Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their first new applications report of 2025. In it was an application for union certification.
Local 362 of the General Teamsters filed the application on 23 December on behalf of workers employed by Wayfinder Corp.
Based out of Calgary, Wayfinder specializes in supplying silica sand for hydraulic fracturing—otherwise known as fracking. They have several locations in Alberta.
The application is for workers employed at Wayfair’s Big Molly regional sand facility, which is about 100 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. Not included in the application are those working in office, clerical, security, sales supervisory, or health and safety positions.
To apply for certification, unions must show that they have 40% support among the affected workers. In this case, that means they should already have support from 16 of the 38 workers.
If the ALRB approves the application and holds a certification vote, assuming all 16 of those workers votes in favour of unionizing, they’d need to bring on just 3 more workers to have a majority and win the vote.
Should these workers be successful in unionizing, their first order of business will be to organize a negotiating committee and begin bargaining for their first collective agreement with Sunrise.
Because the ALRB doesn’t archive their new application reports, I have included a copy of last week’s report below.
Update (29 January 2025): The ALRB issued a certificate for these workers today, officially making this location an unionized workplace.
