Last summer, I wrote an article about transit workers in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo who were trying to unionize.
These workers, through Local 362 of the Teamsters, filed the application on 16 July 2025 for transit workers employed by the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
Specifically, the application is for all workers who are operational supervisors in the municipality’s transit department who are not in office or clerical positions and are not already represented by the Canadian Union of Provincial Employees.
Local 1505 of CUPE has represented all Wood Buffalo employees except library and preventative social services personnel since 1995.
In total, this would have included only 17 workers at the time.
10 months later, these workers are no closer to unionizing, let alone to voting on whether to unionize.
Part of the reason for the delay is that the RM of Wood Buffalo is unionbusting, according to this week’s new applications report published by the Alberta Labour Relations Board and which I have included at the end of the article.
Technically, the report did not use the word unionbusting, but it sure sounds like unionbusting.
For example, Local 362 claimed in an application they filed on the 19th of this month that RM of Wood Buffalo suspended workers who testified in an ALRB hearing regarding unionization. They also, apparently, imposed “a pecuniary penalty” on these workers.
Local 362 accuses RM of Wood Buffalo of violating several sections of Alberta’s Labour Relations Code with these actions.
No employer or trade union or any person acting on their behalf shall discriminate against a person in regard to employment or membership in a trade union, or intimidate or coerce a person or impose a pecuniary or other penalty on a person, because the person has testified or otherwise participated in or may testify or otherwise participate in a proceeding authorized or permitted under a collective agreement or in a proceeding under this Act,
Labour Relations Code, 22.a
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall participate in or interfere with the formation or administration of a trade union, or
Labour Relations Code, 148.1.a.i
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 has testified or otherwise participated in or may testify or otherwise participate in a proceeding under this Act
Labour Relations Code, 149.1.a.iv
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall impose any condition in a contract of employment that restrains, or has the effect of restraining, an employee from exercising any right conferred on the employee by this Act
Labour Relations Code, 149.1.b
No employer or employers’ organization and no person acting on behalf of an employer or employers’ organization shall discriminate against a person in regard to employment or membership in a trade union or intimidate or threaten to dismiss or in any other manner coerce a person or impose a pecuniary or other penalty on a person, because the person has testified or otherwise participated in or may testify or otherwise participate in a proceeding authorized or permitted under a collective agreement or a proceeding under this Act
Labour Relations Code, 149.1.g.i
RM of Wood Buffalo allegedly also have denied workers previously expected wage increases, even though there is a pre-certification freeze period in place, which is supposed to prevent changes to employment conditions while the certification period plays out.
This also violates a section of the Labour Relations Act, according to Local 362.
If a trade union has applied for certification, no employer affected by the application shall, except in accordance with an established custom or practice of the employer or with the consent of the trade union or in accordance with a collective agreement in effect with respect to the employees in the unit affected by the application, alter the rates of pay, any term or condition of employment or any right or privilege of any of those employees during the time between the date of the application and the date of its refusal, or 30 days after the date of certification.
Labour Relations Code, 147.1
The ALRB has not published a date or time for this application yet.
