Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published its second new applications report for March 2026. In it was an application for union certification.<\/p>\n
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees filed the application on 4 March 2026 on behalf of workers employed by Shepherd\u2019s Care Foundation.<\/p>\n
This faith-based non-profit organization provides independent living accommodations for over 1,000 residents in Barrhead, Calgary, and Edmonton.<\/p>\n
According to the application summary provided by the ALRB, the union is trying to organize workers employed by \u201cShepherd\u2019s Care Foundation (Gardens)\u201d, which presumably refers to Shepherd\u2019s Gardens, a wholly-owned entity of Shepherd\u2019s Care Foundation.<\/p>\n
Shepherd\u2019s Gardens offers independent living options in the Edmonton metropolitan region. <\/p>\n
AUPE specifically wants to unionize over 50 workers employed by Shepherd\u2019s Care \/ Shepherd\u2019s Gardens in so-called auxiliary nursing care, which would include licenced practical nurses and health care aides.<\/p>\n
Non-nursing workers (such as kitchen staff, servers, housekeepers, and custodians) employed by Shepherd\u2019s Care are already unionized by Local 987 of the Teamsters.<\/p>\n
To apply for union certification in Alberta, applicants must demonstrate support from 40% of the workers who would fall under this bargaining unit. In this case, that would be 22 workers.<\/p>\n
Should the ALRB approve this application, they will hold a certification vote, and workers will be able to democratically choose whether to unionize with AUPE.<\/p>\n
Assuming those 22 workers all follow through and vote in favour of unionizing, they would need to convince just 4 more of their fellow workers to vote with them to win.<\/p>\n
If a majority of workers choose unionization, one of their first items of business will be to form a bargaining committee and begin negotiating their first collective agreement.<\/p>\n
Because the ALRB does not archive their new application reports, I have included last week\u2019s report below, for your convenience.<\/p>\n
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