’ Association, previously Grande Prairie Regional College Employees’ Association since at least 2006.
Their most recent collective agreement with Northwestern expired at the end of last month.
AUPE already represents general support workers at Northwestern’s Fairview campus, which they’ve done since 2010.
If the ALRB approves the application, they will hold a certification vote, giving the general support workers a chance to choose whether to switch unions.
It’ll be interesting to see how much representation changes if the workers choose to switch unions.
The last collective agreement that AUPE negotiated for workers on the Fairview campus ended up giving the workers 3 years of wage freezes, 1.25% partway through the final year and another 1.5% later in that year.
Hopefully the main campus workers, if they switch unions, can get something better than that in their new union.
The ALRB has scheduled a hearing for tomorrow, during which time employer representatives will have a chance to argue why they think the workers shouldn’t be able to switch unions.
Because the ALRB doesn’t archive their new applications reports, I’ve included a copy of this report below.
